The Girl He Marked by Laila Callaway novel Chapter 1

Alena’s POV

He stands up and grabs me by the waist and pulls me up against his rock-hard chest. I have to look up to maintain eye contact as he is nearly a foot taller than me. For a peaceful second, we just look into each other’s eyes. But then the situation comes back to me, and I slap himn fully across the face. His face actually turns to the side with the impact and a small part of me is proud of my hit. A low, terrifying growl erupts from his chest, and he slings me over his shoulder, again.

put up the same fight, like earlier, but he continues to ignore me, like earlier. I don’t know how long he walks for with me on his shoulder, I give up eventually and collapse with exhaustion, leaning against his back with my arms dangling down. The debris and leaf-littered ground suddenly changes to well-man aged grass, and I push off his back, looking up so I can take in my surroundings. My hands press against his boiling hot, muscular back. My mind registers his heat, his hard muscles and strange tingles that run through my skin as I touch him.

I barely have time to ponder the reasons why his skin makes me tingle, because I’m distracted by the view I’m presented with. If my mouth could drop open, it would have. My eyes grow wide as I take in the gi normous sandstone buildings that he walks past; all the houses look like mansions. It’s like a luxury estate in the middle of the forest, because I can see from the dense trees surrounding this area, we are still in the thick of the woods.

But this looks like civilization, maybe someone can help me.

Due to it being very late at night, or very in early in the morning, depending on how you look at it, there are no lights on in the houses and my heart sinks at the lack of people to be seen. My kidnapper passes a few more houses and then slows down, he walks up some steps and I hear a door being unlocked.

Where did he keep the key? He’s naked!

I assume the key must have been left on the porch. He steps inside the house and my eyes burn as he turns on the lights. It’s like the others, spacious and luxurious. His bare feet pad softly on the polished wooden floors, and he goes up a flight of stairs, I resume my assault on his bare, (only just realized) tat tooed back

He opens another door and goes across the cream carpet and puts on a lamp, so a soft golden glow fills the room. He moves over to the bed, which he puts me down on. He sets me down gently, but I still bounce slightly on the plush duvet. I glare up at him as he reaches out to me. Reflexively. I scamper off the bed and run towards the door, channeling my inner Usain Bolt. But the bastard catches me before I can even grab the handle.

He backs me up against the wall and I shake with trepidation as he raises his hands and reaches be hind my head. I wince as he unties the cloth around my mouth, catching my hair in the process. He pulls the gag off, which turns out to be a t-shirt and throws it on the floor. As he unties the binds on my hands, I open and close my mouth a couple of times, trying to relieve the ache. Before he can put his hand over my mouth, I scream, surprisingly loudly. He grimaces and slams his hand over my mouth. I reach up and try to pull his hand off of me, but I can tell it will be to no avail.

1. 1. I just stare at him, my eyes wide and unblinking as I try and process such an attractive kidnapper. His eyes are deep navy like the wolf’s, he has messy blonde hair and bronze, tanned skin. Tingles run through

my lips that are pressed against his hand and I snap out of my gaze and try to pull his hand away from my mouth.

What are you going to do to me? Please don’t hurt me,’ I hate how weak my voice sounds, but I’m terri fied. I have already felt the strength of this man, he can do whatever he wants to me, and I’ll be powerless to stop it.

His eyes soften and he lifts his hand towards my face, I flinch back, and he seems to think better of the action because he lowers his hand again.

‘I would never hurt you,’ he tells me, and as stupid as it sounds, the conviction in his voice and warmth in his eyes have me believing him. I feel slightly more relaxed, at least he’s not some rapist kidnapper.

Just an annoyingly hot one.

‘So you’re not going to kill me?’ I ask and his eyes widen in horror at my question.

You don’t understand this yet, but if I killed you, it would kill me as well, he states and I look at him with confusion, he must mean figuratively, not literally.