5. Hot For A Killer

Rayna ~

Everything the man had been saying blurred into static the second his green eyes locked on me.

They weren’t just green, they sparkled, alive with some dangerous amusement, like he already knew what I’d do before I even thought of it.

My breath caught, my thighs clenched, and Goddess help me—what the hell was wrong with me?

“Did you hear me?” His voice sliced through the fog in my skull. Gravel and silk, too close.

I blinked twice, trying to ground myself. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

A deep laugh rumbled through his chest, a sound that seemed to vibrate through the walls.

A low laugh rose in his chest. He straightened, towering over me, and suddenly the room felt much smaller.

He was huge, shoulders that could take a man’s weight, a frame that made me want to look away and stare at the same time.

Goddess help me, there was a stupid, traitorous part of me that wondered if his jeans fit as well as they looked and I wanted to grab his ass cheeks just to feel how soft they were.

I shoved the thought down so fast I nearly gagged on it.

Heat rushed up my neck. Mortification followed right after. Since when did my brain default to feral thirst in the middle of being kidnapped?

His smirk widened, sharp and taunting. “Are you checking me out, little menace?”

“I take it you're sex starved,” I shot back, voice steady even if my heart wasn’t. “So you imagine every woman you kidnap suddenly wants to fuck you.”

Lie. A bold, ugly lie. Because the filthy truth was—he stirred something in me I didn’t know existed. I’d always been confident about sex, but never this shameless.

He leaned down, his hot breath ghosting across my skin.

His fingers brushed a strand of hair from my face, slow, deliberate. “I can fucking smell your arousal, pretty one.”

I froze. Even before I killed my wolf, my scent had been… different. Muted. Harder to read. But he smelled it anyway. And Goddess, it grated that he was right.

“Isn’t that normal?” I muttered, deflecting. “To be aroused, I mean. Doesn’t mean it’s because of you—”

“You wouldn’t be fucking thinking about another wolf while in my presence.”

Something dark and possessive flared in his tone, and against my better judgment, I smiled.

The fact I could rile him—even a little—was intoxicating. That hint of jealousy, sharp and irrational, didn’t make sense.

None of this did. Waking up here. Being this shamelessly turned on by a murderer. Wanting him buried deep inside me when I should’ve been running for the hills.

It had been two months since I last had sex, and I’d gone out to distract myself, getting laid would have been a bonus, I hadn’t expected to find myself dripping for the man who—

Memory slammed back into me like a blade to the gut.

The bar. The man I’d gone looking for. The gunshot. The scar.

My gaze snapped to the jagged line that cut through his jaw. Same man. Same scar. Same killer.

My breath stuttered. My stomach dropped. “Y… you’re the murderer.”

“Murderer?” His voice was silk stretched over a knife’s edge. “Pretty words from the she-wolf who was one kiss away from spreading her legs for me.”

I stumbled back, my pulse rioting. He moved forward with terrifying calm, deliberate in every step, like ending a man’s life meant nothing to him.

How could he act so casually after what he did? After what I saw?

“I’m glad you remember what I’m capable of, little menace.” His eyes gleamed, cruel and cold. “It’d be a pity to make you relive it.”

My chest heaved. Dario had been a bastard in more ways than one, but never—not once—had anyone looked at me like this. Like I was prey.

“You’re a monster,” I spat.

He moved in a blur, his hand clamping my chin, forcing me to meet the inferno of his gaze. His grip was bruising, brutal.

“I might fancy you,” he drawled, lethal calm threading through every word, “but the next time you say that, I’ll have your tongue ripped out. Understood, little menace?”

Pain lanced through my jaw, but I’d never bowed. Not to Dario. Not to my father. And I sure as hell wouldn’t bow to him.

The second his grip loosened, I didn’t think. I spat in his perfect, arrogant face.

The room went dead silent.

He stilled, then a low, dangerous laugh rumbled from his chest. Slowly, he wiped the spit away with the back of his hand… and licked it.

“Feisty,” he murmured, smiling sharp enough to cut glass. “I’ll enjoy breaking you, little menace.”

Every nerve in my body screamed, but I forced myself upright, fury and arousal blazing hotter than fear.

My legs shook as I pushed myself upright, using the arm of the chair to steady my balance.

“Don’t you ever fucking touch me again,” I hissed. “Now take me back to my pack.”

His smirk deepened, cruel and effortless.

“But you are already in your pack. Oh—did I forget to tell you? While you slept like a princess, your father and I struck a deal. Your hand, in exchange for free passage into my territory.”

The words crashed over me, suffocating. My knees buckled. My heart plummeted.

No. No, he wouldn’t—

He tried to marry you off to Alpha William, remember? That poisonous voice in my head sneered.

“I don’t believe you,” I rasped, my chest squeezing tight. “My father wouldn’t do that!”

His raised brow said otherwise. Daring me to keep lying to myself.

Maybe father would.

My throat burned. But Ralph—my brother—he wouldn’t. He’d shield me. He had to.

Still, Sven’s eyes pinned me, glittering with cruel amusement.

“Fine.” My voice cracked, thin but unshaken. “Say I believe you. What do you want from me?”

He didn’t answer immediately. He circled me like a predator sizing prey, every step dripping with patience I didn’t trust. Finally, he lowered into the chair behind his desk, the picture of control.

That smirk never left his lips. Sharp. Deadly.

“I’ve been bored for years,” he said lazily, each word slow and deliberate.

“No one’s caught my eye.” His gaze dragged down my body, heat and claim rolled into one. “Until you.”

My stomach flipped. That was it? That was his reason?

“So I’m what to you—entertainment?”

“You can say that.”

Fury and something shameful knotted in my gut. His interest set my blood boiling… and my body dripping.

Goddess. I needed to get fucked. Bad. And worse, my body didn’t care that the man in front of me was a murderer.

His eyes went distant, unfocused. Mind-linking.

“Who are you talking to?” I demanded. No answer.

The office door creaked. My breath caught.

The man from the bar.

He didn't dare meet my eyes, instead he walked past me like I was invisible, his jaw locked tight.

The scarred bastard leaned back, a wicked smile in place. “Do you two know each other?”

Something flickered across the man’s face—panic, maybe—but he stayed silent.

“No,” I said quickly.

Sven’s smirk widened. “Reeves, hand her the document.”

The name branded itself into me. Reeves.

He slid a file across the desk. My hands shook as I opened it.

The words blurred, but the meaning slammed into me like a blade.

Duties of Omega Slave to Alpha Sven of BloodFang Pack.

My stomach dropped. My throat locked.

Alpha Sven.

The Lunatic Alpha. The one who burned a village when his mate rejected him. The one whose wolf wasn’t a wolf at all but a rabid, feral beast.

He was already watching me, scarred face twisted into that cruel smile.

And in that moment, I finally understood.

He wasn't joking.

I was his property.