Page 93 of Chain Me

“No!” I cringed against the wall as he took a step in my direction. “Stay away from me!”

He doesn’t care about you,the voice warned, growing louder. Deafening.He doesn’t. It’s obvious.

“You don’t care! Get out!”

But he didn’t look smug, like a villain called out in his vicious grand plan. He looked at me like I’d grown three heads. LikeIwas the monster.

“Get out!”

“Eleanor—”

“Get out!” I lunged for my bed, grabbed a pillow, and threw it at him.

When he easily sidestepped it, I snatched the vase on my bedside nightstand instead. It smashed against his chest, the broken pieces speckling the floor, as sharp as knives. But he remained, so I hurtled a picture frame at him next. A lamp.

Each weapon betrayed a shifting intention—less to repel him and increasingly tohurt.

“Get the hell away from me!”

When I aimed for the doorway again, another pillow in hand, he was already gone. I swayed, my weapon slipping from my fingers. Maybe he’d never been there at all? Maybe…he was already away from the manor, leaving me again.

Abandoning me again.

He didn’t give a damn about me. All he wanted was…

No.I tugged at my hair, desperate to clear my thoughts. My memories portrayed someone far different than what the voices painted. Someone who’d held me at my darkest moment. Who’d claimed to crave me. Protect me.

Voice breaking, I called out for him. “Dublin? Dublin!”

No response. My room remained empty—or was it?

No. Something was at the foot of my bed. Moving.

“D-Dublin?”

He didn’t come, and the noise strengthened, intensifying. Soft. Sweet.

I crept along my bed frame, drawn forward as if hypnotized. When I finally spotted the creature lying on the floor…

Shock brought me to my knees. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t even scream.

It was a baby. Someone had left her there naked, her tiny limbs perfectly formed—and an emotion unlike anything I’d ever felt drowned me.

She wasn’t a grotesque monster. No abomination.

She was beautiful.

Lively.Alive.

And as I gaped, her hands grasped at the air for me, her impish grin infectious. But the longer I stared, the more demanding her cries became. Insistent.

She needed me. I needed to hold her.

Cautiously, I drew closer, bringing a trembling hand against her tiny head and the cap of golden curls that shielded it. The strands felt like silk, a hue I’d only seen one other person possess. But her eyes… They were a blazing, burning green.

Like mine.

“Shhhh…” I tried to slip my hand beneath her tiny body. To hold her. To soothe her. Everything would be all right. She was safe. No one would ever hurt her. No one.