The Hunted: The Killing Hours, #1

By Christy Anderson

My heart beats furiously in my chest trying to keep up with the pace I have set.
I am running as fast as I can but it is pointless.

They will catch me.

I am only delaying the inevitable, postponing my fate if you will.
I know what will happen when they catch me.

It's the same ending every time.

Still, I push my legs as fast as they will go, my body aches from the exertion.

I can hear them behind me.

They are closing in.

This is part of a twisted game.

The goal, to catch their Prey.

Me.

I am the prize for the Hunter.

I am the Hunted.

 

The Hunted is book one of a three-book interconnected series.
This book is intended for mature audiences as it contains adult themes and situations.
18+ Only Due to Adult Content

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christy Anderson
• Release date: Mar 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781386465935

Book preview

1

Prey

Blood rushes in my ears, beating out a pounding rhythm. My lungs burn as adrenaline courses through my veins. I gulp for breath while I struggle to keep up this stride. They’re behind me. Their collective stomps shaking me to the very bone. Fear wraps itself around me like a leaden blanket, it’s weight nearly dragging me down. If I can just maintain good distance between myself and the Hunters, maybe they won’t catch me this time.

I’m not certain I could bear that again.

I pass one of the many cottages that litter the grounds of this vast estate. Through the large window, I catch a fleeting glimpse of a woman strapped to a St. Andrew’s cross. Her arms tethered above her head and her splayed legs place her sleek nude form on full display. With her head thrown back and her eyes closed tightly, her breasts rise and fall with every hard breath she takes. A man kneels in front of her with his face buried in her core. This isn’t the time to feed your curiosity, I admonish myself. No matter how many times I see the carnal acts that take place here, I’ll never become accustomed to it. Things such as this don’t exist in my world of campaigns and sales pitches. It only further proves just how very far in over my head I am here.

The men and women who stand outside the window observing the couple turn to watch me as I glide by. Their eyes bore into me, and a cold chill prickles my flesh. I face forward again. No more time to think about them right now. The Hunters are gaining on me.

My bare feet pad over the lush expanse of manicured lawn, carrying me toward the forest. I hope I can evade their pursuit long enough to compose an escape plan.

You can run, but have no doubt, you will be mine.

A voice booms from behind me. The deep tone washes over me, twisting my stomach into knots with anxiety.

The late autumn wind whispers through the trees, whipping my hair around in the air. I’m not certain the chill is completely due to the fall weather in the Tennessee mountains.

I tear through the forest, the long skirt of my white dress snagging on brush and tangling around my legs as I try to escape. I make it to a copse of trees and nestle behind a large oak, trying to calm my ragged breaths. Stalks of the long dead grass surround me, shimmying on the breeze, their seed pods tickling my face.

They’re approaching.

My heart pounds violently, trying to leap from my chest. I lie as still as I can.

Please just let them pass.

I plead silent prayers for myself, for my sister, and hope that this nightmare is going to end soon. I’m not certain how much longer I can continue to stay here, participating in this charade.

The Hunters race by me, oblivious to my hiding place. The last Hunter passes me, and I expel a relieved gust of breath as I bolt upright, springing into a run in the opposite direction. The grass and undergrowth lash into the skin of my cold, bare feet, but I can’t slow down. Not yet. I try to outrun the recurring thought in my mind that soon, my time will come. One of the Hunters will catch me.

2

Hunter

Ihang back, allowing the other Hunters to pass me, and kneel behind a large fallen tree while I take in my surroundings. She’s crouched down not far from where I observe her hiding, while the others run past her. Beautiful and smart. Too bad for them, this game, they will not win.

Where stalking their prey is but a game for them, it is my life’s work.

I’ve waited for this moment. Ached for it.

I’ve watched her almost endlessly since the moment I spotted her on the estate monitors after I returned from an assignment several weeks ago. I’d left the gala early that night to seek the solitude of my quarters. I was no longer able to bear the fake smiles I had to plaster upon my face. I could care less how many hundreds of thousands of dollars these people paid to be members of Hale Manor. I have more than enough money to last many lifetimes over. And it was never about the money in the first place. I was finding it harder and harder to pretend to tolerate them. Their games had begun to grow tiresome. It was for the best Ace was taking the reins in the management of Hale Manor for now. After all, this was more his domain than mine even if I owned the property. I never really craved the depravity in the ways he does. Maybe it’s because, for so long, I had no control over my own life, my own desires. Those were all dictated to me. In some ways, I suppose they still are.

Yes, Ace definitely fills this role better than I ever could. His golden boy-next-door looks never hurt in helping him to be well-liked, accepted even. He is my complete opposite in every way. His light to my dark. His easy smile to my hard sneer. He is a master at wearing his façade, but I know what monsters truly lurk beneath his skin. I’ve born witness to them several times. A princely appearance on the outside encases the insatiable demon within. Often, I will return from assignments and we’ll drown ourselves in whiskey and flesh, but that can only suppress the ever-present bullshit in my mind for so long. Decompressing upon my return is becoming more of a challenge. It’s growing harder to return to what others would consider to be normal. Months spent on assignment alone, scouting and plotting, take their toll after a while. You forget how to interact. I enjoy the solitude, though. It’s like an old friend. My mind craves the peace it wasn’t allowed to have for years. Maybe that’s why I find it so hard now to return here and wear that mask, pretending to be who I no longer am or maybe never was.

The night I left the gala, I poured myself a large glass of whiskey as soon as I stepped into my quarters. I threw it back, relished its warm comfort, and then poured myself another before I headed to the security room to keep an eye on the tables, party, and grounds. Of course, we have a security staff, but I often find myself on watch when I return home. Old habits die hard, I suppose. In my line of business, there’s always a potential threat at your door. Although anyone in the know isn’t dumb enough to cross me. No one wants to pay that price. Except for one man, and his days are limited if I have my way.

When I have my way.

Sweeping the camera through the room, observing our clients, some now openly fucking on the very tables we just ate dinner from, I spotted her—a curtain of lustrous hair, black as night, swallowing her slender form. Her strapless emerald green gown stood out like a shining jewel in a pit of mud amongst the filth she was surrounded by. She pressed her back against the richly stained oak paneled wall as she surveyed the enormous chamber, taking in the debauchery unfolding in front of her. Innocent eyes widened, scanning the faces in the vast sea of people. I realized then that she was searching for someone. Something akin to jealousy rolled through me, but I swiftly set that aside.

What started as curiosity rapidly began to consume me. I was fascinated. I watched her the rest of the night, telling myself it was because I needed to know who she was searching for. If she even thought someone was approaching to engage her, she swiftly flitted away from them like a scared little bird. Considering her purpose here is to provide any number of services, avoiding members was not really tolerable. The ladies may always decline a client, but that is a rarity and flat-out running away from them is unheard of. I should have gone back to the gala and dealt with this, but oddly, every time she darted away from someone she thought was approaching her, I felt a strange sense of relief. I justified not reprimanding her because I needed to observe her more, needed to know the motives behind her actions. I’ve always wanted the details.

So, I began to watch her, obsessively.

She’s different. I found her to be unconcerned with the trappings of the games. She doesn’t seem to give a shit about the balls, lavish gowns, or jewels that we supply like some of the other ladies. She avoids contact with members at all costs unless absolutely required, so the lure of sex or a relationship with someone affluent outside the manor walls can’t be what brought her here. I’ve yet to see her with anyone other than the occasional chat with her roommate as they happen upon one another.

Upon accessing her dossier, I note she was an executive account manager at an advertising agency in town before taking a leave of absence. Her parents were still together, both professors at the local university in New Canton. She has a younger sister who has been missing for eight months, vanished without a trace. Maybe that’s what brought her here, to my home, to join this game. She needs the money to search for her sister. I hacked into the local police system and scoured the report on her missing sister. The police had no credible leads. Not shocking since Silver Lake is so small, it has maybe one murder a decade. Well, that the police are aware of any way. They aren’t equipped to deal with anything beyond a minor offense. The town is so small that jobs that actually pay a decent wage are hard to come by. Many citizens travel outside of town for employment. We pay our ladies well for their services, and we’ve found that is often the biggest enticement to work for us. Raven, the girl whom I can’t seem to shake off, had a decent job, though. I hacked into her company’s human resource system just to confirm. She made a very decent salary and didn’t appear to have any debts.

Her beauty initially intrigued me, but the more I continued to watch her, dig into her background, she became a fascination for me.

I can’t understand why she’s here. She sticks out like a sore thumb at the manor. I was missing something. And that detail that seemed to elude me drove me to near obsession in my quest to uncover it. So, I watched her.

She thinks no one sees her wander around the estate, but I see everything. It’s what I’m paid to do, and I tackle it with expert precision. I continued to observe her for a few weeks. Sometimes, late in the evening, she would stroll along the grounds. Hesitantly, she’d peer into the windows of the members’ cottages to see what the couples were doing, watching them in various stages of carnal pleasures. Some so taboo the practitioners would be considered deviants to society. Here, almost nothing is off-limits as long as it is consensual. Always consensual. Our ladies are to be treated with the respect they deserve. Once they fulfill their contracts, they are free to return to their former lives. More times than not, it’s a much better life, given the money they earn in their time here.

I sat in the safe harbor of my security room and watched her on my monitor as she stood outside one of the cabins the other night. I noted the way she anxiously clenched her fists while observing one of the girls, Melissa, as she writhed in the throes of ecstasy, the ropes biting her flesh where they held her bound to a dining table. Ace always did love some rope play against pale skin. He fed her mouth the length of his cock, gripping her throat to feel himself move inside her.

Ace was all too happy to oblige my request.

My Little Bird thinks no one saw the hitch in her breathing when she spied the couple I set up to perform just for her.

I noticed. I always noticed her.

I gritted my teeth as I groaned from the ache deep in my balls as I watched her pull her bottom lip through her teeth and the flush that crept over her cheeks and dappled the tops of her breasts as she lingered, watching Melissa as she came. The look on my Little Bird’s face told me what I needed to know. She liked what she was seeing, and it turned her on.

She wanted to play. It was like feeding oxygen to a dying fire. This need consumed me, ate up my being until I saw nothing, thought nothing, wanted nothing but her, her, her. No longer able to contain my lust for this woman, I pulled my cock out, fiercely fisting myself as I watched her. Her nipples puckered under the silk of that slinky black dress. God, how I wanted to rub my lips across those taut peaks. Feel their hardness encased in silk as they brushed my lips. Had a man ever coveted a woman more? I watched her breasts rise and fall as her breathing accelerated, and I stroked the hard length of my cock in time to their movements, imagining it was the forceful thrusts of my cock causing the motion until warm spurts of my cum rained down around my fisted shaft. I hadn’t jerked off since my teens and even then, it was just to feel something different than the hell that was my life.

The more I study her, the more this need to possess her consumes me. It gnaws at my brain. A constant itch that I desperately long to scratch.

I’d cleaned myself up and went down to the casino floor to search for her. There she was, having come in from outside, sitting beside Dan Ratliff, a high roller who made all his money in oil. I assumed women found Dan attractive. He was tall, filled out with lean muscle, and with that deep Texas accent, and those manners, I never wanted to punch his face in more. Dan held the dice up to Raven’s full lips and she kissed them. Dan’s beady fucking weasel eyes zeroed in on her tits and I wanted to pull them from their fucking sockets.

How fucking dare he look at her like that!

I paced the floor, back and forth, back and forth like a fucking caged, hungry tiger. My muscles coiled and flexed beneath my suit. My knuckles ached from the pressure of fisting my hands for so long.

What the fuck is wrong with you, man? Ace asked as he walked with me in my mindless circle.

Good fucking question.

Go away Ace. Go the fuck away.

You look like you are about to murder someone. You can’t kill someone down here. You hearing me?

Yeah, I fucking heard him but I was finding it hard to give a fuck as I watched that fucker Ratliff, rubbing Raven’s back. I wanted to break all his fucking bones, heal them and break them again. Red hot rage took over my body.

I don’t know what the fuck is up but you need to go walk it off.

I looked at Ace then.

"Walk it off? Are you god damn serious? Walk it the fuck off?

Yes. Go. Whatever the hell is wrong, take it out of here.

I looked back and Ratliff had his arm draped around her shoulders. I scrubbed my hands down my face trying to rid my mind of that image.

Fuck!

You send that girl to her fucking room right now. Right. Fucking. Now.

I pointed at Raven tucked into Ratliff’s side. Ace followed to where I was pointing. His face scrunched like he didn’t see that sleazy fucker putting moves all over her. My head begins to throb as I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth hurt.

I don’t see her doing anything wrong, Knox.

I rolled my neck; the muscles had begun to knot.

Send her to her fucking room or I will fucking kill that man.

Do you want to fuck her or something?

I tensed. Shit. I liked to look at her and jack off while I watched her live her life here, oblivious to my very existence.

The fuck? Do you like her?

He smiled that fucking toothy white smile of his and I wanted to throttle his ass.

Send her to her fucking room. I want her pulled out of circulation. No one fucking touches her.

I turned and stormed out as Ace’s laughter echoed behind me.

What the fuck am I doing? This woman is getting under my damn skin. I need to fuck her out of my system. I fucking want her for myself.

When she was drawn for the Hunt tonight, I knew this was my chance to take her as I’ve wanted, without pretense. So, I showed up to claim my prize, and move on with my damn life. Now, I sit here, staring, waiting for my little bird to fly into my trap.

A flash of her white dress passes through the open spaces between the trunks of the trees, the glow of the moon dancing on the strands of her silky black hair. She may be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. If I were a better man, I wouldn’t pursue her. My life isn’t something any woman should be tangled in, but I find I can’t resist her pull. She’s captivated me with her innocence. Something never seen in my world. Sadly, for her, that’s not a good thing.

I silently track her through the trees, back in the direction of the manor now. She’s fast, but she’s no match for me. I know this property better than anyone. I quietly stalk her as she unknowingly runs right toward me. No fucking way these assholes are going to lay a finger on her. I stalk through the tall grass toward my prize. What fun is Hunting if you don’t toy with your Prey?

3

Prey

Iknow he’s watching me before I see him. I can sense his eyes on me, sizing me up. He’s toying with me. A tremble of fear skates down my