Running Wild : The Cruel Alpha Kings

Chapter 9

Jace’s fingers dug into my bare shoulders, the pressure bordering on painful. His gaze dropped to my lips for a fraction of a second before lifting back to my eyes, burning with a dangerous, vindictive promise.

“You wanted to act like a feral animal,” Jace murmured, his voice drop-dead quiet compared to the roaring machinery of the sliding glass cover. “So you get treated like one.”

Before the realization could even process, Jace nodded at Hunter.

Hunter didn’t hesitate. With a low chuckle that vibrated right against my spine, his arms loosened just enough to shift his weight, then pitched me forward.

Jace’s hands slammed into my chest, a brutal, unyielding shove that sent me stumbling backward over the slick tiles. My heel caught the lip of the pool.

Splash.

The moment my skin hit the surface, a shocking, paralyzing wave of ice-cold water swallowed me whole. The automated heater had been completely shut off. The temperature was freezing, a biting chill that immediately locked up my lungs and sent a violent spike of panic straight to my brain.

I broke the surface, gasping for air, my teeth instantly chattering as I flailed to keep my head above the water.

Up on the deck, Jace stood at the edge, his boots inches from the water. He didn’t look angry anymore. He looked entirely in control, his butterscotch eyes tracking my frantic movements with a cold, detached satisfaction. Beside him, Hunter leaned against a structural pillar, his arms crossed over his chest, watching the show with a dark, lazy amusement playing on his lips.

“Where is the car, Elise?” Jace asked calmly, hooking his thumbs into his front pockets. “The longer you take to answer, the longer you stay in the ice box.”

“You… you psycho!” I choked out, a violent shiver racking my frame as I swam toward the edge. I reached out to grab the tiled rim, but Jace moved forward, his boot looming right over my fingers. I pulled my hands back into the water, glaring up at him through dripping wet strands of hair. “I’m not telling you s**t!”

Jace stared down at me for a long, heavy beat. The silence stretched, broken only by the rhythmic lapping of the water and the sound of my ragged, freezing breaths.

Slowly, Jace dropped to his knees at the edge of the pool. He reached down, his hand locking around my wet wrist. With a single, powerful jerk of his arm, he hauled me upward.

He dragged my torso clean out of the freezing water until my chest was pressed flat against the slick edge of the deck, my legs still dangling in the deep end.

I gasped at the sudden shift, my hands clawing at his forearm for leverage. I threw my head back, baring my teeth as I prepared to spit another curse directly into his face.

But the words died in my throat.

Jace wasn’t looking at my eyes. His gaze had dropped, locking instantly onto my chest. I peeked down.

The freezing pool water had turned my white blouse completely translucent. The thin fabric offered absolutely zero protection, clinging tightly to every curve of my skin. My breasts were fully on display beneath the wet, transparent lace, my n*****s hard and severely stiffened from the biting cold.

Jace’s jaw tightened, the muscles in his throat working as he stared. His butterscotch eyes darkened into something thick, heavy, and undeniably predatory. He wasn’t just looking—he was openly admiring them, his gaze tracking the shape of me through the wet fabric with a raw, primal intensity that made the air between us turn scorching hot despite the ice dripping from my hair.

A sudden, illicit flush of heat bloomed in the center of my chest, clashing violently against the freezing temperature of the room. He was looking at me like he wanted to tear the rest of the shirt right off my back.

I hated it.

I hated the way my pulse immediately thudded in my ears, and I thoroughly loathed the fact that his shameless, intense gaze was making my skin prickle with an entirely different kind of tension.

“Enjoying the view, jackass?” I snapped, my voice shaking from a mix of rage and the uncontrollable shivering of my jaw.

Jace’s eyes slowly dragged themselves back up to mine. A slow, wicked smirk spread across his face, his thumb deliberately pressing into the sensitive skin of my wrist, his grip tightening just enough to pin me against the ledge.

“As a matter of fact,” Jace murmured, leaning down until his lips were inches from my wet ear, his hot breath cutting through the chill. “I am.”

Before I could tear my wrist out of his hold, Jace suddenly released me, pushing himself back up to his feet. He reached over to the wall panel and punched a button. “Let’s see how long that backbone lasts,” he drawled.

The heavy machinery groaned again, and the massive, bulletproof glass cover began to slide back into place, sealing the top of the pool. Before I could do anything, the glass clicked into its locks, trapping me completely in the enclosed space.

A heavy, suffocating weight dropped straight onto my chest as the seal finalized. The air trapped between the water and the bulletproof glass instantly felt thin, stagnant, and entirely too small. I scrambled to the shallow steps, my palms slamming wildly against the thick, reinforced pane overhead.

“Open this f*****g thing!” I screamed, my voice bouncing off the underside of the glass and echoing brutally right back into my ears. Through the transparent barrier, I could see the blurry shapes of Jace and Hunter standing on the deck. “Jace! You miserable, pathetic piece of s**t, open this right now! I will ruin you for this! I’ll make sure my father hangs you from the highest ceiling in this estate!”

They didn’t move. Hunter said something to Jace, a dark smirk splitting his silhouette, and then they turned their backs on me. Actual, blind panic flared in my gut, a wild, clawing instinct to survive that made me hit the glass even harder. My knuckles thudded uselessly against the bulletproof material.

“Hunter! You spineless, parasitic bastard! Get back here!” I shrieked, the anger tearing at my throat. I refused to ask for help. I refused to let a single plea for mercy slip past my lips, even as the walls felt like they were closing in to crush me alive. “You think you can lock me in a cage for a year and then come back to finish the job? I’ll kill you! Do you hear me? I’ll f*****g kill both of you!”

The heavy double doors of the pool room shut. A second later, the sharp, definitive click of a key turning in the lock echoed through the vents.

They were gone. They had actually left me.