Page 108 of Lifebound

I wasflyingto him before I realized it, and I gripped his hands in mine.

“What the hell is happening here?” I asked because now I was touching him, and the moment I wasn’t so terrified as to pass out, I became pure arousal. My entire body had turned against me, and it demanded release even though it knew very well it couldn’t get it.

“It was on purpose, Wildcat. Calm down. I wanted them to take us away from that party, put us somewhere alone.”

“What?Why?!”

“Because you needed a break.” My mouth clamped shut. He was absolutely right—I did. Except being away from the fucking orgy wasn’t doing much to calm me down, apparently. “And because there’s no way they’d miss us trying to escape. We can’t make it out of this place if everyone can see us. We’re okay,” Rune insisted, squeezing my hands with those long fingers.

And now I was imagining them inside me.

I closed my eyes, shook my head. “Did you know they would put us in golden cages?”

“No, that part I didn’t see coming, but I can break us out of here. I just need a bit of time,” Rune said.

“Wedon’t have abit of time,” I reminded him, turning to look back at that door at the top of the stairs. I could barely see it now because of the dim lights and the way those little lightning bolts went up and down the bars like they were fucking insects running around.

“We do. We have time. I’ll get us out of here. All you have to do is sit tight and wait—can you do that? You have a couch right over there.”

I finally looked at the cage.

The entire space was maybe a little smaller than my room back home, and it indeed had one of those leather couches from upstairs, worn and used by the looks of it. It just reminded me of everything I’d seen up there. My thighs squeezed together, and a moan almost came out of me. There were ropes every few feet tied to the bars over my head, some so long they touched the concrete floor, some threaded with gold, and some a deep green. A chair was close to the door of the cage that was the most unusual chair I had ever seen, with thick armrests and the back slightly reclined, and there was an actual hole on the seat, which I really didn’t want to know the purpose of. Or of those chains that had fallen all around the thick legs that seemed to be nailed to the floor.

Then there was something I first thought was a changing screen, a divider, one of those I’d seen in movies behind which women used to change clothes—except this one looked pretty big if stretched out all the way, and it was made out of mirrors. My imagination was already running away from me, and I was picturing that mirrored screen spread all around me so that I could see myself and Rune from every single angle no matter where I looked.

Something else that could have been a record player was in the corner, close to a brass tray with ashes in the middle and these sticks all around, which reminded me of the one Miriam had burned to get me to tell her who I was. Dead plants in planters were in the other corners, too, and pieces of red silk were folded near them, covered in a thin layer of dust.

“I don’t want to be here.”

Mostly without Rune, but I didn’t want to be here at all. Not in this cage or basement or the Enclave—not on this goddamn continent.

“We won’t be here long,” Rune said, and I turned to him again, went closer, grabbed his hands.

“Is there any way I can come to your cage?”

He must have seen the desperation in my eyes because he paused for a second, just as two blue electricity charges ran up the bars to the sides of his face, making him look absolutely divine.

God, I wanted to lick his face so badly.

“No,” Rune said, but the way he said it—like he was pissed off. Like he wasjudgingme for trying to make this a little bit easier to bear. Like he was mad that I’d even ask to be close to him when he knew better than I did what the very air in this place was doing to me.

“NoI can’t,or noyou don’t want me to?” I asked, and I was angry, too. So damn pissed off—mostly at myself, but also at these creatures who behaved like they owned me, and at Rune, too, for both sayingyeswhen asked if I was his slave, and for not being equally as desperate for me as I was for him.

“You can’t,” he said, and slowly he let go of my hands, putting his back to his cage, knowing very well that those little lightning bolts hurt me, and I couldn’t reach out for him at all.

“And it’s for the best. You need some time to cool down,” he added.

I laughed bitterly—how could I not? It wasn’theartbreakthat I was feeling—no way, that wasn’t possible. It was just anger and this strange feeling ofbetrayalthat was coming over me, that was making me feel just as crazy and just as worthless as I had my whole life.

Once in my miserable existence I actuallyreallyliked a man, and I wanted him with my entire being, and he was looking at me likethiswith those beautiful eyes?

My God, I’d never been closer to losing my mind.

“Wildcat, calm down,” Rune whispered.

“Don’t call me that,” I spit and closed my eyes, tried to breathe in deeply. “I know you blame me.” Because Iwasto blame, and I blamed myself, too.

“I don’t.”

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