Rampant (20 page)

I clenched my hands, tested my strength. Whatever they’d given me was beginning to wear off, though not enough that I could overpower three men. Maybe more.

And Alex…

I swallowed hard. They had her somewhere. If I fought them, they’d hurt her…or worse.

What if they’ve already hurt her?

The idea sickened me, made me want to lash out and pound into them. My mind was fully alert now, demanding I
do
something, but my sluggish body wouldn’t…couldn’t fight. I’d never felt so weak as when I climbed the small hill that led to the dock. Sweat slicked down my bare back, though I trembled from the chill of the late night breeze. I fell to the ground twice on the way down, and their laughter hollowed through me each time, like a demon that taunted.

Evil. Whoever these men were, they were pure evil.

When we reached the dock, they pushed me to my knees, facing the island. I couldn’t see the cabin from this vantage point, but the trees surrounding it towered, nothing more than shadows against the backdrop of mountains.

One of the men lit a torch and passed it off. “You get the honors. Make it quick. We need to get out of here.”

I blinked, horrified by the sting in my eyes. I’d survived a lot and had never cried, but the thought of watching my father’s island go up in smoke gutted me. “Don’t do this. I can get you money.” I risked looking up and met the dark gaze of someone who struck a cord of recognition in me, though I couldn’t place where I’d seen him before. “What do you want?” I asked.

“I want you to suffer.”

I opened my mouth, about to ask him what he wanted with me, when his fist slammed into my nose. I cupped my face and doubled over, crashing into the planks of the dock. Two hands wrenched me up. “Watch it fucking burn.”

A billow of smoke surged upward, tinted an eerie orange-red from the glow of flames. A guy sprinted toward the dock. “Get him in the boat! Let’s go!”

I shot out a fist at the first fucker who tried dragging me to my feet. He snickered. I didn’t pose a threat to them—I was so weak a kitten could probably beat the shit out of me. They lifted me and dumped my boneless body into a dinghy.

“He’s heavier than he looks. Think our weight will sink this thing?”

“Shut the fuck up and get in.” They piled inside, and someone started the motor.

The island grew smaller as we sped off. I gazed at my home, now nothing more than a raging inferno, some of the last memories I had left up in flames. Who were these men, but more importantly, why?

Why Dad’s island?

Why had they taken Alex?

What did they want with me?

The ride ended a few short minutes later, and they hauled me from the boat and up the ramp. I didn’t walk as much as shuffle toward the sedan parked a few yards away. A guy exited through the passenger side door and popped the trunk, revealing Alex’s bound and gagged form inside. She wasn’t squirming, wasn’t even moving.

My heart raced as I weighed my options. I could try to fight them off, but I didn’t know for certain how many men surrounded me. Three, four, five? I glanced over my shoulder and met the barrel of the gun Jax had given me. “Don’t over think it, Mason. Get in the trunk.”

A startling blast sounded. I jumped, adrenaline flooding my system, and stared at the fire engulfing the island. Not a gun shot. The propane tank outside the cabin must have ignited.

“We don’t have time for this bullshit.” Sirens blared, distant, but it wouldn’t take long for the area to flood with emergency vehicles. Maybe I
could
fight them, stall long enough for help to arrive. “Get in the fucking trunk,” he said, cocking the gun and swerving it toward Alex, “or I’ll shoot your girl.”

I could fight them. I might even hold them off for a few minutes, but what if they shot her? What if they killed me and took off with her?

I did the only thing I could. I crawled into the trunk.

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“For all the times I'd witnessed the murders of other women in my dreams, I'd failed to see my own.”

For 23-year-old Mackenzie Hill, tossing her life down the garbage disposal is easy after a painful incident shatters her life. Her heart is bleeding, and moving to Watcher’s Point is a chance to start anew, only she isn’t prepared for the guy who walks out of her dreams and into the flesh. Literally…because she’s been dreaming about this sexy stranger for years.

Mackenzie is even less prepared to face the dark nature of her dreams. They’ve turned disturbingly gruesome, full of blood and murder, and when they begin to coincide with the media’s headlines, she and Aidan realize her visions might be the key to stopping a madman from killing again.

Only Aidan has painful secrets of his own, and perhaps the biggest danger of all is falling for him.

EXCERPT OF FREEING LANA BY KRISTIN ELYON

BLURB:

Lana Martin had a simple life, uncomplicated by the things that normally plagued her friends. But then terror struck and she found herself the unwilling plaything of a sexual deviant. Under his control, she is forced to endure things that would have crushed most people, but somehow she managed to stay alive long enough to be rescued and return to a normal life.

Only life would never be normal again for Lana, because she came out of the ordeal with an unsettling knowledge that she had never been truly happy before. The deeply terrifying events she had endured had done something she hadn’t expected; they had awakened something dark inside of her, a lust that could only be satisfied under the protection of a black hood. She found that only in that darkness, could she truly be free from her inhibitions.

When Daniel Morrow, the man who had held her captive is released from prison, Lana’s nightmare begins again, and she fears she will never be safe again. Her life, her future now relies on one man, the man she had once dismissed as unable to satisfy her longing, her former boyfriend Sergio Marsilis. Follow along with Lana as the darkness is awakened inside of her, and then as she searches for the one thing that has always eluded her, perfect sexual freedom.

EXCERPT:

“What do you want more than anything else?” he asked.

She didn’t have to think about that one; she knew the answer before he asked it, in the bath earlier, on the chair in front of Sergio. There was only one thing she wanted, and while she had only recently been able to come to grips with it, somehow she knew she had wanted it all along. She looked back over her shoulder at him and said the truest thing she could remember ever saying in her life.

“I want you to do any and every thing you want to do, without ever asking that question again.”

He lowered her until her feet were back on the ground below her, removing his hands from her, and walked around the bench to face her suspended upturned face. Her eyes followed him as he walked, leaning back to watch his face as he approached her again. He was looking behind her, but this time it wasn’t to keep her from seeing his face; he was looking up and down the street to make sure no one had come up behind them. Convinced they were alone, he looked down at her, his eyes locking with hers. Surely, he could see the seriousness in her eyes. She did her best to hold his gaze, the one she had often seen as kind, but was now becoming something different, a truer level of kindness, one which reached past her outer weakness and found the strength inside.

“That’s easy enough to say,” he said, his eyes seemingly searching hers, searching for any hint of regret, for anything resembling weakness. Completely understanding the difference between submission and weakness, Lana smiled.

“So is ‘stop,’ but you will never hear me say it.”

He held her gaze a few seconds longer, then seemingly convinced, stepped forward, unzipping his pants. When he pulled his dick from his pants, she had her mouth open waiting for him. He lowered his pants far enough to keep the buckle of his belt and the zipper from his pants from coming into contact with her face, then gently holding the sides of her head, pushed his dick into her mouth. Lana felt it pause momentarily at the back of her mouth before sliding in deeper. Her uplifted head created a straight line from her mouth into her throat, and though there was some resistance, he had no real trouble getting its entire length inside her mouth. She held no delusion that any prolonged pressure of this nature would turn discomfort into actual pain, but it didn’t matter; she was where she wanted to be, completely vulnerable but in complete control. He held her head in place and fucked her mouth, gentler than she might have thought, but firmly, his pace quickening. His anticipation had been extreme and it was not long until she felt the head of his deck swelling against her tonsils.

He pulled his dick backward, stopping when only the tip remained inside her mouth, and then as a loud grunt came from his mouth, she felt the hot release explode inside her mouth, easily filling it with his salty cum. He pushed forward some, now stopping at the back of her mouth, forcing some of the sticky mess into her throat, while causing some to escape and run down the corners of her mouth. She felt it as it dripped from her chin, while more found its way down her throat into the pit of her stomach, its warmth easily recognizable inside her. He milked the last of it into her waiting mouth before pulling his dick back out into the night air. She tilted her head backwards, swallowing as much as she could, the remainder slipping out of her mouth as she looked up at him and opened her mouth. With his hot jizz on her chin and lips, she looked up at him, whispering the most sincere thing in her heart.

“Thank you,” she said.

Copyright © 2014 Kristin Elyon

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing Rampant was more challenging than I anticipated. I owe a huge thank-you to so many people who gave such amazing support when I felt like giving up. First, the readers. You guys are AWESOME! I’m not just saying that. Every time you email me, or contact me on Facebook or Twitter, it blows my mind. You’ve made my dream a reality. Even during my darkest moments, I always try to remember that. You guys have given me hope for the future. My family and I thank you.