Hunted By The Others by Jess Haines

in place with their intensity.
    “One last thing. To ensure your loyalty, you’re to sign papers by the end of the next business day. I want a notarized copy in my hands by no later than Monday night.”
    A sudden sick feeling swept over me. I could literally feel all the blood drain from my face.
    “P-p-papers?”
    He nodded tersely, his gaze staying sharp and pitiless. “I won’t have you turning back to The Circle or the White Hats for help. You’re mine now. The Circle can’t touch you if I lay a claim, and the White Hats won’t come near you if you bear my mark. Your partner may want to consider doing the same.”
    Bear his mark. His bite, he meant. Oh shit.
    “By Monday, Shiarra. If you don’t deliver them, I’ll come looking. Trust me, you don’t want it to come to that.”
    “No, please!” I had to fight this. I couldn’t let it come to that. Death would be better. “Please, you don’t need to do that, I won’t go back to them! I swear!”
    He actually laughed at that, the sound soft and bitter. “Begging is in poor taste, lovely. You should’ve thought of that before you stepped outside the bounds of your confidentiality agreement. You broke under pressure. Right now, your promises are just words. The claim will ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
    He wasn’t just talking a little love bite. He meant a full-fledged bond, tying me to him until my death. Bloody hell. There had to be a way out of this. There just had to be. Panic was making me feel ill, and I was afraid I might end up losing my lunch on his nice, clean tennis shoes if I didn’t find a way out of this, fast.
    “It doesn’t need to come to that, please. You don’t need to do this. Give me a chance, I’ll prove it to you somehow.”
    “I’ll be in this office Monday night. Meet me here.”
    Strain made my voice crack. “Please!”
    He shook his head, unmoved by my pleas. Pushing off the desk, he moved around it and pulled out one of the drawers. He thumbed through some folders, finally withdrawing papers from one and returning to press them into my trembling hands.
    “This is for your protection as well as mine. Come on now, I’ll have someone take you home.”
    I jerked back from his touch when he reached for me, and he withdrew, waiting patiently for me to rise on my own. The thing that bugged me most was that he now seemed so bored with the situation. It was like the anger never existed. Like he’d planned this from the start, knowing I’d break.
    When I looked at the papers he’d put in my hand, my stomach gave a sickening lurch as I saw they were already filled out with both our names in all the right places. I flipped to the last couple of pages and saw that the part for the vamp to sign had already been filled out and notarized earlier today. All that was left was for me to sign on the dotted line and get my portion of the agreement notarized.
    Damn him to hell, he’d known I wouldn’t be able to keep my cool if he got in my face or flashed his fangs, and he used that fear to put me in this position. This wasn’t a burden to him; he’d wanted to put me under his thumb from the start. No wonder he wouldn’t even consider giving me the chance to prove I could be trusted. The worst part of it was that I still wasn’t any closer to knowing why, or what he expected to get from me or use me for. Blood aside, there had to be a reason for his actions. He had too many willing donors, so he wasn’t doing this just for a chance to sink his fangs into me. There was something else he wanted out of me that he hadn’t put on the table yet. Judging by the lengths he went to and the methods he used to put me in this position, he probably wouldn’t lay it out in the open until I was bonded and didn’t have the will left to oppose him.
    I slid from the seat with as much grace as I could muster under the circumstances, grabbing my purse from the floor and turning away from him to wipe at the hot sting of tears in my eyes