Page 2 of Sugar Coated

A moment passed, and the Devil pulled himself away from me. He walked with a hurried pace to the door, as if to put as much distance between us as quickly as possible. Before I knew it, I was alone in my room once more, left to wonder what that encounter meant.

In the beginning, I knew I couldn’t trust him. It wasn’t until time had passed that I came to the conclusion he never lied to me.

My Devil never touched me like that… not until the night he found me about to give my virginity to a stranger.

Chapter One – Laina

This kidnapping wasn’t like that. In fact, when I finally woke to find myself tied to an old wooden chair in a small, dingy room that I’d never seen before in my life, my mind was fuzzy enough that I didn’t even remember the whole kidnapping thing. It took me way too long to piece it all together, to recall the events that led up to this particular plot twist.

I snuck out of the house to go to a party with Kelly. A college party. My goal was singular in its purpose: to hook up with a good-looking guy and live a little, something I was never particularly good at before. Rebel. Make a mistake. Do what I should’ve been doing my whole childhood instead of playing nice.

Why? Because screw my dad and his political dreams, that’s why. Screw Tessa. Screw it all.

But before I could seal the deal with the lucky guy, something unexpected happened. My Devil came, proving that he had indeed been keeping watch over me this entire time. He stopped me from sleeping with the stranger… by throwing him out of the room and taking his place.

By taking me as his, finally.

My Devil had given me no time at all to revel in it, however, because as soon as he took me, he abandoned me. He practically ran away, and though I tried to find him, I couldn’t. It was like he disappeared out of thin air.

I went outside, hoping I’d find him, but when I found nothing and no one, I got sad. Upset. I didn’t want to go back inside to the party; all I wanted to do was go home, so I called Mike. The man must’ve been sleeping, because he didn’t answer.

I was so caught up in my shit that I neglected to realize a van had rolled up beside me. I didn’t see it until it was too late. A sackwas pulled down over my head and I was lugged into that van, where I vaguely remembered being stuck with a needle of some sort; a drug, maybe?

And then… I woke up here, wherever here is, tied to a freaking chair with my wrists pulled behind my back and my ankles fastened to the legs with rope so thick and tight there was no way in hell I’d be able to wiggle myself free.

Oh, and who could forget the pounding headache that was currently making me feel like I needed to vomit?

I looked all around, hoping I’d see something. Someone. Anything, really. But all I saw was a room that was maybe the size of my bathroom at home, the dirty walls made of concrete block and no windows. The stains on the walls and floor were questionable; if I had to guess, I’d say they were from someone doing an awful lot of bleeding. A single door sat in front of me, a few feet away, closed.

If this was my first kidnapping, I’d be freaking out right about now. Struggling in vain to tug at my restraints, trying my damnedest to get the hell out of here—because who knew what could happen to me?

But this wasn’t my first rodeo, and I wasn’t the same girl I used to be. I was actually quite calm as I took in my surroundings, the calmest a kidnapping victim could possibly be.

This couldn’t be my Devil. My Devil would never have drugged me. No, this had to be someone else. Maybe orchestrated by the same person who tried to have me shot at my first public appearance since the kidnapping, the one where Kieran saved my life and was now in a coma because of it?

If it’s them… if it was the same people, I hoped they got what was coming to them. Kieran, as much as he used to get on my nerves, didn’t deserve that. He—even now, knowing he’s inthe hospital, alone, filled me with unease. Somewhere along the way, Kieran had wormed his way into my heart.

The notion alone was enough to make me close my eyes and suck in a hard breath. My Devil, then Kieran… the crazy thing was, they weren’t alone in my heart.

I could be a brat. I could say things I shouldn’t with ease. I hoped I wouldn’t die here, because I didn’t want to die without telling Mike that I was sorry for what I said at the hospital, after I saw Kieran’s comatose body. I told him my Devil never hurt me, that I made it look like I fought to escape.

The way he looked at me afterward, like I was a whole different person, made me feel like shit. And then I told him that if he said a word to my dad about it, I’d tell my dad that he tried to do inappropriate things with me.

A threat that, in hindsight, should never have come out of my mouth, something I did regret saying, now that I had time to think about it.

Maybe I just wasn’t a good person.

How else could I explain the fact that I was so intrigued by Fang—someone who made murder instruments for his own brother and made the queen of the criminals in this city a mask she could wear while she hunted for blood? He had two silver fangs in the place of his canine teeth, and he liked to use them. The man was weird.

And I couldn’t get enough.

Maybe my first kidnapping messed me up more than I thought it did. Not only did it give me a bit of Stockholm syndrome, but it screwed with my head and what I wanted.

Ugh, fuck this.

“Hello?” I said the word as loudly as I could, hoping but doubting I’d get an answer. Whoever took me made it clear already that they didn’t play by the same rules my Devil did, so I was all too aware I might not get out of this.

My Devil let me go, but these guys? Whoever they were, I might not be as lucky this time.

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