Page 45 of Beautiful Prey

Am I curious what he looks like?

Shut up, Jade. Just shut up.

Besides, I’m not kidding. That visor needs to come off so I can make sure he isn’t injured.

I should just leave him here and get the hell out, but judging by how the storm rages, I wouldn’t get far. Even if I did, the moment the organization found out I’d left him here, they’d eliminate me.

And I wouldn’t get back to Onyx.

“You took a hit to the head. I need to see your eyes.”

He goes still beneath my hands. He doesn’t help. He doesn’t stop me either. Sand has worked its way into the catches, and I have to brace one hand against the visor’s side and pull twice before something gives. Then I work it up and off, and the fire finds his face for the first time.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” He says it as my hands are still full of the visor, so it lands too late to take back. “Candidates don’t see our faces, prey. The ones who do don’t get eliminated. They get kept.”

His eyes meet mine. In the firelight, they’re dark, almost black, and far more unsettling without the visor between us. Nothing hides them now. Nothing hides him.

Dark hair, damp with sweat and rain, falls untidily across his forehead. A jaw I could cut myself on, all clean angles and bruised skin, with a fresh scrape disappearing into dark stubble. His mouth sits in a crooked grin, as if he’s been waiting for me to do exactly this.

For a moment, I forget to breathe, then force myself to look past the face to what matters. His pupils are even. He tracks my finger without being asked twice. No blood beneath the dark hair, only the temple cut and swelling at the side of his head. Responsive. Lucid. But firelight’s no way to assess a head injury, and if this goes wrong tonight, it’ll happen while he sleeps.

The corner of his mouth lifts. “You’re terrible at pretending, you know that?”

“Pretending what?”

“That this is only about my concussion.”

“You’re talking too much,” I snarl, but my cheeks burn. That strange swoop returns low in my stomach, stealing my breath. I busy my hands before he can notice.

“Only when I’m interested.” He watches me without moving. “You’ve been wondering what’s under it ever since you pulled me out from under that tree. Go on. Look.”

Setting the visor aside, I reach carefully toward the cut along his temple. His skin is warmer than I expect. My fingertips barely brush the wound's edge before his hand closes around mine again, his grip settling as if it belongs there. He turns my palm instead, pressing it against the rough scrape on his cheek.

“There. Feel for injuries. Go on.”

His hand closes over mine on the wound, then slips away. When it comes back, there’s weight and cold, and I look down to find my own knife, the one I lost in the storm, flat against my throat.

“You picked that up,” I breathe.

“Show me your knife, you said. Three men ago.” He turns it in the firelight, lazy, the cheap blade catching the orange light. “Pretty little thing. Have you ever actually used it, prey? Before tonight?”

I can’t answer. His ribs are cracked, his temple’s split, and he still has my own blade at my pulse like it costs him nothing.

“No,” he answers for me. “You hold it like an apology.” The edge shifts, finds my skin, and a thin, warm line opens beneath my jaw.

I hiss and jerk against the sting.

“This is how you use it.”

My hand snaps around his wrist before he can move the blade again, shoving it away from my throat.

“Give it back.”

His mouth lifts, then his eyes drop to the blood slipping down my neck, the amusement shifting.

“That’s better. You’ve spent half the Hunt looking like you want to disappear, and now you’re finally putting your hands on me like you mean it.”

Before I understand what he’s doing, he lifts his head off the dirt, ribs and all, and catches the line of blood with his tongue.