Page 10 of Dance of Madness

And a goddamnmeanhigh kick.

Milena Kalishnik.

The name crackles in my skull like a match catching tinder.

I never exchanged names or real identities with the girl who messaged me via the Club Venom app. I mean, that’s sort of the whole fucking point. Like-minded users with, shall we say, moreprimalneeds and urges make profiles, describe what they want, and then the system puts you in touch with each other—basically, Tinder for the dark and deviant.

I’ve used it a dozen other times for a dozen other hunts. This one was supposed to be no different.

Said she had a chase kink and wanted to try primal play. She even expressed a desire for some consensual non-consent stuff.

Check, check andcheck.

She said all the right things; told me how she fantasized about being hunted, caught, taken against her will. That shewanted it, that very fucking night, and could be ready within the hour.

But I never take them at their word, not until I see them run.

Fantasy’s easy enough to write from behind the safety of a screen. But when the dark is real, and the terror is pounding hot on their heels, ready to snatch them from the shadows, most girls freeze. Reality destroys that little fantasy.

There are tears. They plead.

That’s when I stop, tell them they’ve wasted my fucking time, and send them packing.

I’m there to chase, not to be a fucking coach. Not toteach them.

I mean, Christ. Figure out your kinks on your own fucking time.

So I messaged her back. Asked all the pertinent questions. Made it abundantly clear what this was.

I explained she’d be coming to Greymoor Manor. I’ve owned it for the last four years because one, it’s an excellent location for my…tastes. But two—I mean, come on. It’s a fuckinghaunted mansion. That’s cool as fuck.

So I went. I waited in the bedroom upstairs, as we’d discussed, listening to the sound of my prey entering quietly via the code I gave her. I listened to her creep around the house and then—loudly—clomp her way up the stairs.

Why doso many of themarrive in fuckingheels?

But then, things went sideways. I knew there was something off the second she stepped into the room.

I told myself the girl who seemed too elegant, too proud, and the wrongkindof reckless was simply wearing a blonde wig. Or else had, for whatever reason, lied about being a brunette in her profile.

I chased her anyway, because I was already in that place where I let the savage part of me take the reins. But then, two strange things happened.

One, I caught her.

That’s not the strange part. Of fucking course I caught her.

But two, when I did,I didn’t stop.

I didn’t let go and tell her the hunt was over, that it was time for her to leave.

I kept going.

I hungered.

Ifucking wanted her.

Then she whirled around and kicked me in the balls, and I saw her face.

Milena.

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