Tangled

142 Lisa: Chained

The sound of water dripping is the first thing to break through the darkness of my mind.

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

It’s an erratic rhythm that leaves me uncomfortable.

The voices come next, soft, sibilant whispers. Evil. Whoever they are, they’d be the villains in any story.

Eventually, I realize the darkness is really just pain. Pain that throbs and aches in half my face. But why?

Vampires.

That’s why.

My eyes fly open when I finally remember, and I struggle to sit up, blinking into the darkness.

I can’t see anything.

Are my eyes open?

My hands won’t reach my face, yanking against

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142 Lisa: Chained

something cold and hard around my wrists.

Manacles?

Swiping my hands around, I can feel the heavy, rusted chains holding me down, bolted to the floor.

Fuck.

This is…

Really not good.

Ava. Is Ava here?

whisper, but there’s

plink, plink–plink of something

the voices are gone.

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

slithers into my mind, coiling around my heart and squeezing with a mania of isolation and fear. I try to move again, the chains rattling like mocking

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142 Usa Chained

the sound raw

arms, but I don’t care. I have to get out. I have to

forearms. Sobs wrack my body, each one tearing out of my throat.

barely stand, the shackles forcing me to hunch over. My muscles burn from the

Plink. Plink–plink.

the darkness. Shapes slowly emerge from the inky blackness. Rough stone walls, a small window high above my head.

in a cell.

A fucking cell..

142 Lika Chained

in a strangled laugh. I’m chained up in some vampire’s dungeon like a gothic romance heroine. Except there’s no dashing hero coming to save me.

1. am.

Plink–plink–plink.

if mocking my S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Findɴovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access

scream again, to rage against the unfairness of

or super strength hidden deep inside. I can’t shift into a wolf or melt into

Humans are weak and helpless against

I hate this.

drift to Kellan. I’d hated how he was always around. Hated his grim determination to keep

desperately that he was here to tell me I told

this any day of the week.

possibly find me when

142 143 Chalice)

know where

hot and bitter. I let them fall,

won’t

be enough? Can they really go

don’t know anything about

so fucking scared and I don’t know what to

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

driving out every other thought. It’s maddening, the irregularity of it. I want to scream,

focus on the pain. It

342 LISA Chamed

and Ava will find me. That Lucas and the Westwood pack will tear this place apart stone by stone

that. Because the alternative

and picture Kellan’s face. I imagine his arms around me, his voice in my ear telling me it’s going

just a moment, I almost

Plink.

least until Bren’s face fills my mind and I can’t stop thinking about

weird breeding kink and the biting. Of how he wasn’t great at foreplay. Of the slightly–better–than mediocre sex and then the aphrodisiac that had elevated it to good