Page 15 of Chain Me

“I should have killed you,” he whispered. One of his hands still raked through his hair, destroying his suave poise. Gone was the calm, collected contractor. In his place was a creature more beast than man. “I should want to kill you,” he added, flicking his gaze up to mine. “The trouble you’ve caused me. The years. The chaos. The sacrifice. I swore to myself I’d never believe him, not for a goddamn second. But you…”

“I what?” I tensed. Was he finally referring to his contract?

“Youpersist. Weeks spent trying to prove that you were nothing.” He chuckled at the absurdity of it, prowling forward, bracing his hands on my knees. “And I return to find you on my doorstep, ready for more.” He shoved my dress over my hips and something rare splintered his anger, tugging on the corner of his mouth as he swept his gaze over me.

My legs twitched, ached to clamp together. Hide from him. As if sensing the thought, he traced a path down my inner thigh, observing every twitch of my spine.

“There is something wrong with you,” he grated. “Something broken. It’s like you truly are cursed. Corrupt. Like he planned you for me after all. He made you for me.”

“Who?” My mind reeled. He was talking too fast. Hatred for him was becoming harder and harder to hold on to. And, God, I needed it. My fingers grasped the sheets as if I could find the emotion among them. “Raphael?”

“Why should I fight it?” he demanded, stroking his thumb up over my belly. My heaving breast. My throat. I trembled with every inch gained; drawn nails added a predatory fervor to each, pointed caress. “You are tailor-made to resist me every step of the way, aren’t you?”

He lowered his head. A brush of ice against the flesh of my throat was my only warning before…pain. His teeth, I realized belatedly as his jaw nudged mine, urging me to arch, exposing more.

“You are mine, Eleanor Gray,” he declared. “Bodyandsoul.”

Then…

He bit.

And everything went red.

Vibrant, beautiful scarlet rich enough to erase the gray my life had become.

I was too far gone to even care that I was drowning in blood.

Diagnosis

Asymphony of beeping machinery lured me into consciousness. Just from the way my nostrils twitched, I knew where I was before my eyes even opened.

A hospital.

Over the past year, I’d been in enough of them to envision the layout of this room entirely from assumption. A spacious one, judging from the echo. Private, most likely.

I wasn’t alone, either—that had to be a first. Someone nearby was speaking in a hushed voice. My doctor?

Or perhapsdevilwould be a more fitting term.

“I didn’t know who else to call,” the man said, his voice easily placed. Dublin. My eyes were too heavy to open, but I could picture him paces away, scowling to match the gruffness of his baritone. “She trusts you, at least. Perhaps you can discover who the…cause of this may be.”

“Cause? I should have never let you order me to stay away from her,” a woman replied, her lilting accent distinct.

I knew her as well. My brain struggled to recall a name, but forming a solid thought at all felt like grasping at tendrils of smoke. All I could do was listen.

“Though it seems you haven’t kept to that stupid ‘bargain,’ either,” she said accusingly. “I thought you weren’t planning on returning for at least a few years—”

“There was a complication,” Dublin interjected. “A minor one. Once it is resolved, I don’t plan on staying long.”

“You mean a complication concerning Eleanor,” the woman surmised. “I thought you might have been watching her—and you have, haven’t you?”

“Only enough to know that she consulted a doctor who began contacting outside experts regarding her case. I decided to intervene before the chatter could catch Raphael’s attention.”

“Something you could order any one of your associates to do,” the woman pointed out. “You could have asked me as well. Though, I should have visited her anyway, with or without your permission. Maybe I could have prevented her from… To be honest, I thought you were joking at first. I mean, Eleanor isn’t exactly the type of woman one would expect to wind up in this condition.”

“Are you implying that I’m incompetent? I ran the tests more than once,” Dublin snapped. “I had them corroborated with several other professionals—”

“Leaving out one obvious reason why this doesn’t make any sense, I am sure. Unless… You don’t really think she’s been with someone else since you’ve—”