Page 1 of Stolen Love

Chapter One

Ivy

“Wake up, Ivy. Wake up.”

The man’s voice breaks through the silence that surrounds me as I float in an inky black pool. On my back, I spread my arms up above my head, making lazy butterflies that turn into obsidian colored ripples.

There is nothing around me but darkness. I breathe it in and swallow it down. This must be what it’s like in one of those sensory deprivation tanks. Or in the womb. Relaxed and empty. No cares. No worries. My senses and emotions muted.

I am simply here. Existing. And yet, somehow, it feels like it would be okay if I shut my eyes and cease to be. My heavy limbs melt into the darkness and my breath grows shallower.

“Come now, Ivy Love. It’s time to wake up.” I know the man who is speaking, but I can’t place him. There’s something about the tenor of his voice. A demandingness to his tone that is neither likable nor particularly unfriendly.

It fades away and I am enveloped back into the peacefulness.

“Ivy?” This time the voice is a woman’s. Sweet and as familiar as my own.

It’s accompanied by the sensation of a weight settling on both of my wrists. They burn and itch and I lift one to my face. Oh. It comes into view through the pitch black. Like I’ve lifted it out of water or shadow. Scarlet lines mar my pale flesh. Thick drops of blood ooze from them and roll down my forearms. I’m bleeding.What happened?

“She’s not waking up.” The woman’s voice turns urgent. “Oh God, we need to call for an ambulance.”

“No.”

My dark little world quakes like that one word is a bomb that has been dropped inside my head. It shakes the peaceful weight that has settled in my bones. The noise echoes and fractures so that it sounds like many voices.

“You’ve gone too far.” The woman’s voice grows desperate. “You’re going to kill her.”

His response is cool. Disinterested. Strange and distorted. “Does it matter?”

I’m going to die?

Dark hair, tousled. Blue eyes, pleading and fearful.“I need you to be strong for me, baby. I need you to hold on.”

“But I’m so tired.”A stubbled jaw. I can still feel the bristle of it on my fingertips.

“Just stay with me. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere, so don’t you leave me, Ivy. Stay with me, baby. Stay with me.”There’s so much desperation in his voice. Love.

“Rogue.”My heart quakes. We were so close to being happy.My playboy turned prince and I. After everything we’ve been through. After he searched for me obsessively and brought me out of the shadows. After we fell in love despite the war between his brothers and mine. Despite my mother’s attempts to keep control of me.

“Ivy?” The woman calls out to me again, this time her voice is clearer, closer. I feel the warmth of her breath caress my cheek. I know her. Dizzy? “West, you have to help her.”

“Dizzy, we need to leave,” the male voice I now recognize as West says. A brightness pierces the darkness like a spotlight. Once. Twice.

I’m drawn to the light like a moth to flame. Leaving the sweet surrender, I rise up through the inky pool. But the surface is thick glass, and my distorted reflection stares back at me with fear in her eyes. My hands are so heavy as I try to make fists. My wrists sting as I bang on the impossible barrier. Crimson droplets become splatters of color in the blackness, like paint on canvas.

I try to call out, but liquid fills my mouth and eyes and nose. Thick like tar, it chokes me with every breath. Grows more and more suffocating.

“Please wake up, Ivy.” Dizzy’s voice turns louder. It’s directly in my head now. Urging me on.“We didn’t come all this way for you to give up. Show me you’re not the pathetic and weak person I’ve seen so far. You are stronger than this.”

A loud sound is followed by my head filling with a stinging sensation. My eyes burn.

“Be strong for me, baby, and hold on,”Rogue says, but his voice distorts into Dizzy’s. “You have to be strong. You’re like me. I know you are.” It morphs again until it’s Rogue I hear. His deep timbre tugging at my heart and making me beat against the walls keeping me imprisoned.“I’m waiting, baby.”

My heart pounds louder as my lungs tighten and burn. But the glass is too thick, and it isn’t giving way. My breathing is as rapid as my heart is loud. My thoughts spin out into the certainty that I am going to die here. Trapped. Alone.

I don’t want to leave Rogue. I’m not ready. I will never be ready. Not when we were finally together. Happy.

And yet part of me knows that I cannot win against my family. That I will never be strong enough to fight them. I have spent my entire life trying not to make ripples. Letting the people who are supposed to love me hurt me. Until I was frightened of my own shadow.

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