Page 40 of The King of Hearts (The Raven Group #1)

Once I reach the bottom of the stairs and the front door comes into view, I spot Marcelo standing just to the side of them.

Dad, Mom, and my brothers are several feet away.

Mom is pressed against Dad’s side while he shoots daggers at my treacherous bodyguard.

Bishop and Cassio look as if they’re silently killing him in their heads.

My bags and Loki’s carrier are no longer beside the door, so Marcelo must have already put them in the car.

Ignoring him, I go to my parents. Mom releases Dad and wraps her arms around me. She’s not crying, but I know she’s on the verge of it.

“Call or text me later, okay?” she says, her voice cracking.

“I will.”

“I hate this.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “I do too.”

She presses a kiss against my cheek and lets me go. I move to Dad next. I soak up the feeling of his strong arms and his familiar scent surrounding me.

“You cut that bastard’s dick off if he hurts you,” he rumbles in my ear.

I choke out a laugh. He’s one hundred percent serious. And he knows I would do it too.

“Yeah, Dad.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

I nod against his chest. “I will.”

“I’m going to fix this, Sav. You won’t be there long.”

Neither Bishop nor Cassio say anything as I hug each one goodbye, but I see the message on their faces. They’ll come with guns blazing and knives sharp if I need them to.

I don’t talk to Marcelo as I walk past him and out the door.

I’m pissed at him and have nothing nice to say.

A blacked-out Audi waits in the driveway, the same one from yesterday, and I open the door to climb in the back.

The smooth, luxurious leather is cool against my skin, and I hate the way it’s so buttery soft.

Loki, sleeping peacefully in his carrier, sits beside me on the seat.

Marcelo gets behind the wheel, and a moment later, we drive off.

My nerves are shot to hell and back as we navigate the roads toward the center of the island where Ryker’s house is located. Except, when we come to an intersection where we should turn left, we go right instead.

“Where are we going? I thought we were going to Ryker’s house?”

Marcelo looks at me through the rearview mirror. “We are.”

“Well, you turned in the wrong direction.”

“No, I didn’t.”

I look out my window, my brows drawing down. I know where Ryker lives. I’ve never been inside his house, but I’ve driven by it multiple times.

As we continue on our journey, something suspicious forms in the pit of my stomach when I realize where we’re going.

There’s no way Marcelo is taking me where I think he is.

No one has lived in that house for years.

Not since the last owners left nearly twenty years ago.

The rumor is that the man of the house was murdered in cold blood, but his body was never found.

The authorities speculated the man was murdered because there was so much blood on the scene.

The wife and young son were left alive, but the family was extremely private and never seen. Years later, they left the island.

The slightly inclined road becomes bumpy, and the scenery grows thick with foliage. On either side of the road, trees stand tall like sentinel guards waiting to attack anyone who should dare trespass.

The trees eventually clear, and a large iron gate comes into view. Great stone wolves sit on either side of the gate on brick pylons. Marcelo pulls up to a small metal box and enters a code. The gate opens with a creek loud enough for me to hear inside the car.

“ This is where he lives?” I ask Marcelo.

He ignores my question and gets out of the car once he stops in front of the large imposing mansion. I’m still in a state of shock that I don’t realize he’s opened my door until he calls my name.

“Savina.”

I jerk myself out of my stupor and grab my purse and phone with one hand and latch my fingers of my other hand around the handle on Loki’s carrier.

Marcelo takes it from me once I’m out of the car, and I let him.

I tip my head back, way back, once I’m standing in front of the old stone mansion.

The sky is overcast with dark clouds, and there’s a light mist in the air.

A shiver causes the hairs on my arms to stand up as a cold chill races through me.

The climate definitely adds a spooky feel to the place.

A black door looms up ahead as I take the steps slowly.

At the top, on either side of the door, are the same wolves, only smaller.

Marcelo gets to the door before me and opens it wide.

The floor of the foyer is a glossy black, the walls a light gray.

I swivel my head back and forth, still not grasping that I’m actually inside the house that’s had me intrigued since I was a child.

“Savina,” a dark voice calls.

I jerk my head to the side where Ryker’s waiting at the bottom of a grand staircase.

Wearing worn jeans and a dark-gray V-neck shirt, he stands there looking all casual.

His relaxed stance pisses me off. How can he be so composed when I’m quaking on the inside?

Truth be told, despite my bravery and determination to get through whatever sick game this man is playing, I’m scared to the bone.

Scared of what he plans to do to me. And given my body’s reaction to all the things he’s done to me so far, more terrified that I may like it.

I cross my arms over my chest and wipe all emotion from my face. I won’t let him see how unsettled I am.

“I’m here,” I announce needlessly. It’s not like he can’t see me standing right here. “Now what?”

“Have you eaten?” he asks, taking a couple of steps toward me.

I fight the urge to move backward. “No.”

I haven’t eaten since yesterday, before all of this came out. Anytime I even think about food, it turns my stomach.

“Come.” He gestures toward a hallway, which I’m assuming is the way to the kitchen.

I don’t move. “I’m not hungry. Can you show me where I’ll be staying?”

Satisfaction rushes through me when his jaw twitches. “You’ll be staying in my room.”

“No, I’m not.”

He moves forward again and this time doesn’t stop until he’s right in front of me. So close that I can smell his oceanic scent. It’s the same scent as my devil’s when he came to visit me. How the hell did Ryker mask it so well when he was near me? I would have certainly recognized it had he not.

“You say that as if you’ve got a choice,” he says, his voice a gravelly caress across my skin. “You’ll be in my room, even if I have to chain you to my bed.”

I ignore the way his words affect me. I do not want to be chained to his bed.

I do not.

“Do you plan to rape me?” I ask.

One side of his mouth curves up.

“It won’t be necessary. You’ve been foaming at the mouth for a chance to bounce on my cock. I’m willing to bet that, despite the change in our relationship, that hasn’t changed.” He drops his head closer. “But if the situation warrants it…” He trails off.

I look into his eyes. The stormy gray matches the cloud cover outside.

I’ve always found them beautiful. As my devil, it was always too dark for me to see them.

I wonder if he wore contacts just in case.

He obviously masked his scent and altered his voice, so the notion of him wearing contacts is plausible.

“You would really rape me? Force yourself on me?”

“You’ll find, Vicious—” I can smell mint on his breath when he puts his face in mine, “—that there are no limits of what I’ll do to have you.”

I hate myself when my legs automatically clench together at his dark confession.

“Now,” he straightens, “follow me to the kitchen so I can feed you.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off.

“Do it willingly, or I’ll tie you to the chair and put a fucking IV in you. Either way, you and our baby will have the proper nutrients to remain healthy.”

He doesn’t give me time to respond before he spins around and leaves me standing there.

I’m tempted to flip his back the bird and go in the opposite direction, away from food and the kitchen, but I stop myself.

He’s right. I’m not just eating for myself anymore.

I’ve got a little life growing inside me that depends on me.

Dragging my feet like a petulant child, I trail behind him.

I don’t have the energy or the interest at the moment to take in my surroundings—I’ll explore later—so I ignore everything as I walk down the dark hallway and come to a swinging door.

It doesn’t squeak or make any sound when I push it open.

The kitchen I walk into is huge, which is to be expected in a house this size.

It’s obviously been refurbished and updated.

The walls are a muted gray, the tiled floor white, and the appliances are stainless steel.

In the center of the kitchen is a huge butcher block island with a sink bigger than I’ve ever seen before, and the other side works as a bar.

Ryker is standing at an oversized fridge, his hand holding the handle as he looks over the contents. He pulls out a bowl covered with a lid and sets it on the counter behind him, then turns back to look for something else.

“Do you have a cook?” I ask, taking one of the seats at the bar.

“ We ,” he answers. “There is no you and me anymore. Yes, we have a cook, but I let her have the night off.”

I grit my teeth. It’s on the tip of my tongue to smart off, but I need to pick my battles. This one isn’t worth fighting.

After grabbing another container and setting it down, he closes the fridge and goes to the cabinet beside it, where he pulls out two plates. After plating some mixed salad and grabbing a bottle of dressing, he pushes both across the island to me.

“Eat while I heat up the lasagna.”

Wrinkling my nose at the salad, I wait for the sour feeling to form in my stomach, but surprisingly, it doesn’t. I guess anticipating a bad situation is worse than actually being in the situation. My stomach rumbles as if in agreement. Or maybe it’s just complaining because it’s empty of food.

After dousing the romaine lettuce with dressing, I pick up the fork he set beside the plate and stab it into the leafy greens, making sure to spear a sliced cucumber, and bring it to my mouth.

The crunch as I chew is loud in my ears, but the taste is divine.

A moan slips out of my mouth before I can stop it.

Suddenly, I’m starving, and I can’t wait to have the lasagna in front of me.

A clunk sound has me jerking my head up from my plate. Ryker’s still on the other side of the island. The salad gets stuck in my throat when I catch the look in his eyes.

Possession. So intense that it leaves him on the brink of madness.

He’s holding a glass filled with milk so tightly that I expect it to shatter at any moment, and his body is rigid, the muscles in his forearms bulging. There’s a pulse at his temple that’s going a mile a minute.

I slowly lower the fork back to my plate, watching him warily. “Ryker?”

“What?” he grates out.

I lick my lips, and his eyes zero in on the move. “You’re kind of scaring me right now. I feel like a piece of meat, and you’re a starved animal about to pounce.”

“I. Am.”

The way he growls those two words has my core clenching, and I shift in my seat. It feels like it’s gone up twenty degrees in the room.

We stare at each other for several long moments, and the longer we do, the needier I get. The wetter my thong becomes.

I shouldn’t want this man. He threatened to expose my family. He kills people out of jealousy. He’s psychotic and unstable. He got me pregnant, somehow without my knowledge. And he’s forcing me to marry him.

I hate him for everything he’s done.

But I still want him to touch me. To devour me. To take me like the wild animal he looks like at the moment.

“Eat,” he barks.

I blink. And then blink again.

“What?”

“Eat your fucking food, Savina.” Stiffly, he slides the glass of milk across the bar. “Because if you don’t, I’m going to tear inside your body and fuck you bent over this bar. Two years I’ve waited to have you. I’m using the last bit of patience I have left, so don’t provoke me.”

As soon as the last word leaves his lips, he turns around and goes to the microwave, inserting a container inside and aggressively punching a few buttons.

I reclaim my fork and stab another piece of lettuce. This time, when I bring it to my lips, my hand shakes.

I just don’t know if it’s from fear of what’s coming or excited anticipation.