Total pages in book: 171
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 167204 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 836(@200wpm)___ 669(@250wpm)___ 557(@300wpm)
“Silvan?”
Rather than answer me, he plants a big hand atop my head and makes me duck. “Watch your head.”
I’m afraid to step down when I can’t see where I’m going and I’m not wearing shoes. I guess he notices my hesitation, because he grabs me around the waist and lifts me out of the car.
I gasp as he does, instinctively grabbing at him. I feel a muscular bicep and broad shoulder, so I guess my grab landed.
“Easy there,” he says good-naturedly, but he wastes little time removing my hand from his body.
“Sorry,” I say, feeling my face warm. “I didn’t mean to—I was just—I didn’t want to fall.”
“You’re fine,” he assures me. “And yes, I’m Silvan. Curious how you know me, but I don’t know you, though.”
“Apparently you’re very popular,” I inform him.
“Am I?” he asks, sounding amused.
I nod. “I hear you throw great parties.”
Silvan chuckles, then he grabs my arm and slowly leads me forward.
Unfortunately, since I was ripped from my bed and hauled out of my apartment like a sack of potatoes, I’m barefoot. I can feel the damp sidewalk beneath me, then I feel when the texture changes.
A door opens a second later.
“Watch your step,” Silvan says, still guiding me.
“It would be helpful if I could take off the blindfold,” I point out.
“Don’t push your luck,” he advises.
“I’m just saying,” I murmur.
I cross the threshold and judge this floor to be some kind of tile, maybe. No, hardwood.
The door closes behind me.
“This is taking too long,” Shane states, and a moment later Silvan is no longer guiding me and Shane is picking me up, planting his arm under my ass and hoisting me so he can throw me over his shoulder again.
I sigh with annoyance because this is not comfortable.
He doesn’t seem to care, though.
He is quicker carrying me than I was walking blindfolded, but I still get the impression I’m being hauled quite a ways because we’re walking for a while, traversing different levels. I can tell the rooms are changing, too. Some smaller, others more cavernous.
It feels cooler when we get to the last room. Bigger, too.
Shane shifts his hold on me, pulling me off his shoulder. “I’m gonna set you down for just a minute.”
My feet touch the cool ground. It feels like stone.
Then he lifts me again, but this time, bridal style.
I don’t know why my stomach sinks.
Then, a moment later, he puts me down on a hard surface.
A table?
“Lie down, Brynn.”
It’s Shane speaking, and he doesn’t sound excited, but he does sound resigned.
“Why?” I ask softly.
“Just do it,” Silvan says.
I swallow, but I recline back on the hard table.
This feels very wrong.
Déjà vu hits me when a hand grabs my ankle and loops what feels like a rope around it with surgical precision. My stomach feels sick, and I place a hand against my abdomen, begging it to settle.
I wince when he knots it tight, just like the night of Kyle’s party.
I can’t believe I’m letting them do this.
I feel insane. I should be fighting them. Why am I not fighting them?
But these are Killian’s friends, and I’ve met some of them. Surely they won’t hurt me. Surely they aren’t that bad.
I mean, okay, some of them killed a couple of guys last night.
Damn, I keep forgetting that.
None of these guys seem like murderers to me.
Well, maybe Hex. I could see him killing someone.
And I guess the one in leather gloves didn’t seem hesitant to do whatever Hex asked him to do, so he probably—
He grabs my other ankle, and loops another rope around it. I hear noise beneath the table, and I assume he’s anchoring the ropes to something down there.
Clearing my throat, I say, “Um, I think I’m being very, very cooperative. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
A new voice joins the pack—well, a new voice for tonight.
“Didn’t I tell you to drug her? Why is she able to speak?”
Hex.
“We drugged her when he dragged her out of the apartment,” the guy I still don’t know says.
“She behaved herself in the car,” Silvan says. “She begged us not to drug her again, and it didn’t seem necessary, so we didn’t.”
“She was blindfolded when I carried her in,” Shane adds. “She didn’t see anything.”
I hear slow footsteps around the table. “Is that true, Brynn? Did you see anything?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I don’t know where I am.”
He slides his hands beneath my head and I gasp, caught off guard. But then he unties the blindfold, and I feel the material go slack against my face.
He tugs the material away, and then I’m looking up at him, only he’s standing over me, so he looks upside down.
My tummy flips upside down, too.
He looks sinister, but maybe it’s the setting.
Because now that I can see, I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified.