And then…? I blink, struggling to pull up a solid recollection of how I got here. My gaze travels the room again, but it’s still completely unfamiliar.
Did I fall asleep?
I squeeze my eyes shut, rubbing at my temple with one hand as I wrack my brain trying to figure out what’s going on. I kind of remember feeling sleepy, though that’s pretty typical of me lately, so it doesn’t seem all that strange.
But my instincts are screaming at me that something’s horribly, horribly wrong.
There’s a dull ache in my chest and I absently rub the palm of my hand over it. What is…?
The mating bond.
Luke.
That’s what’s wrong. Luke wouldn’t leave me alone. Not here.
And something tells me I need to find him.Now.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, the hardwood floor cold against my bare feet. I puzzle over my missing shoes for half a second, but it doesn’t really matter what happened to them. I don’t need shoes to find my mate, and I’m pretty sure I have bigger problems than cold feet even if I can’t quite figure out what they are yet.
Padding across the floor, I approach the window and tug the curtain to the side. The room I’m in is on the second story, and the night outside is almost pitch black, the only light coming from the full moon overhead.
But it was barely seven when we sat down to dinner.
How long have I been here?
Apprehension growing, I let the curtain fall back into place and move to the door. The handle won’t turn and I’m pretty sure it’s not stuck. Which means someone locked me in here.
And that is definitely not good.
I swallow a swell of anxiety, forcing myself to take a deep breath. Panicking is the last thing I need to do. Luke is out there somewhere. In trouble. And I need a clear head to find him.
A surge of adrenaline floods through me and my whole body goes on alert, searching for some threat I can’t see. Just as quickly, the feeling is gone, disappearing like it’d never been there, instead leaving me shaky and on edge.
What the hell wasthat?
A heavy sense of uneasiness falls over me as the urgent need toescape escape escapefloods through me. My eyes burn and I struggle to regulate my breathing as panic rises in my chest.
I’m locked in.
I’m alone.
And it’s all happeningagain.
That last thought is barely a whisper, but it acts like a sledgehammer. One of the previously insurmountable blocks in my mind cracks and shatters into jagged shards, letting loose a flood of memories. I fall to my knees, my hands on either side of my head as the overwhelming parade of images painfully assaults my brain.
When it’s finally over, tears make wet trails down my cheeks and my jaw aches from clenching my teeth so hard.
But things area lotclearer to me now.
Well, my current situation is at least, because this isn’t the first time Wanda tried to keep me prisoner. Emphasis ontried.
The sequence of events in my head is still a little piecemeal, the memories there but not all the connections between them, so it’s hard for me to figure out the order of some things. It’s like I’ve put most of the puzzle together, but only in sections separate from each other, and I can’t get them all maneuvered into place to make the whole picture.
As my older memories weave into the newer ones, they overlay my current circumstances, giving me an almost déjà vu likefeeling. I was locked in a room like this before. Hell, maybe it was even this particular room, I don’t know.
My horrible suspicion from earlier was true. Wanda had hoped I could give Earl the alpha heir he so desperately craves. A shudder goes down my spine at the thought of his hands on me.
I can’t hold back a half-hysterical laugh, the sound loud in the silence of the space around me. Whatever Wanda’s goals this time around, I don’t think she expected my memories to come back.
