Page 6 of White Rabbit
Chapter 5
Brecklyn
The voice. That voice.
I didn’t recognize the low, rolling timbre.
“Come back, pretty girl. Open those big eyes and look at me.”
A stroke of fingers trailed over my hand, over my wrist then halfway up my forearm. How was it possible for a shiver to go through me, but my body didn’t move?
And who was he?
I struggled to respond, to follow his order.
Yeah, it hadn’t been a request. Thathad beenan order. And everything in me wanted to obey.
Open. Open. Open.
Nothing.
I couldn’t. Not a twitch when I desperately wanted to see the face of this man who was quickly becoming my Prince Charming.
Still I tried. But even as I struggled, darkness pulled my farther away, burying me under miles of cotton down, until I couldn’t even hear that perfect alluring voice.
I floated in nothing, fruitlessly trying to get back to the voice. Was I dead? Was a ghost? My heart still beat. It was deafening in my ears. It was the only thing anchoring me in this…whatever it was. And because I knew I still had a beating heart, I could still count the beats, I gathered his voice to me and held it there, feeling the heat from it spread through me.
Wake up. Come to me. Brecklyn, show me your eyes, love—
Lazy bitch, wake the fuck up!
The vicious growl tore away my prince’s voice, and pain ripped through me. A scream echoed in my head, unable to emerge from my lips. I couldn’t escape the burning, crushing pain.
God, did I just die? I’d been in hell with my…keeper,my abuser, Rad for years. I refused to call him my boyfriend. I’d never had a choice whether to be with him. And I’d been so close to escaping him. So close…
And now, my prince was gone and I was back in hell.
Chapter 6
Valariy
Two weeks. Ten sessions of transcranial electrical stimulation.
Nothing.
Brecklyn still wasn’t conscious.
My family and my men were beginning to think I’d lost my mind. They weren’t wrong. My need to have Brecklyn wake, to look up at me, to speak to me, had me crazed.
I was becoming a fixture at the hospital, and by now the staff recognized me. They might not know who I was, but they knew I was here for Brecklyn.
I gave them a nod while I proceeded to Brecklyn’s room. As usual, Anatoli and Ivan followed me. They remained in the corridor as I stepped inside. I hadn’t gone two steps when I paused. The senses honed by years of walking outside the law and having a target on my back triggered.
My gaze swept the room. The visitor’s chair that was usually beside the bed, had been swept aside. The flowers I’d brought yesterday were gone. Nothing else seemed amiss until my attention zeroed in on Brecklyn.
“Attend,” I growled.
Hearing my command, Anatoli appeared at my side. “Yes,Pakhan?”
