Page 49 of Wild Child
Devin crumbled like bits of paper.
Before I could so much as scream, a pair of arms wrapped around me from behind in a vise-like grip. The moment I felt the muscular hold, I started to kick, scream, and thrash. Wild fear had her grip on me, and I let her roll.
"Calm down!" Kimball shouted right in my ear. "You're only going to make this worse. I don't want to hurt you, but I will."
"Let me go!" I shrieked.
My cries echoed off the cliffs, bouncing like an erratic bouncy ball. I gathered my thoughts together to stomp on his foot, but stopped. Several other male bodies advanced out of the trees. I could get away from Kimball, but not from them. Two of them, like Steve, had thick necks and arms as wide as trees. Steve's upper lip curled when he saw them. He took a few steps forward next to Devin's limp body, which he ignored.
Tension tripled through the haphazard circle of men that had formed. Including Steve and Kimball, there were five of them, and they all had nasty snarls on their faces.
"Calm down," Kimball muttered, his breath hot in my ear. "Or they will kill you. Let me emphasize to you that they have done so before."
Common sense replaced my sense of rage. Although I didn't relax, I stopped fighting. Instead, I eyed the four other men with a sick feeling in my stomach. Two of them looked like hulks, just like Steve. The other two, like Kimball, were smaller men. More wiry. Unlike Kimball, who could have been considered handsome, the others were more intense than attractive. Lowered brows. Sharp lips. One of them had white-blond hair. The other had coppery brown hair that probably appeared red in the sunlight. Here, it looked like muddy water.
The two strapping men with clenched teeth and dark gazes seemed to take stock of Steve. Just when I thought the simmering rage in the air would explode, Kimball shattered the quiet.
"Gentlemen," he called. "What kind of welcome is this?"
The two smaller men stepped forward. Each of them stood next to one of the burly men, as if each had been paired off with a behemoth. "You brought outsiders," called the small redhead, then looked to me and Devin.
"You say outsider," Kimball replied easily, "I say practice."
"The girl?"
"Creator's wish."
Interest sparked the redhead's gaze. He glanced at the behemoth of a man next to him, then to me. The behemoth leered at me through a fire-scarred expression. I growled, my teeth bared. Whatever Kimball meant bypracticeorCreator's wish, it couldn't be good. The behemoth's sickening stare didn't leave any questions about whathe'ddo to me.
The redhead snorted with amusement, then lifted his gaze back to Kimball. He gestured to Devin with a nod.
"The other one?" he asked.
Kimball shrugged. "Practice. Warm-up. Whatever."
"Do they know?"
"No."
"And the Creator?"
"Always watching." Kimball tsked. His gaze darted to the treetops. "Always watching."
"What is this?" I hissed and attempted to wrench myself free. Kimball increased his hold until pain shot through my arms, like he wanted to squeeze the bones until they broke. His raw strength surprised me. After seeing him at the gym, I never would have thought he could overpower me.
I stopped fighting with a frustrated grunt, unable to budge an inch. I could smash his toes with the heel of my boot, but there were five other men ready to attack. If the way they knocked Devin out was any indication, they wouldn't hesitate with me either.
"This," he said silkily in my ear, "is Survival Club. And you, my dear, are our new prize."
* * *
Twenty minutes later, my heart rate still hadn't slowed.
It pattered under my ribs like a wild thing trying to fly. They'd tied my hands in front of me and my ankles together, then shoved me in the old cabin and met back outside. Gathering darkness made it difficult to see, but I could make out some flurry of scurry of movement through the aged slats in the logs. Steve and the third behemoth, a man with biceps like hams, gathered wood into a large pile near the edge of the clearing. Bonfire, I'd guess. But why not put it in the middle?
The fire-scarred man who gave me the lusty glance with a promise of terrible violence dragged stones in a circle around the edge of the small open space.
Some sort of ring?
