Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 522(@300wpm)
Broad shoulders. Tattoos. Thick neck. Flat, emotionless eyes. And arms wide enough to crush a woman’s throat.
The hunter from the hallway. The one who crushed her windpipe.
He stood across from Jack, black eyes narrowed, mouth set in an unforgiving slash. The man next to him grinned as he spoke to Jack, his icy blond hair and bright blue eyes a complete contrast to the beast at his side.
Daisy watched them from across the emptying hall. Jack’s hands were in his pockets, his expression unreadable. Whatever they were discussing held his full attention.
The hall was nearly hollow now. Stragglers lingered by the doors, exchanging tired embraces, but the great herd had moved on. Daisy didn’t want to conspicuously stand there alone, and she certainly didn’t want to go anywhere near the man who assaulted her a few hours ago in the hall. So she turned and climbed the stairs.
Aunt Vanessa stood on the landing, champagne flute still in hand, watching her with an expression that held no surprise whatsoever. “The limousines are that way, darling.”
Daisy stopped, her silence saying far too much to a woman who missed nothing.
“But I suspect you won’t be taking one back to the hotel tonight.” Aunt V said, sipping her champagne as her eyes creased knowingly with a hidden smile.
Daisy glanced down the staircase at Jack, still engrossed with the two men. “I’ve…decided to stay.”
Aunt V followed her gaze and nodded slowly. “I’ll have your personal belongings sent over by morning.”
“Thank you. For everything.”
She took Daisy’s hand, her grip warm but firm, the kind of hold that demanded attention. “Listen to me carefully, darling. Every hunter here knows how to dress well and hold a door. Men are remarkably good at being soft when it suits them. But never mistake manners for nature. Civilized is a choice they make. It takes effort. It is not who they are, and it’s not who you’ll see behind closed doors.”
The warning settled like stones in the pit of Daisy’s stomach. She wasn’t speaking against Jack specifically. She was arming her with the truth about men. At the end of the day, they were all hunters, predatory animals aching to break free of their societal cage.
But Daisy already realized what Jack was. And she still chose to stay.
“I understand.”
Aunt Vanessa squeezed her hand once more, then released it. “Go on then.”
Daisy hesitated, looking down at Jack as he was still engrossed in his conversation. “Can you tell Jack I went back to his room?”
“Of course.”
Daisy climbed the remaining stairs without looking back.
The upper corridor stretched before her in muted silence. Sconces flickered along the paneled walls, casting warm pools of amber across the carpet. The noise of the great hall softened with each step, fading like music heard through water, until only her own breathing and the whisper of her satin flats accompanied her.
She tried to remember the route. Left at the tapestry. Past the library. Through the long gallery with the arched windows. Jack’s suite was at the far end, beyond the corridor lined with oil paintings of hunting scenes she hadn’t appreciated the first time she passed them.
She walked slowly, letting the silence settle around her like a shawl as the finality of the night finally took hold.
It worked. For all its horror and excess, the Feast of the Fallen had actually worked. A stunning realization that made her smile, thinking back to how silly she had thought herself the first time she typed that web address.
Possibilities like this should only live in fairytales. But what did she know? It had been a twisted road to get here, but she made it, safe and sound.
One night. One fortune. Total transformation.
The horrible, beautiful truth was it only succeeded because society had failed to protect them. Without people as desperate as her, there could be no tributes. And without privilege, there could be no reward. The corruption wasn’t in the game. It was in the DNA of man. They all wanted to play, but not every man had the means to set his true nature free for a day.
Yes, the risk was grotesque. But the reward was life-altering.
Jack thought himself a bad man, but she disagreed. He created an infrastructure that used evil instincts to create something good. Ten years of tributes had their lives forever changed for the better because of him. They owed Jack everything.
Her heart swelled as she dared to think what this actually meant for her. Her mother would get the resting place she needed. Daisy’s debts would dissolve. The flat in Dagenham with its damp walls and broken radiator would become a memory instead of a prison. All because a man with a good heart left an emerald envelope for a desperate stranger to find.
She turned the corner into the long gallery. Soft morning light spilled like golden honey through the arched windows in pale rectangles across the floor, alternating with stretches of deep shadow. The hunting paintings watched her pass with oil-dark eyes. Horses frozen mid-gallop. Hounds with bared teeth. Stags collapsing beneath the weight of arrows.