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

17:36

1/8

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 nothing.

plink–plink of something dripping.

voices are

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

incessant sound 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 laughter. Frustration rips through

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142 Usa Chained

and I scream, the sound

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

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

can barely stand, the shackles forcing me

Plink. Plink–plink.

to force my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Shapes slowly emerge from the inky blackness. Rough stone walls, a small window high above

a

A fucking cell..

142 Lika Chained

vampire’s dungeon like a gothic

1. am.

Plink–plink–plink.

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

I want to scream again, to rage against the unfairness

hidden deep inside. I can’t shift into

and

I hate this.

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

was here to tell me I told you so.

smugness over this any day of the

how? How can he possibly find me when I don’t

142 143 Chalice)

know where I

eyes, hot and bitter. I let them fall,

She won’t give up on me. She’ll tear this

really

I don’t know anything about this world.

so fucking scared

Plink.

Plink–plink.

Plink.

maddening, the irregularity of it. I want to scream, to beg for it to stop.

blood and focus on the pain. It grounds me, keeps me from slipping

342 LISA Chamed

have to hold on. I have to believe that Kellan and Ava will find me. That Lucas and the Westwood pack will tear this place apart stone by stone until they bring me home.

believe that. Because the alternative is too

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

for a moment, just a moment,

Plink.

fills my mind and

ago was his 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