Page 39 of Chain Me
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Iawoke in a decadently furnished room accented in shades of ebony and emerald. Solid oak furniture clashed with the modern-style windows and light fixtures—much like I did, in a sense. An old-fashioned creature in a world far ahead of its time.
A heavy emerald canopy loomed overhead, fanning around a bed adorned with silken sheets and lush pillows. A window to my right overlooked a view of the city no less stunning than the one visible in the main room. Overcast daylight streamed in, illuminating a wooden wardrobe in the corner and a door partially opened, which I assumed led to the hall.
That shadowy doorway presented a reality too terrifying to face. Not now. I contemplated staying here forever, unmoving, ignoring reality for as long as I could—though it wasn’t as if my body shielded my ignorance for very long. Only a strip of silk covered my naked limbs, and an ache throbbed between my legs. The images of last night loomed, inescapable.
Sitting upright was the only way to banish them. Groaning with the effort, I stood as well and found a robe draped over the end of the bed. I drew it around myself and crept from the room. It was a short distance to the center of the suite, but I didn’t find Dublin lurking there.
Instead, a glass table near the edge of the room had been set for one, containing a plate of sandwiches and a lidded cup. I devoured the food without stopping to savor it. Then I paced to keep any wayward thoughts at bay.
Eventually, I wound up wandering throughout the rest of the spacious suite in search of a distraction. He hadn’t spared any expense, though that said little given his wealth. There were plenty of rooms lurking behind closed doors. A kitchen. A wide parlor with a billiard table and a piano.
None of it felt like him though—unlike a makeshift apartment hidden within a church.
This place resembled…
Well, a neat, clinicalcage.
A sudden thud pierced the silence, and I spun around to find an ivory shadow lurking beyond the doorway, dressed from head to toe in steel gray. His closed-off expression was far too dangerous. Cautious. The man might as well have been on tiptoe.
But sleepless hours spent tossing and turning on an unfamiliar bed could put a lot of things into perspective. Like the stark, cruel state of my current reality. And how much better it felt to ignore it.
All of it.
“I’m going to pretend that last night never happened,” I blurted. For some reason, my voice sounded raspier than it should have, but it got the point across. “Whatever you said. Whatever we did—it doesn’t matter. It never happened.”
There. Like magic, I’d willed all the tension away. Sighing, I tilted my head to observe a painting hanging on the wall. A naked angel standing as the sole survivor on a ruined battlefield. How lovely.
“Eleanor…” Dublin fixed me with a strange look. Suspicion? Well, he had no reason to be.
“My cat,” I croaked, switching to more important matters. “Where is he?”
I could have kicked myself for forgetting about him yet again in the tumult of events.
Dublin stood there for so long that I started to wonder if he’d turned into stone. Finally, he sighed. “He’s in the room beside yours.”
“Really?” I raced down the hallway in a direction I’d missed during my first exploration.
Sure enough, a peek into the room beside mine revealed another suite, and curled up on the floor was Tinkles. My beautiful darling looked healthy, whole, and as surly as ever. He blinked at me, flexing his claws. Approaching him directly was a reckless act, but after days away, I couldn’t resist.
“Darling!” I sank to my knees and threw my arms around him—but my skin wasn’t immediately skewered by his claws.
In fact, something wet and warm stroked my cheek, so unexpected that I flinched back. His tongue, still protruded from his mouth, the culprit of the odd sensation. I had no clue how long I sat there before a familiar shadow appeared in the doorway.
“What did you do to him?” I demanded.
“Come and eat,” Dublin said, ignoring the question. Without another word, he left.
After I made sure Tinkles had adequate lodgings—irritatingly, his room was even larger than the one he had in Gray Manor—I returned to the main room and found the table set with another cup and a plate of steaming vegetables and fish.
Dublin retreated to a far corner, his arms crossed while I sat and downed both offerings without complaint. He wanted to say something, I sensed, so I avoided his questioning stare. Presenting me with food at all was no doubt his attempt at getting a rise from me, allowing him to ruin our fragile truce. So I scraped my fork against my plate for emphasis.See?I wanted to gloat. Everything was nice and cordial. No need for any horrible reminders of events that didn’t matter.
Because they had never happened.
“There is something we need to discuss,” he began as I choked down the last morsel of food.
Damn.Fighting to keep my face neutral, I set my fork aside. “Like what?”
