Dark Need by Clarissa Wild

Chapter 4

Soren

Present

After an hour of walking, I’ve finally decided to put April down on the ground again. It’s not that I’m tired or have achy muscles because I could go on for days without feeling her tiny bit of weight. No, it’s because I want to give her a chance to be a good little Kitten.

To comply and not be a sinner.

That’s the greatest gift there is.

Even if Eli said she didn’t come to us voluntarily as the others did, she must have committed a sin. Why else would she be there in the first place?

No, no amount of begging and pleading from her will work on me.

It never has.

And I think she knows this too, considering she’s trailing me like an obedient puppy dog. Besides, it’s not like going anywhere will do her any good in this pitch-black darkness.

“Can you please just tell me where we’re going?” she asks, her voice softer this time as though she’s trying not to anger me again.

Replying is futile. I’ve already told her twice I’m not going to, and I don’t know why she keeps asking. The answer won’t change.

“I don’t understand what’s going on,” she says.

I still don’t say a word. I made a promise to Eli, and I’m going to honor his request.

But I never realized walking alone in the woods with a girl like her would be such an undertaking.

“Can we at least take a break?” she asks.

“Again?” I growl at her over my shoulder, unable to stop myself from blurting it out.

“What do you mean again?” she scoffs. “We’ve been going for hours on end!”

“I have,” I rebuke. “Not you.”

Her cheeks flush, and they become all puffy as though she’s keeping her emotions tucked inside when she’s about ready to burst.

“Fine, you walked around for hours on end … with me on your shoulder,” she retorts, a little too snarky for my liking. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Keep whining, and I might put you back up there,” I bark.

Our eyes connect, and she visibly gulps, holding down whatever it is she wanted to say.

She sucks in a breath and continues following me through the thick woods until we finally get to where I wanted us to arrive: the harbor.

* * *

April

When we passthe trees and my eyes land on a body of water, I freeze.

The sea?

Are my eyes betraying me?

Pearly sand lines the shores, so there’s definitely a beach.

And my nostrils definitely suck in the smell of salt water.

Oh my God … I’ve been on an island all this time.

How did I not know this?

Then again, how could I have, being confined to a small room in that giant house of theirs?

I walk closer until I’m no longer surrounded by trees, and my feet sink into the sand. It’s definitely real, all right.

I bend over and touch the sand, letting it run through my fingers. I’ve been stuck going from one prison to the next for so long that I’ve missed the simple things.

“Come,” Soren snaps.

He doesn’t even wait a second before marching over to a jet ski bobbing in a small harbor that barely fits three boats. He throws his supplies in the small compartment underneath the seat. Then he glares at me, and I suddenly feel caught in the act of looking. The look in his eyes is so volatile that I don’t know if I should stay put, go to him, or run away as fast as I can.

I gulp down my nerves and do what he asks even though it goes against every fiber of my being. “You can drive that thing?”

He sits down on the front and starts the engine, then holds out his hand.

I stare at it for a few seconds, wondering what he wants me to do … but then it hits me.

And my cheeks turn strawberry red.

“What? No, I can’t—”

Before I can say another word, he’s already reached over to grasp my waist and hoist me up from the deck and onto the jet ski.

He sets me down behind him like a goddamn puppy dog, growling at me over his shoulder, “Sit.”

I can’t fight the blush off my cheeks, and I hate it.

I hate it because I hate this man, and I hate what they’ve done to me.

But then he reaches behind him and grabs my hands, pulling them over his stomach until I feel every hard muscle, and it makes me gasp for air. “Hold on tight.”

I don’t have time to adjust before he turns the throttle, and we race off across the water. It splashes up against my legs until my pants are soaking wet, and my body becomes numb from the frigid air wafting by. Every second feels like an hour with my hands entwined around his waist, making me constantly aware of the fact that I’m holding the thick ridges of his abs.

But I keep reminding myself never to think of him as anything other than my captor, my tormentor, part of the group of men who kept me a prisoner in that godforsaken house as though I deserved it.

Instead, I focus on the fresh air and the beautiful moonlight cascading onto the waves as we skid across. By the time we get to shore, my teeth are chattering nonstop.

I quickly tear my hands away from his body, but my fingers still zing from the heat. He steps off the jet ski, his massive figure still making me do a double take as he throws his leg off one side, barely missing me.

We’re not even parked correctly, or however it’s called, and he’s already approaching me like he wants to lift me off. I raise my hands swiftly and say, “I can do it myself, thank you.”

I don’t want him and his bear hands anywhere near me anytime soon.

Still, with his penetrative stare boring into me, I can’t help but slide off the jet ski as quickly as possible even though my feet land in the water and the cold almost sends me flying.

Soren barges toward me, and I step aside to watch him fish the supplies from underneath the seat and throw them over his shoulder again.

“C’mon,” he says, and he starts moving toward the forest beyond the water.

Fantastic, more trees. Just what I was looking for.

“Just where exactly are we going?” I ask, but of course, he doesn’t answer. “How much more forest can there be?”

He snorts as he glances at me over his shoulder, the smirk that follows making me question my own sanity when my heart does a jump. “A lot.”

I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a funny joke or if it’s supposed to make me angry. Either way, it makes me sigh as we go deeper into the forest and leave the jet ski behind. In the middle of the night, it’s impossible to see more than a few feet in front of you. With nothing but the moon to guide our path, I’m really starting to wonder if he even knows where we’re going or if he’s just a loose cannon, taking me on a journey to God knows where by his own volition.

I shiver from the thought.

Away from the house means no more punishments and no more confinement, but it’s been replaced with the constant vigilance of a bodyguard whose best interest isn’t me. And that’s dangerous.

Out here, there’s no one watching us, no cameras to capture everything that happens. What if all of this was just a ruse to get me out of there so he could use me for himself?

A twig snaps in half, and I suck in a breath loudly and shriek a little from the sound.

He immediately turns around, his eyes homing in on me like he’s a projectile trying to hit a target, and I almost feel the need to apologize.

He puts a single finger against his lips without making a sound.

I swallow even though my throat feels like sand, and it doesn’t help much. I didn’t mean to get all spooked out from a dumb twig, but my mind was getting away with me.

Why does he even care? No one can hear us. We’re in the middle of no-man’s-land.

When he tries to continue walking, I clear my throat. “Could we stop for some water, maybe? I’m thirsty.”

He sighs out loud and comes to such a grinding halt that I almost bump into him.

Throwing his bag off his shoulder, he settles on one knee in the middle of the forest, trying to find something. He fishes out a water bottle and opens the cap, holding it out to me. I stare at it for a few seconds before taking it from him, but when our fingers touch, I almost drop it right then and there. Luckily, his firm hands don’t let go of the bottle until I have it.

I can’t shake that electrical current zooming through my body as he finally lets go of both the bottle and my hand. I try to wash the heat away with the water, a welcoming cool to my dry-as-a-desert throat.

After I’m done, I hand the bottle back to him and swipe my hand along my lips. That bag of his can’t contain that much. If we finish this bottle now, there probably won’t be anymore. And without water, we won’t survive long. Does he have a plan, or is this all just a way to get me farther and farther away from help?

As he lifts the bottle over his head and pours it into his mouth, I’m momentarily struck by just how giant he really is and how easy it would be for him to take whatever he wants from me and get away with it.

I’m stuck in the middle of a forest, surrounded by freedom, yet I’m letting myself be chaperoned by a man I don’t know, a man I fear … a man I should run from.

My brain kicks into action.

It’s now or never.

While he’s busy drinking with his back turned to me, I bolt.

I run as fast as I can without looking back.

The rush of adrenaline hits me hard as my muscles ache from the strain I put on them. But I don’t dare stop.

Because I hear the crackling leaves behind me and the grunts emanating from this beast of a man in pursuit of me.

And when I briefly glance over my shoulder to see how close he is, his fiery eyes are all I need to see to panic.