Page 66 of Hunted

While I scowled up at him, shivering under a hundred layers, somehow he was fine in just a long-sleeved tee. He raised a dark brow, waiting for me to articulate… well, anything.

Stop ogling the ogre, Addie. He hasn’t earned shit from you.

I tilted my chin up, mimicking his posturing, earning another lip twitch for my efforts.

“I’m sorry,” he said, uttering the last two words I’d ever expected to hear come from Hunter Beckett’s mouth.

Mine flopped open.

“I should have at least let you cover yourself up before kicking you out. You might have left your dignity and self-respect at our door, but I could have spared you losing your allure as well.”

I didn’t know how it was possible, but my jaw dropped further. “Excuse me?!”

“If an initiate is willing to sleep with her instructor to get the position she wants, then perhaps sleeping around is the position she should get. You seem to have plenty of experience if Pearce’s satisfaction is anything to go by,” he continued, oblivious to the rising inferno inside me. “And let me tell you”—he leaned in, close enough that I was able to make out flecks of blue around his pupils—“he bragged about it to anyone who would listen.”

That fucking asshole.

“He lied,” I snarled.

Beckett shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. Doesn’t change anything at all, really. Assignments were finalised this morning.”

My heart sank into the pit of my belly, and I deflated. “What did I get?” I breathed, barely daring to ask.

“You’ll have to wait and find out like everybody else.”

Without another word, Beckett shoved his hands in his pockets and strode off in the direction of the apartment building—warning successfully delivered.

Or perhaps it was a threat, dangled over my head like a guillotine blade.

Surely they wouldn’t squander my skill on a honey-trap assignment.

Surely he wouldn’t.

And yet, as the day wore on, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just been fucked over.

And not in the fun way.

[ 22 ]

ADDIE

GWENNO MORGAN – LLOERGAN

The rest of the week passed in bouts of bored silence, drinking games, and borderline stalking of Sebastos Varco.

Somehow, he was never alone. Never roaming empty, darkened hallways by himself. Never wandering the woods after that red-cap incident, either. He hadn’t returned to the dorm after Fleur… well. In any case, I didn’t know where he was sleeping but it wasn’t within arm’s reach—and I had all but run out of days to reach him.

This morning we had all woken up to Beckett’s booming voice—thankfully sans one ice bucket—informing us that today was a Very Big Day.

“It’s Graduation Day, recruits!” His gaze wandered across the room, taking our bedraggled states into consideration and apparently finding us on-the-whole unimpressive. “Shower. Put clean clothes on. The Commander and your assignments await. You have one hour to make yourselves at least look sober—after that, you’re on your own, kids.

“Assignments wait for no one. There will be no time for celebration, though by the looks of you, you didn’t waste this last week in sobriety. Once everyone has been allocated their new rank, you’ll receive your rank IDs and a folder, a phone, a set of keys, and access to the armoury as an Assigned Assassin.”

His jade green eyes landed on me before speaking the final two words of his less-than-enthusing speech—a flicker of something crossing his face before it returned to that familiar, flinty hardness.

“Good luck.”

I didn’t bother to interpret it. I didn’t want to understand Hunter Beckett. In just a few short hours, I’d be Assigned and on the road to wherever the Academy bade me go. I was giddy at the prospect of escape—even if me living meant someone else had to die.