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?

but there’s

that erratic plink, plink–plink of

voices are

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

chest and I scream, the

wrists. Pain sears through my arms, but I don’t care. I have to get out.

skin tearing, blood trickling down my forearms. Sobs wrack my body, each

of me. I can barely stand, the shackles forcing me to hunch over. My muscles

Plink. Plink–plink.

to adjust to the darkness. Shapes slowly emerge from the inky blackness. Rough stone walls, a small window high above my head. The barest hint of moonlight

a cell.

A fucking cell..

142 Lika Chained

strangled laugh. I’m chained up in some vampire’s dungeon like a gothic romance heroine. Except

1. am.

Plink–plink–plink.

up pace, as if mocking my S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Findɴovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the

again, to rage

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

and helpless against the

I hate this.

drift to Kellan. I’d hated how he was always around. Hated his grim determination to keep us safe, at the expense of our

desperately that he was here to tell

smugness over this any day of the

he possibly find me when I don’t

142 143 Chalice)

where I

sting my eyes, hot and bitter. I let them fall, too tired to fight them.

determination and unwavering loyalty. She won’t give up on me. She’ll tear this world apart to find

it be enough? Can they really go up against vampires and win?

I don’t know

so fucking scared and I don’t

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

other thought. It’s maddening, the irregularity

bite my lip hard enough to taste blood and focus on the

342 LISA Chamed

find me. That Lucas and the Westwood pack will

Because the alternative

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

for a moment, just a moment, I almost believe it.

Plink.

fills my mind and I can’t stop thinking

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