"Mystery," he said. His voice caught Jenny halfway across the room. She hesitated in spite of herself. What on earth did he mean?
"Danger. Seduction. Fear." Jenny turned back to face him, staring. There was something almost mesmerizing about his voice--it was full of elemental music, like water running over rock. "Secrets revealed. Desires unveiled." He smiled at her and pronounced the last word distinctly: "Temptation."
"What are you talking about?" she said, tensed to hit him or run if he took one step toward her.
He didn't. His eyes were as innocently blue as Nordic fjords. "The Game, of course. That's what you want, isn't it? Something...very special."
Something very special.
Exactly what she'd thought herself.
"I think," she said slowly, "that I better--"
"We do have something like that in stock," he said.
Now's your chance, she told herself when he disappeared through a door into the back room. You can just walk out of here. And she was going to leave, she was just about to go, when he appeared again.
"I think," he said, "that this is what you've been looking for."
She looked at what he was holding, then up at his face.
"You've got to be joking," she said.
The box was about the size and shape of a Monopoly game. It was white and glossy and there wasn't a single word, line, or figure printed on it.
A blank white box.
Jenny waited for the punch line.
There was something about it, though. The more she looked at the box, the more she felt...
"Could I see it?" she said. Touch it, was what she meant. For some reason she wanted to feel the weight of it in her hands, the sharpness of its corners in her palms. It was silly, but she did want to. She really wanted to. The Forbidden Game Volume I: The Hunter

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