The Predator (Dark Verse #1)

by RuNyx

And you should know never to sneak up on a predator. Once we catch the scent of your blood, it's a matter of the hunt."

One day, she vowed, she would kill Tristan Caine.

"One day, I'm going to carve your heart out and keep it as a souvenir. I promise." She'd thought he would respond with silence, or with a clenched jaw, or with another jab at her. He didn't. He chuckled. Seriously? "You assume I have a heart, wildcat."

"Courage takes only a second to become foolishness," he said quietly, his dark eyes alert. "Keep that in mind."

"I'm not saving you again," he muttered through clenched

"No one else gets to kill you, Ms. Vitalio," he spoke quietly. "The last face you see before you die will be mine. When it comes to death, you're mine." And then, for the first time, he cut the call.

"We've been honest so far, Ms. Vitalio," he murmured. "I'll be honest now. I despise you but I want you. Fuck it, I do. And I want you out of my system."

Morana looked at the message for a long time, before closing her eyes and going to sleep, no worry in her heart. If Tristan Caine killed her in her sleep, it'd probably be a mercy.

She could feel him sinking his clutches deeper and deeper into her. And that was scarier than an impending mob war. ***

"Don't you know not to run away from predators, sweetheart? We like the hunt."

"Doesn't matter. I get my mouth on you, and you'll never be the same."

Tristan Caine terrified her, but it wasn't because of the death he was bringing her slowly, the death he would bring her one day, the death he raised in her. No. It was the life.

Being a certified genius, she'd always believed knowledge was the ultimate power.

Knowledge was power, but in the wrong hands, it was a weapon. The

“Next time, I’m going to see how loud you can scream, Ms. Vitalio. I’m going to make you so sore you won’t know if it’s from the screaming or the fucking.”

“You give yourself a little too much credit.” “Say that when I can’t still smell you on my fingers.”

“There are only two ways you leave when you come to this room,” he grinned, his tobacco-stained teeth gleaming in the red light evilly. “You play and win, or you leave with a bullet in you.”

“I don’t know whether to snap your neck or fuck the life out of you,”

“Don’t. Ever. Try. To. Fucking. Control. Me.”

“This body belongs to me, Ms. Vitalio,” he murmured in a low voice, the whiskey and sin combining to make her head tip back over his broad shoulder as her stomach clenched. “This body is mine,” she retorted, unable to recognize her own voice dripping in sex. He continued, like she hadn’t spoken, cupping her ass. “I’m a territorial man. And this has been mine since the moment you locked that bathroom door.”

“You do something like that again, I’ll fucking shoot you in the heart.” His guttural voice made her shiver even as her walls clenched around him. “I decide when you die.” Morana huffed a laugh that got strangled in her throat. “You’re crazy.”

“Tell the guards to let me through. Otherwise either they’ll get hurt, or I will. Dealer’s choice.”

“I can burn your empire with the things I know.” “Then be ready to burn with me.”

‘You ever put a leash on me, I’ll fucking strangle you with it.’ ”