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I looked past him, down the path where Dylan had disappeared. “Is he gone?”

“You won’t see him again.”

His voice was cold and sharp. It should have been a warning. Instead, I found myself leaning into him.

“I didn’t ask you to hit him,” I said, changing the subject to something safer.

Ronan glanced at his hand, then back at me. “I frightened you.”

“A little,” I admitted.

He nodded, then reached for a loose strand of my hair and guided it behind my ear. One of his rings brushed my cheek, cool against my skin. “Are you still frightened?”

The answer should have been yes. He had beaten a guy bloody in front of me, but it would have been a lie. “No.”

“Good.” He hummed under his breath and moved closer, his lips nearly brushing mine.

A bell rang over the lawn. The music faded, and a voice came through the speakers. “Second round begins now. Check the next symbol on your card, and follow your guide.”

Guests began moving toward the paths. I opened my fingers around the card and found the mark across the key. A ring and a crown remained. My fingers were shaking too much to hold it still.

Ronan saw. “You can leave whenever you want, Gwen. I’ll make sure you get home safely.”

I believed he would. I looked toward the gate, then at the card. Dylan had been taken out. I was still here, and no one was telling me I had to go.

“I want to stay with you,” I said.

Ronan’s gaze held mine for a moment, and then he let out a slow breath.

“There’s someone else who’s waiting for you first.” He stepped aside, giving me a clear path to the tents, then pointed to the third symbol on my card. The crown.

“Patience. It’ll be our turn soon.” By the way he said it, it was hard to tell if he was speaking to me or himself.

Chapter 5

Eyes On Me

The silhouette of a gold ring was printed on the sign at the start of a narrow path behind the house. I double-checked my card, even though Ronan had already pointed me this way. The key was slashed with a black mark, and the ring and crown waited beside it. Anticipation crowded everything else out.

The music faded as I walked between the trees. The tent was the same black and green as Thorne’s, but it was at least fifteen feet taller. It loomed above me, so high I could no longer see the peak when I reached the entrance.

I paused, inhaling a long breath, and attempted to gather myself together. The red marks on my wrist had begun to fade, but I could still feel where Dylan had gripped me. A hollow pit had formed in my gut when I’d heard him call my name, a reminder of a time I’d tried so hard to escape. Terror that the rumors would leak in, and I would no longer be able to hide from them.

I’d just started to believe that things would be different from now on, but Dylan had sent reality crashing down around me. Or he would have if Ronan hadn’t punched him in the face first. I thought he’d ask what Dylan was trying to tell him, but it was as if it didn’t matter to him at all. He was focused solely on the marks on my wrist and checking to see if I was okay.

Ronan’s cold, threatening gaze turned warm as it met mine. There was a mix of concern, guilt, and regret hidden in its depth. It didn’t make sense for him to feel that way. He had nothing to feel guilty about. He’d intervened before Dylan had a chance to do anything, but still Ronan acted like he’d broken their promise to protect me. As if letting Dylan within speaking distance was too close.

The men from my past had steered the narrative so easily that I’d grown used to that soul-crushing feeling that no one would listen to me, but then Ronan made Dylan look weak. The way Dylan stared up from where he’d fallen to the ground, fear written in his every movement, sent electricity sparking along my spine, waking something inside me.

He was nothing, no more than a pitiful bug when it came to Ronan. And Ronan wanted me.

The green-and-black canvas rippled in the wind, pulling me out of my thoughts and back to the present. With new confidence buzzing inside me, I pulled back the flap and stepped into my second game.

Silas Voss stood with his back to me, tying something to the top of a steel hoop suspended from the ceiling. He was dressed in all black, his thin shirt stretching across his broad shoulders.

Turning toward me, Silas smiled as he approached with unhurried steps. A few strands of hair had slipped loose from his elastic, but they didn’t hide the way his green eyes burned as they traveled from my shoes upward.

Unlike Thorne, who had an eager enthusiasm about him, like every second he waited was taking every ounce of willpower he had, Silas moved like he wanted to savor every moment of anticipation.