Page 3 of Lost and Bound
Something about the note of utter indifference, bordering on despair, hit a nerve I’d thought long numbed into the same kind of deadness.
No, dammit.No. It mattered. My heart beat faster.Imattered. I still mattered. Jared Armitage was still alive, still here. Even ifheremeant buried alive in a concrete prison, waiting to die.
“My name is Jared,” I gritted out. “I’m a werewolf. I’m—” I stopped, struggling for anything else I could say about myself. I hadn’t exactly been the most interesting, charming guy before all of this. In fact, I’d been kind of an asshole. My lips quirked, into the first attempt at a smile I’d managed in so long I almost didn’t recognize the feeling of my muscles moving that way. “I like jazz concerts, long walks on the beach, and having fun.”
He made that sound again, that horrible not-laugh. “You’re never going to hear music again, Jared the werewolf,” he said, very low. “Or walk on a beach. Or havefun.” He spat that last word like it tasted foul. “You’re going to die here. And soon. Now shut the fuck up.”
The two points of glow winked out.
He’d closed his eyes. He wasn’t even bothering to look at me anymore.
And the implication that I’d die a lot sooner if I kept talking definitely wasn’t lost on me.
Anger surged up, warring with terror and despair, and oddly tinged with embarrassment. What had I expected, that my pathetic attempt at humor would’ve mellowed him out and given us a moment of jocular camaraderie?
And why hadn’t he done anything? Was he restrained in some way? That little glint of metal, and the clinking…chains?
I shuddered, and my fingers dug into the concrete floor, my fingertips aching.
This place was impossible to escape from. Judging by the window slits, the walls were two feet thick. The doors weren’t that thick, but they didn’t need to be. Given the number of bones I’d broken trying to hammer at the one in my cell early on in my captivity, they were made from some kind of alloy that was harder than steel. And the whole place was steeped in magic. That would’ve held me, and presumably my new cellmate, even without the physical barriers.
And yet they had him chained, and his door was even stronger than mine.
Gods, I was going to die here.
The night passed slowly—and silently, except for our breathing. His was still slow and even, mine faster and rougher. I didn’t sleep, really, although I dozed off a few times, my head tipped back against the door, jolting upright in a panic after a few minutes each time. I didn’t dare to move, even to stretch out my legs. If he was chained, then presumably his chain didn’t reach to the door, ensuring the safety of the guards when they opened it. I didn’t know the exact length of the chain, though. Pressed against the door with my feet tucked up so he couldn’t lunge and grab my ankle was the only place I could be relatively sure of being out of his reach.
I started and blinked for the fifth or sixth time, and then blinked again. The sun had come up, somewhere out there where there was sky and breeze and warmth and…I shifted my stiff, chilled limbs and rubbed the crud out of my eyes.
My cellmate came into focus.
He sat on his pallet, with his back to the wall, long legs stretched out before him. Pale blond hair, all matted and hanging down to his shoulders…and those shoulders wouldn’t have been out of place on an ox. He was big. Very, very big, probably six foot six, and though he’d clearly been borderline starved like I had, he still had the build to match, his bones heavy and his limbs lean but powerful. I could clearly see his ribs through his skin, though—because he wore only a pair of the same kind of cheap prison-issue-style gray pants I did, with no shirt.
But he had one accessory I lacked. A heavy, dark chain attached to the wall in the corner of the room to my right, leading to an even heavier collar around his neck.
I looked up from the collar. His face was as pale as the rest of him, with thick blond stubble on his cheeks and jaw, matching the hair on his chest and arms. Strong features, with high cheekbones and a beaky nose.
And then his eyes opened, and I couldn’t see anything else.
They pinned me in place. Pale, pale blue-gray, with the silvery glow of his alpha power shining through.
And he seemed to be looking right into me, seeing past my skin to the veins and arteries and muscles and bones beneath, cataloguing each jagged beat of my heart.
He stared, long and hard, and I gazed back at him, eyes wide and lips parted, like a fucking frozen prey animal instead of the predator I was myself.
His lips twitched, stretching into the parody of a smile, showing too-sharp teeth.
I pressed back against the door so hard my spine ached.
Without a word, he rose fluidly from his pallet, the chain rattling and hanging down his back. My breath returned, and I panted for every bit of air, suddenly released from that intense, unbearable gaze, like an actual weight had been taken off of me.
He stretched his back with his arms over his head, and his hands nearly reached the ceiling. I craned my neck, looking up and up andup. Christ, he had to bemorethan six foot six. I was six feet even, with a build to match, and I felt tiny, huddled there on the floor.
He turned his back to me and went to the side of the cell, lifting the lid of the toilet and taking a piss.
And that was when it sank in: both the toilet, and more importantly, the small sink—otherwise known as the only source of water in the cell—were within the limits of his chain. I’d die of dehydration if I didn’t move away from the door.
I hadn’t had anything to drink since…hours before the guards took me out of my cell. I swallowed, my throat clicking.
