What He Guards (What He Wants, Book Twelve) by Hannah Ford Read Free Book Online Page A

flash of movement out of the corner of my eye.   I turned my head toward the corner of
the room where I’d thought I’d saw it, but there was nothing there.  
    “Charlotte,” Noah said, concerned.   “What is it?”
    “Nothing.”   I shook my head.   “I just… ”   I saw it again
before I could finish my sentence.
    A slight flicker of movement toward the
corner of the room.  
    I took a few steps toward the wall.
    And that’s when I saw it.
    Someone had drilled two holes in the
cement.
    And a pair of eyes was staring back at
me.
    Someone had been watching us the whole
time.
    “Charlotte,” Noah said.   “What’s wrong?”
    He followed my line of sight and I
watched as understanding dawned on his face.
    “Stay there,” he said.
    A second later, he was rushing out of the
room.  
    There was no way I was staying here
without him.
    I followed him back out into the main
area of the club, just as a masked figure ran out of the room next door.   The figure rushed toward the back of
the club, weaving in and out of the dense throng of club goers that populated
in the main room.
    Noah chased after the figure, and I
chased after Noah.
    The masked man was moving toward the back
of the club, to a corridor that snaked off to one side.
    He ran into the hallway, and Noah ran
after him.
    I struggled to keep up with them as Noah
chased the man down the winding corridors, taking turn after turn.   I had that same feeling I’d had last
time I was here, like I was being led underground.   But while before it had felt like I was going down stairs or
descending in an elevator, this felt more like we were really going
underground, deep into a basement or a dungeon.
    The musty smell intensified.
    My breath was coming in short gasps, and
I realized I had no shoes on.   The
roughness of the cement floor was gritty under my feet as I forced my legs to
keep moving.
    Eventually, we reached the end of the
hallway.   At the end was a large
set of double doors with a sign on them that read NO UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS --
DUNGEON MASTERS ONLY.
    But the masked man pushed right through
the door.
    A second later, Noah followed him.  
    So I followed him, too.
    “Charlotte,” Noah said, when he realized
I was behind him.   “What the fuck are you doing?”
    “I had to,” I gasped.   “I can’t… I couldn’t stay there without
you.”
    “Jesus, Charlotte,” he said.   “You are being incredibly stupid right
now.”
    He was a few feet ahead of me and he
turned a corner.
    As he did, a door on the corridor opened
right in front of me, blocking my way and stopping me in my tracks.
    A woman skittered out into the
hallway.   She was down on the
floor, holding onto the doorknob, her body half in and half out of the
room.   I looked down, startled and
confused.   She gazed up at me.   She was naked, her skin that same bronze I’d seen earlier on the waitress.
    It was the waitress.   I recognized her sparkling blue eyes, her high
sculpted cheekbones.
    “Help me,” she said, grabbing at my
ankles.   Her long nails scratched
my skin.   “Please, you have to get
me out of there.   They’re going to
kill me.   They’re going to kill me,
they want to use me for – ”
    But before she could finish, a pair of gloved
hands grabbed her ankles and pulled her back into the room.   A second later, the door shut and the
sound of a bolt turning echoed through the hallway.
    I kept moving, following Noah, my heart
beating in fear.
    When I found him again, he’d caught up to
the masked man.   Noah had wrestled
him to the ground, pinning him by the arms as the man struggled.
    But Noah overpowered him.
    I watched in terror as Noah reached down
and grabbed the bottom of the man’s leather mask, pulling it over his face,
exposing the man who’d been watching us, the man who’d said he was going to cut
me and gut me, the man who’d said he’d been excited to watch me die.
    As the mask moved up over his skin,
revealing his face, I