The Hunted (15 page)

That was the first time that I saw him.

He was leaning casually against a palm tree with one jean clad leg crossed in front of the other. Even from this distance I could see that his arms were corded with muscle, folded across his chest in a gesture of self-assurance. His head was cocked slightly to the side, emphasising the chiselled squareness of his jaw. He was watching me dance, the heat of his gaze upon me, all but melting my skin. He was still too far away from me to make out any more detail than that, but I knew that it was me that he was staring at.

The scent of sweet spices and sandalwood gripped my senses again and I inhaled deeply, letting the sweet masculine scent fill me entirely. He was definitely its source, but how? I’d never been able to smell a person’s essence before. I usually could only smell the variety of scents that people layered upon themselves. But this was different. The smell coming from him was his essence, not manufactured. I felt certain of it.

The crowd surged again and I took the opportunity to creep closer to him while I had the cover of bodies to hide my advances. I didn’t want to scare him off, but at the same time there was something a little off about him. I still did not sense that I was in any danger, though.

I could see a little better from here. I had never seen anyone in my entire life that looked quite like he did. His short dark hair, although a little longer around the top and fringe area, was stylish mussed as if he had just walked off a photo shoot. From this distance I could see that his skin was much like my own, pale and blemish free, but there was a perfection about it that made me wonder if it wasn’t just a trick of the night sky or the poor illumination.

I couldn’t take my eyes off him for a second. I might have been imagining it, but it felt as if there was a strange pull between us, an invisible cord that kept my eyes firmly locked on his. It was as if he was silently calling me to him, willing me with his eyes to weave my way through this crowd of people and go to him.

All pretence of any decent form of dancing stopped the minute that his scent enveloped me again. It descended upon me like a thick cloud that wrapped itself around my appendages and forced me forwards down the path. My mind clouded over, the dizzying scent disorientating me. I heard no sounds other than my own breathing and the people around me appeared to be moving in slow motion.

I shook myself free of the fog and snapped my eyes away from his—the spell was instantly broken.

The crowd started to move again, surging around me like a storm, and closing the gap between the strange man and myself. The smell dissipated too. Noise returned, catapulting me back into reality.

What the hell just happened, and who the hell is that guy?

Kayla came dancing towards me again, small beads of perspiration forming on her forehead and hairline. She wiped it away and sighed happily, as she flung an arm over my shoulder and dragged me back to where she was dancing. But I was no longer in the mood to dance. I had too much running through my mind to concentrate.

‘Hey,’ I shouted above the music, ‘I’m just going to have a little break and grab a drink.’

‘You want me to come with?’ she shouted back, all concern.

I summoned my best smile. ‘No, its fine. I’ll come and find you again soon, just enjoy the party.’

She nodded and turned to dance with another semi-good looking guy behind her. Not that Kayla was overly fussy when it came to male attention, she just liked to keep her lips busy.

I saw an opening in the crowd again and snaked my way through. It took some effort, but I finally found myself outside the crowd near the trees where we had first come in.

I glanced over my shoulder and quickly perused the area of palm trees where the man had been leaning, but he was nowhere to be seen. I noted the absence of coconuts. At least he had some intelligence.

I wandered the beach for a short time, looping around the perimeter of the rave, trying to sniff out the scent again, but he appeared to have vanished.

I gave up after ten minutes of searching. It was clear that he either did not want to be found or that he had simply left and gone home. Why I thought he would be waiting for me to confront him I had no idea, and to be honest I wasn’t really the stalker type.

I found a suspect looking group of guys and a few girls that had created a makeshift sign out of Styrofoam, advertising that they were selling drinks. They looked baked and were undoubtedly profiteering from the unfortunate lack of drinking supplies and I was left little choice unless seawater had suddenly become consumable.

I purchased a bottle of water off them, cursing lightly under my breath as the five dollar note that left my hand did not return any change. I checked the contents of the bottle just to make sure that what I was purchasing was in fact just water. With that sort of price tag there should have been an accompaniment of fries and a burger and a happy little person at a drive through window passing it all to me in a brown paper bag.

I stood there for a while, turning my back to the stoners, and watched the crazy procession of neon glow sticks waving wildly through the night sky while I sipped gratefully at my drink. The exorbitant price was all but forgotten as the cool liquid eased the dryness collecting at the back of my throat.

The wind blew gently through the trees and whipped through my hair, blowing strands of its length into my eyes. I blinked repeatedly and tried in vain to pick them out, bumping the water bottle against my nose and forehead in the process.

I threw my head backwards and brushed all of the hair from my face.

Slowly, I lowered my hands and tilted my head forwards again as the scent of sweet spice and sandalwood all but consumed me. I searched quickly and my eyes found their target. The man I had been watching earlier was standing not more than a couple of feet away from me now. My voice caught in my throat as he brushed his fingers across my cheek, collecting the stray strands of hair and tucking them gently behind my ears.

The air seemed to grow still around me as I stared, mesmerised by the emerald green depths of his eyes, shocked by his presence and touch. I was unable to formulate any words, let alone string a sentence together.

I slowly pulled the pouch of my bag around just in case I needed my knife. Despite how harmless he appeared, there was a hunger in his eyes that I had never seen in another soul before—it made me slightly uncomfortable. Besides, boys this good-looking should never be trusted, particularly boys that touch without asking.

‘There, now, does that feel better?’ he said in a deep, velvety voice that was rich in British inflection. He was obviously foreign. If he was a typical drunk Aussie teen then he would have gone for the obvious bum or boob grope first rather than an innocent caress. Still, British, Italian, Indian, or Aussie—it didn’t matter. He touched without asking, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

The man’s hand dropped to his side again as if he had somehow read my mind. He looked at me expectantly. His head cocked to the side, waiting for me to respond, a small smile playing at the corner of his thick, full lips.

The wave of scent hit me again like a punch to the face and it took all the self-control I had to stop my knees from buckling underneath me. ‘Tell me who you are,’ I said, feeling dazed as my eyes blinked and then opened again.

Focus Elena, I think he’s doing it on purpose.

How?

I don’t know.

‘What kind of question is that?’ he murmured, his gaze never leaving mine.

I forced myself to forget the haze of sweet smelling scent and focused on him instead. ‘You’re doing something to me and I want you to stop it.’

His eyebrow rose questioningly. ‘Is that so?’

My hand slowly snaked into my bag, my fingers wound tightly around the hilt of the knife. Another wave descended upon me and it was almost too much to bear. It wasn’t so much the smell itself that was overwhelming, it was the reaction that his scent caused inside my body. It was like he was setting off tiny fires in the pit of my stomach. Not painful exactly, but something else.

‘I said stop that!’ I spat out, staring up at him with angry eyes.

A small smirk tilted the corners of his mouth as he eyed me. ‘You can feel me doing that to you?’ he quietly asked, taking another step towards me. The surprise was evident on his face.

‘That’s close enough,’ I said, gripping the knife tighter and slowly withdrawing it from the confines of my bag.

His green eyes studied me briefly, defiantly. ‘Or what?’ he said, taking another step towards me and instantly regretting the decision. The insolent look on his face was wiped away when he peered down at the knife that I now had pressed against his groin.

I tapped it threateningly against his pants a couple of times to reiterate my point. ‘Or I’ll do something that
you
might regret.’

Amusement flared in the depths of his emerald eyes and he took a step backwards. ‘Far be it for me to argue with the lady who wields the knife.’

‘A smart decision,’ I said, as I too stepped backwards, lowering the knife to my side. His scent immediately melted into the air around me, leaving only a faint trace of the smell radiating from his skin.

‘Who are you?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’

I frowned. ‘Hey buddy, I asked first and I’m not the one with the crazy smell.’

He chuckled and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Wow, those really were some nice muscles that he had. ‘Yes, but I’m not the one carrying around a hunting knife in their bag either.’

‘Are you going to avoid all of my questions?’

‘It’s highly probable,’ he said, amusement lighting his eyes again. Wow. Muscles or not, I could tell this guy was out to annoy me.

‘You’re not being helpful,’ I said flatly. ‘If you’re not going to tell me who you are, and to be honest I guess I really don’t care, at least tell me how you did that to me.’

He considered my question quietly before raising a finger in the air. ‘First … you tell me how you could sense that I was in fact
doing
something to you, as you put it.’

I shrugged. ‘I could smell you. You overpower everyone else here. If you smelled like every other sweaty, drunk teenager in the vicinity our conversation would be over with by now.’

His eyes narrowed and he took a step towards me again. I gripped the knife tightly and held it steadily by my side.

‘You could smell me?’

‘That’s what I just said, isn’t it?’

‘How?’

I shook my head and tapped my nose, as if the answer was obvious. ‘Look, I answered your question, now answer mine. Who are you? Or should I say, what are you?’

‘I’m William, William Granville,’ he held his hand out for me to shake, ‘Just your regular, sweaty, overly-hormonal teen.’

I looked at his outstretched hand for a few seconds and blinked. I was a Monkey’s uncle if this guy was a sweaty, regular teen. My instincts told me to stay back.

He shrugged lightly and gave another barely concealed smile, crossing his arms lightly across his chest again. Up this close to him, there was no ignoring just how exceptional his looks were. Even for someone like me who wasn’t currently interested in boys, I couldn’t help but notice how attractive he really was. His jaw line was hard and masculine, and as noted earlier, there were no pimples, blemishes or freckles. He was at least a head taller than I was—putting him at about six foot something—and it was refreshing to meet a guy taller than me. He wore a white singlet which clung perfectly to his body, enhancing his toned chest and muscled arms. The rest of his body was encased in dark denim jeans and he walked barefoot in the sand just like me.

He was probably no more than my age, twenty at the most, but there was something about him that I recognised. His eyes held experience and wisdom, like an old soul trapped in a young body. I’d heard the expression before and it sounded lame, and I’d never really understood what it meant until now.