The Duke's Sins | ongoing

The Hunter's Play

10~the hunter's play

It put me too close to him.

Six months in the Duke's proximity were six months too many.

I forced control into my breaths, my thighs aching as I walked up the steep driveway. Thin streaks of water fell sharply onto the ground, splintering the surface of puddles before the water rippled away, forming one body.

With an enraged pull, I yanked the damned ring off my damned finger and dropped it into one of the damned puddles.

I let out a curse as my foot landed in one, the murky water splashing up the sides of my boots. I shook my foot out, rushing into the house.

Wet footsteps followed in after me, mud dragging across the immaculate marble of the mansion.

"Del?" My mother peered out from the dining room, her warm smile tugging at my heart.

"I'm sorry I couldn't come sooner."

She wrapped her arms around me in a tight engulf, rocking me back and forth in her embrace. "Come sit."

She no longer bothered with questions about my day, or how work was going or how I was feeling.

As far as she was concerned, I held a demanding job as a journalist and the longest I'd ever spent at home whenever I visited was an hour.

I dropped into a pool of exhaustion at the dinner table. I had barely the energy to form cohesive sentences--but my mind whirred; relentlessly and painfully.

"Delilah," Daniel acknowledge, ruffling his hand through my hair. I almost pounced after my brother as he jogged away.

I forced a slow breath through my lungs, rolling my shoulders.

I was pissed at the Duke. Not all of humankind.

"I think he's found someone." She blew at her coffee, watching after Daniel.

"That explains it," I mumbled blandly.

"No, seriously," she set her mug down, turning to me. "I've never seen him so rooted. That reminds me," she blinked as if she hadn't been dying to ask me ever since I crossed the threshold of the house. "How is Dave?"

I smiled, placing a hand over hers. "Happily engaged."

Her smile faltered slightly. Wherever and whenever I was seen, so was Dave. Naturally, my mother had assumed some kind of relationship.

"Really? When did he get engaged?"

He wasn't. The only thing Dave would ever get engaged to was his duty.

"Last month."

She hummed, sipping at her coffee. "Good for him, I suppose."

I squeezed her hand, a silent apology for all my lies and deceit. As if on cue, my phone buzzed in my pocket, the vibrations rippling through my skin.

I eyed the screen, narrowing my eyes.

"Who's speaking?" I kept my voice clipped and crisp, my patience running short.

"I am."

I struggled to withhold a gasp at the low voice. His every syllable spoke of sensuality, a promise of dark wanting.

I cut the Duke short, an empty beep sounding as I hung up.

My mother's eyebrows shot up. "Is there a problem?" She smiled uneasily. "I understand if you have to leave."

Something tugged at my chest. "No. It was a wrong number."

Not wanting to bear witness to her poorly concealed sadness, I pressed a quick kiss to her cheek before rushing through the manor.