Page 9 of Rule the Night (Blackwell Butchers #1)

MAEVE

I was hauled out of the cabinet, steely hands clamping my upper arms like vises.

“Well well well… look what I found.”

The voice came from behind one of the bird masks: a hawk or a vulture made twisted and creepy by design and by the red light in the tunnel.

I stumbled a little in the moment before I was pushed up against the wall, a tall, muscular body pressed against my own.

The bird man who’d dragged me out of the cabinet pressed his knee between my legs, pinning me to the stone wall. His teammates crowded around him, the nightmarish quality of their masks multiplied by their closeness and the fact that there were three of them.

Like all the guys in the holding room, they towered over me, their bodies inked and muscled.

The one with his knee between my legs leered. “I think we found a little mouse.”

“But Poe— ” one of the guys behind him started.

Anger flashed in the eyes of my captor. “Did you fucking hear it from Bram?”

“No, but— ”

“Then it’s not law.”

All the bravado I’d felt when I’d decided to join the Hunt had disappeared. Now that I’d been caught, I was frozen with fear.

He reached for my face and I braced myself for what he would do next, braced myself for the hard grasp of his hand on my chin or his fingers around my throat.

But he never made it that far.

Another hand snaked out, faster than lightning, and grasped my captor’s wrist.

“Did you or did you not understand my message in the holding room?”

I followed the voice to another man, a new arrival with dark hair who wore one of the animal bone masks.

Anyone but the Butchers.

His inked torso glistened with sweat, and even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew he was pissed from the hard edge in his voice, the way he still held the wrist of the guy in the bird mask who’d dragged me out of the cabinet.

“Claim them by marking them.” My captor didn’t seem fazed by the fact that his wrist was imprisoned in the grip of his competitor, but one of his teammates shifted behind him. The other one swore under his breath. “That’s the rule.”

His knee was still between my thighs, but the guy in the animal bone mask didn’t budge. His blond teammate stood to one side, arms folded across his bare chest. There was no sign of the scary guy who’d told us the rules in the holding room.

“The rules are what we say they are,” the dark-haired man said.

“Fine, fuck.” The man in the bone mask released my captor’s wrist, and the other guy removed his knee from between my legs. “Not exactly fair to make up the rules of the Hunt as we go.”

“It’s our Hunt,” said the blond guy in the animal bone mask. His hair was a little long and falling over the top of his mask.

The dark-haired guy in the bone mask removed his knife from the leather cord at his waist.

I shrank back as he lifted the knife, but instead of using it on me, he drew it across his palm. Blood rose to the surface of his skin, dripping down his wrist.

I tried to put some distance between us, but it was impossible with the stone of the tunnel against my back, the five men looming over me. I barely had time to register that I was still trapped when he drew his fingers through the blood in his palm and streaked it across my cheek.

“Oh my god!” I shrieked in horror. “What the actual fuck?”

“Remy,” he said.

“Oh here we fucking go,” one of the bird men said, clearly exasperated.

The blond in the bone mask removed his knife and drew it across his palm, mimicking the one who’d done it first.

This time I knew what was coming, and I turned my head in disgust, the closest I could come to putting distance between us.

His blood was warm as he streaked it across my other cheek.

“There,” the dark-haired guy said. “She’s marked. Happy?”

“Whatever,” one of other bird men said, peeling off from the group of men. “Let’s get the fuck out of here, Hawk.”

“Gladly. I don’t know why this one’s so special anyway.”

I had no idea what they were talking about, what message had been conveyed from the bone men to the bird men in the holding room, but there were obviously rules for the men too, and the bird men had broken one of them by capturing me.

“Then you won’t mind getting the fuck out of here,” the dark-haired guy said.

The three hawks converged, slowly moving away from the scene. They were a few feet away when one of them glanced back.

“Hope she tastes as good as she looks.”

My face burned as they burst into a round of raucous laughter. It echoed off the walls, growing fainter as they moved away from our position.

But not much had changed. I’d been caught. This was it.

The end.

Now I’d have to live with the three guys who’d caught me. Or maybe I’d take turns at each of their houses? I wasn’t sure how that part worked, but I’d lost the Hunt.

Now that the bird men were gone, the dark-haired guy in the bone mask turned his attention on me. His eyes were dark blue behind the mask, his hair short except for in the front, where a few damp locks fell over his mask.

Several leather cords wound around his neck, all of them strung with an assortment of beads, and on one of them, what looked like a giant animal tooth. His scent — sweat and something woodsy, like trees after a long rain — made its way into my nose. Wet heat rushed between my legs.

His gaze bore into mine until I was almost positive he could read my weird and unexplained lust.

I lifted my chin. “Now what?”

He took a step closer and stared down at me. “You tell me.”

I forced myself to swallow around conflicting emotions — fear and lust and something I could have sworn was anticipation — that had lodged themselves in my throat like a boulder. “You’re the one who said you made the rules.”

I waited for him to reply, but instead of speaking, he leaned in and lowered his head to my neck. I shivered as his hair brushed against my cheek. My nipples were hard, my breath coming fast and shallow.

My back was pressed against the cool stone wall of the tunnel, but I was on fire.

He inhaled deeply, his nose grazing the sensitive skin of my neck just under my ear. “Now you hide, little bird.”

“But… I thought it was over if you caught me.” I was frozen in place, the inch of space between us like nothing at all. Like it was a force field holding me in place.

His lips brushed against my neck. “Did you want us to catch you?”

“N-no.” I hated myself for stammering. For sounding so weak. “I just thought that was the rule.”

“We didn’t catch you,” the blond pointed out.

I was getting more confused by the second — if I belonged to the men who caught me, why wasn’t I being escorted out of the tunnels by the bird men? — but my head was starting to clear.

I might not understand the rules, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth again either.

“So I can go?”

The dark-haired guy in the mask straightened, and I was almost positive I caught the shine of laughter in his eyes. “Do you want to go?”

“Obviously,” I said, even though it wasn’t at all obvious, even to me.

He stepped away and swept the space between us with one hand. “Then fly away, little bird.”

I took a step forward, half expecting them to stop me. They didn’t, and I moved faster, picking up my pace until I was running, into the darkness and away from my body’s traitorous desire.