Page 69 of Chain Me
Fabric snatched at my hands as I ran, feeling along the wall, desperate for a door, an exit. Anything. In the end, I staggered into an empty box and spotted a vase of roses. I ripped out the flowers by their stems, lowered my mouth over the neck of the vase, and—
Watery liquid erupted from my throat. The force of each wretch brought me to my knees, and it was all I could do to clutch the vase to my chest and heave.
I cringed into the shadows as heavy footsteps approached my corner and someone drew the curtain back.
A lingering chill lowered the atmosphere, identifying the intruder as clearly as if he’d shouted his name. But he said nothing, advancing toward my corner with broad strides. He crouched instead, sweeping my hair back as another wave of vomit spilled into the vase. When my stomach finally had nothing left, he took the vase away.
“Don’t,” I pleaded when his hand brushed my shoulder. I scurried out of reach as if burned. My face found the safety of my palms and I hunched into myself, too tired to keep the tears at bay. “Don’t touch me—”
“Eleanor, look at me.” He sounded too soft. Too gentle. “Look at me—”
“I can’t take this.” My voice bordered on shrill, alarmingly high-pitched. Broken. I couldn’t get enough air. My lungs were deflated, impossible to fill. God, I needed him to leave—only then could I break. “Get out! Just leave. Get away!”
“You’re hyperventilating. Breathe!”
“Stop!” My hands muffled the plea, but I couldn’t look at him. “Just leave me alone. Please. Leave me alone. I can’t… I can’t take it anymore—”
“You can’t? I knew that very first day,” he gruffly admitted. “That first day when you met my gaze, completely unafraid. I knew.” Heedless of my plea, he remained, still restraining my curls. “I knew you’d torment me to no end. I knew that you would thwart even my most well laid plans. I knew then and there that one encounter with you would never be enough.”
His voice was deeper than ever. Gone were the harsh bravado or bitter anger. This was Dublin Helos in a way I’d rarely experienced him.
Open and honest.
Yet I wanted to scream loud enough to drown him out.
“Please, go—”
“I’d met your sister before you,” he continued. Even level, I could never overpower the gritted cadence of his voice. “A beautiful creature. If there were any Gray doomed to tempt me, it would be her…” He trailed off, and nausea constricted my throat as I imagined everything he’d held back.
Him with Georgie, laughing at my naivety. Stinging tears fell without restraint, but in a sick, twisted way, there was peace in the agony. Finally—finally—he was telling me what I’d wanted to hear all along.
The full truth.
“I’ve avoided your kind throughout the centuries for a reason, the Grays, but…something made me confront her directly when she grew bold enough to challenge Raphael,” he continued, unconcerned as I shook my head in a silent plea. “I expected… She was beautiful, yes, but she aroused me no more than any other beautiful, talented soul I’d traded for centuries. In a way, I pitied her—the most interesting creature to spring from your bloodline since James and I was immune to even her charms. Still, I decided that selling her to Raphael would be a waste, so I intervened. Her dowdy, plain sister would make a useful pawn, but it would be for her benefit in the end. In one fell swoop, they’d both be spared, and I would have the last laugh over a creature I’d grown bored of serving. My plan was infallible—until I sawyou.”
His voice lowered to a hiss. Me, Eleanor Gray, the bane of his existence. So infuriating that he couldn’t even refer to me without rage constricting his voice. He grabbed my wrists, wrenching me upright, tearing my shield away.
I closed my eyes instead. Facing rejection was easier this way. If only he would just get it over with. Stop twisting the knife.
“I get it,” I insisted. “I’ve always gotten it—”
“Do you?” His voice dripped directly into my ear, preceding the sensation of ice brushing my earlobe. His mouth? “I saw you and I experienced an irritation unlike anything I’d ever felt. This pathetic mortal woman had the nerve to spite my plans through sheer stubborn denial. Rather than come to me begging for life, you shrugged me off. Turned away.Youlooked me in the eye and merely scoffed at what I was—even your sister hadn’t done that.” He sounded more incredulous than impressed. “No…you were determined to spite me, even then, and I knew… No one could imagine such a doom.”
The coldness of his finger swiped at my cheek, brushing away a fresh wave of tears.
“And even now you’ll still deny it. I all but tell you out loud and it’s as though you slam your hands over your ears, childishly refusing to hear it. Then I push you away and you react as though you’re the one who has been wounded. Regardless, I am a fool.”
The stark admission startled me into opening my eyes. He looked so hollow, Dublin. A frown replaced his polished persona, his eyes narrowed. Gingerly, he brought his hand to the side of my face, tilting my jaw for his inspection.
“I am…sorry,” he confessed, but the words lacked true sympathy. It was almost as if he wasn’t used to saying them. In real time, he was relearning how to feel something as simple as empathy. “For doubting you. For hurting you—”
“You didn’t!” I scoffed. “You’re trying to get inside my head—you’re always inside my head!”
And I wanted to rip my hair out in frustration. My fingers curled, nails drawn, and I started to raise them, but he renewed his grip, stepping forward in the same smooth motion.
“Let me go,” I hissed.
His eyes flashed, and I waited for a cruel retort. He lowered his head instead, brushing his mouth against my forehead. Shock paralyzed me—his end goal.
