Page 62 of Lost and Bound
Whatever. If I did intervene, it’d be for that rando’s sake, not Ian’s, and I couldn’t bring myself to care. I had my own fish to fry, and with Ian distracted, I’d gotten my chance.
One more shot? No, I had all the liquid courage I needed. Any more and I’d pass out on the girl instead of getting her off.
I crossed the bar, dodging a couple of stumbling, laughing drunks, and made it to the dartboard. She looked me up and down, I shot her my best come-hither smile, and a few words later she was leading me down the hall, glancing coyly over her shoulder and letting the strap of her tank top slip down a little.
Women who knew what they wanted were the best, and I wanted…
But my stomach churned heavily, and my palms had gone all damp and clammy. Sweat trickled down my spine.
Fuck. My face felt too hot, my scalp tingly.
“Give me just a sec,” I said hoarsely as we reached the end of the hall by the bathrooms. “I need a little air.”
She eyed me for a second, hesitated—and then shrugged. “I’ll meet you here in a minute,” she said, and pushed open the door to the ladies’ room.
Thank fucking gods. I hadn’t pissed her off too much.
Or maybe I had, and when I came back inside she’d have ditched me and headed back to the bar. But I could…I’d figure it out.
The exit door at the back was supposed to be kept shut, but it always stood open, propped with a chunk of wood, because the smokers liked to go out the back instead of standing on the sidewalk.
As I pushed the door open, the piece of wood got dislodged, and the door slammed behind me when I let go of it.
Shit. I could go back around to the front, but the girl wouldn’t be waiting that long.
Fuck it. My esophagus spasmed, and I leaned against the rough bricks of the wall by the dumpster, tipping my head back and sucking in deep breaths of garbage-tinged damp, closing my eyes against the spinning.
Something scraped in the alley.
I opened my eyes. Something sharp, something dark and threatening and almost familiar, tickled my nose.
And everything immediately went dark again.
Chapter 17
Amplification
Coming around after being knocked unconscious by magic was the kind of thing that sounded like it ought to be a slow process of unpleasant discovery.Where am I? What happened? Are these spelled manacles around my wrists? My gods, what’s happened?
Not so much. The instant consciousness hit, it hithard, and all the details became painfully, instantly obvious.
I’d been taken captive by a warlock, although not one of the ones who’d worked me over before—I could smell his magic, that dark, sharp, ozone-tinged smell that had hit me in the alley, even if I didn’t recognize the scent of him in particular.
The manacles had my wrists in their cold, heavy grip, and the rest of me sat and slumped on yet another fucking concrete floor.
The panic hit me simultaneously. I bent to the side as much as I could, vomiting every drop of the shots and everything else I’d ever consumed, it felt like, all over the floor and spattering my leg. My heart rabbited, and I couldn’t feel my extremities.
I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t brave at all.
More spasms turned my stomach over again, and I retched and dry-heaved until my eyes watered.
When I pulled myself upright a little, the room around me had blurred.
It didn’t matter. I knew what I was looking at. A lab, of sorts, the kind used by warlocks who wanted to hurt me. A big table, metal, with straps and chains in strategic locations. A counter full of herbs and bowls and syringes. Concrete walls, a large double door off to the side, right now propped open.
And a tall, skeletally thin man with stringy black hair and a manic light in his eyes, leaning against the counter and watching me.
I’d never seen him before.
