Hunt Her

Run.

The word echoes in my mind until it numbs the feeling in my fingertips. It makes my lungs burn, my eyes blur, and my throat constrict enough that I can barely breathe.

But I run.

Because that’s the only option I have.

Rain thrashes against my body, soaking up the lace of my torn dress. The white shreds dance against my calves, my heels long lost on the way. The twigs and mud underneath scratch my feet, but I don’t stop to inspect the damage.

I simply can’t afford such a luxury.

I wince when one piece of broken wood sinks too deeply into my toe, making me stumble. Thunder screams at me, the blood on my feet painting the ground below me. I don’t stop. I can’t.

Through the pain, through the blood, I run. Tears stream down my face, but the violent slamming of the raindrops against my shoulders makes me want to believe it’s just the rain. I can choose to believe that.

It’s just the rain.

I wasn’t crying—I couldn’t—when I was the one who got betrayed. When I was the one whose fiancé kissed her best friend at the wedding altar. Right in front of my eyes. When he laughed at my face for believing this marriage was real.

That our love was real.

It wasn’t. It never was. I was the fool.

I wasn’t going to be the wife of Damian Vale—I was going to be his mistress. Asshole had already married my best friend behind my back months ago.

My best friend.

The one whom I considered an angel. The one who hugged me when Damian came home drunk and yelled at me for saying no to sex. I had told him I didn’t want to take advantage of his vulnerable state—he thought I was cheating with someone, and didn’t want to have sex with him. She told me he was the one being unreasonable.

Who knew bitch was planning to go on a goddamn honeymoon with him over that weekend.

Angry tears pool in my eyes, and I sweep them away with my dirt-covered hand. My updo is a mess of brown curls falling over my eyes and neck. My dress—a pool of intricately-woven white lace—is in shreds right now.

Just like my heart.

No, no, Nyxa. I promised not to let them affect me. Not to let the actions of Damian Vale affect me. I was far better than that. He broke a promise to me—I’m breaking one to myself.

This time, when my foot lands on a thorn, I don’t stumble. I don’t wince. I don’t fear the blood.

Instead, I fall. My feet give up on me. Just like Damian. Just like my best fucking friend. My face collapses against a bed of twigs, and they bite down into my cheekbones until I can feel the metallic taste on my tongue. My limbs throb with pain, vomit resting on the base of my throat. I can barely keep my eyes open against the furious downpour.

Nausea creeps up my spine, an ache wraps its claws around my head, and tiny dots of black cloud my vision. The rain slaps me angrily across the face, and I let it. I deserve it. I can’t stop it. Just like I couldn’t stop my feet from bolting when he told me I would be his mistress. When my dad, instead of bringing me out of that nightmare, grabbed my wrist and called me stupid for attempting to leave.

“Damian is a good man. He will treat you like a queen—even if you’re his mistress.”

Lies.

He would make me his toy. His property. Act like I permitted him to own me, to make me feel worthless, to treat me as a second choice.

Second choice.

I’d rather die in this goddamned forest than be someone’s second choice.

A chuckle leaves my lips. How ironic, that is happening right now. I am the one who got cheated on. Betrayed by my fiancé, my family, and the only friend I ever had. Within a moment, I lost everything I had. And naive me, she dragged her feet out of the cage which was that wedding, not thinking enough about how I would survive now.

All I had with my right now was a betrayed heart, broken ankles, a mess of torn clothes, and dirty brown hair.

I scoff. I’m the one who would have been trapped in a marriage as a mistress. And now, I’m the one who’ll die.

In this undisturbed place where no one will even find my body.

My eyelids feel heavier, and I want to do nothing but close my eyes. Pain. Pain is what I feel. In my limbs, in my lungs, in my head.

In my heart.

Five years of a relationship, and all I got was betrayal wrapped in roses and thorns.

A faint smile spreads across my face, but it soon turns into a frown. If everyone has a chance at love, where is mine? Where’s my soulmate? If anything, why did I have to be the one who lost everything? Despite being the perfect daughter and the picture-perfect fiancée, I was the one who slipped up on a chance at love. At life.

Maybe I’m just destined to never find true love.

But it doesn’t fucking matter anymore now, does it?

Let them find the shreds of my dress. They won’t find the girl who wore it.

Silk.

That’s the first thing I feel under my fingertips. Soft, dark silk, stretching below me infinitely like liquid. Is this what the afterlife feels like? Not chipped wood, no thorns, no rain—just endless black silk, grazing my skin. Maybe a burst of light will occur behind my eyes, or I’ll wake up from this nightmare―something, anything. Anything but this quiet.

Minutes tick by, and that’s when it hits me—I don’t have my clothes on.

My naked body is sprawled across a four-poster bed, the black sheets warm beneath and over me. Light gray curtains hang on either side of the tall poles, swaying ever so slightly, and the smell of smoke curls around me in faint ribbons. It takes me a moment to process my surroundings, and that’s when I realize: I didn’t die.

My brows tug together. How come I survived? From what I recall through my hazy memory, no man would’ve been present in that far corner of Pennsylvania, roaming around in a forest in the afternoon, right? Especially during a thunderstorm. It didn’t make sense for anyone to rescue me, and I sure as hell wasn’t physically capable of finding shelter after I’d passed out.

Dread flutters low in my stomach. What if my family traced me there? Maybe my father had attached a tracker to my dress, or maybe one of Damian’s men followed me after I ran away. The possibilities are endless―and none of them help with the panic surging through my veins.

I sit up too fast. Pain roars behind my eyes, and the room sways with it. It doesn’t look familiar at all―I doubt it’s anywhere inside Damian’s house. His mansion is too bright and colorful, as opposed to the dark walls of this room.

But one can never be too careful.

Instinctively, my fingers grasp the dark sheets, and I tuck them up to cover my body. My feet are still damp, and tiny droplets of water are pressing against my back from my wet hair. My eyelids feel heavy as if rocks are resting on them, and there’s a strange sort of numbness on my lips. I whirl my head at the warmth seeping into the room, drawing me closer. A soft fire crackles in the hearth across the bed. The only sound.

And then, a knock on the door.

My head turns toward the blackwood door, my breath speeding up. I’m all alone in a stranger’s bed. In an unknown house. Probably a place too far from home.

Do I even have the right to call that place home anymore?

I wait for the door to open, but it doesn’t. Terror and nerves grip my spine, wrenching my feet off the bed. With shaking fingers, I grip the sheets tighter around me and stand up. My legs wobble, weak and bloodied as they meet the soft carpet, and I hold one of the poles of the bed to steady myself.

Just when I reach close enough, I hear it again.

Knock.

I wait for a beat, eyes wandering in the space around me before landing on something. I smile wickedly, grabbing the glass bowl from the table right beside the door. Without another thought, I bust the side of it against the wall, the glass shards grazing my left wrist before falling. I don’t hiss. I don’t even flinch. It’s as if all emotion has been drained out of my system, and numbness is bathing my body.

I expect the visitor outside my door to yell at me at the sound of something breaking. That’s what my father would’ve done, after all.

Silence.

Well, that rules out the possibility of my family tracking me down.

Satisfied with the sharpness of the glass, I stand upright in front of the door. My right hand knots the silk over the top of my breasts, and I hold the glass firmly in my left. I take a deep breath, my heart stilling at the prospect of opening the door and watching Damian’s sinister grin. His face contorted into that smug expression, showcasing his win. Nyxa Caelis—a trophy. A piece of decoration he can keep. Mould. Destroy.

I shake my head, reminding myself of the promise I made to the Nyxa who ran away from the wedding altar: I wouldn’t be that weak and pathetic again. I refuse to be the same woman who thought being nice and obedient would result in people treating me better. Like a human. Anything more than a doll they put on their shelves. Even if Damian and his men put a gun to my head right now, I won’t go down without stabbing at least one of them.

Hesitantly, my fingers reach out toward the doorknob—until I’m too late.

The door flings open.

I gasp, grip tightening on the pointed glass. I wait for the mop of black hair to appear. My heart threatens to burst from my chest at the prospect of his tailored suit coming into sight, and his long legs to make their way to me. Fingers curling—ready to crush me within his fingers. Shatter the wings of the bird he was supposed to cage. How easy would that be for him?

Tilting my head up, I take a step back. Then another. And another.

A low chuckle leaves the lips of the stranger in front of me, his fingers leaving the doorknob. His presence floods the room. He’s taller than I expected, with broad shoulders wrapped in a black dress shirt.

Relief floods through me when I realize it is anyone but Damian. Though a nagging part of my brain tells me he could be one of his men.

The man steps closer—just an inch to make me realize he can overpower me at any moment. So I know he’s holding back.

He doesn’t look very happy about it, though.

But then, his lips part, his tongue running across his top teeth, eyes taking me in from head to toe lazily. It makes my heartbeat quicken, and my hold on the glass loosens just a bit. For an odd reason, a chill runs down my spine at his intense gaze, and it’s anything but scary right now.

It’s exhilarating. It makes me feel like a bird trapped in a cage, who’s looking at a kind soul who can finally set her free. Dangling the keys of the golden cage in front of me, watching me froth at the mouth to uncurl my wings and escape.

He’s standing close. Too close. His scent is almost abusing my senses, drowning me in something musky and fresh. Like the smell of the forest after heavy rain. Something like the smoke of the hearth, if only it were sweeter and more masculine. My body, without my permission, unwinds in his presence. My wings flutter, scolding me for keeping them hidden from this unfamiliar man.

I tilt my head up to meet his predatory gaze, hoping my pupils don’t dilate at the welcoming warmth of his body.

I feel like a moth to the flame. Eyes wild to get closer to the light—taste it on my lips.

Instinct tells me to cower. To look away.

Resolve tells me to set the sharp edge of the glass against the delicate skin of his throat.

The heart thrumming in my veins is another story, though.

His eyes―the color of the fog in a merciless forest―land on the piece of broken glass for only a second, and he quirks a brow.

“You want to hurt me, pet? I’d love to see you try.”