Page 2 of Bound

Still, I step out, clutching my sheet like the queen I amdetermined to be in this dream space. I’m about to explain to Cara that I wantcoffee and a TV brought to my room because I’m going to clear off my watch listin this dream. Hey, it’s my weird fantasy.

I stop as I realize this fantasy just took a turn.

Two large men step out from the shadows, and before I canpull away, each has a wrist in his grasp. Men? I study them, not wanting tobelieve my eyes. I’m not sure these are men at all. They’re humanoid, but theskin covering their muscled bodies isn’t a color that comes from human DNA.

Green. It’s a brackish green, and their heads are coveredwith scraggly hair.

Fear snakes along my spine as they drag my hands up over myhead and the sheet drops away, leaving me naked and so vulnerable. Cold metalpresses against my palms, and suddenly I’m tethered to something above my head.

This is the part where the dream goes bad. So fucking bad.

I don’t want to be here. I want to be home. I know Icomplain about it often, how boring it is, how I don’t belong, how I have noone, but fear makes cowards of us all, and I want to be home in my bed.

A bright light sweeps through the tent, a tidal wavecrashing over my overwrought senses. Someone’s coming. The green dudes stepback. It seems like they’re not the ones who are going to gut me or rape me orwherever this is leading. I can’t see them. They’ve moved behind me, but Carasays something and she sounds further away.

A massive shadow blocks the sunlight that streams in fromthe hole in the roof of the tent, and I shrink back in fear. Well, I shrinkback as far as the chains allow me to. Something is playing in the back ofmind. Some instinct telling me this isn’t a dream and I’m in trouble.

That shadow is a man. He becomes clear as he steps insidethe space they’d made private. The sun is behind him, so at first all I see isthe outline of his body. Strong shoulders that seem to go on for days, bigarms. He’s muscular and masculine, and I’m naked in front of him.

I swallow down my fear. Something about him…calms me.

He turns slightly, though his eyes don’t leave my body. Hisdeep voice calls out, saying something in a lilting language I don’tunderstand. He’s got a lovely accent. A familiar one. Suddenly, the curtain tothe tent drops, and I can clearly see again. Yes, the shadow is a man, abeautiful, terrifying man, but at least he seems human.

Maybe what I saw before was just…the dream. Yeah. I don’thave good instincts. I’m back to dreaming.

“She does not speak Gaelic, Your Highness,” said the smallman who’d greeted me and explained a bunch of rules I hadn’t listened tobecause…well, I was busy freaking out. He’s standing beside the big guy. He’sonly a few inches taller than Cara.

The man with the pitch-black hair grimaces, his sensual lipscurving down as he switches to English. “I have no title here, Reeve. Speak tome as you would any other customer.”

He looks at me straight in the eyes for the first time, andI swear I can feel something rolling off him. A thrill of excitement flashesthrough me. Not excitement. Fear. The racing of my heart has to be fear, right?I can’t be looking at him like he’s a treat and I’ve been starving.

I should be very afraid because I know suddenly that the manstanding in front of me can make me do the one thing I’ve sworn never to doagain—feel. I like my cocoon of numbness. He could pull me out of it, make mewant to really live again.

And isn’t that the cruelest dream of all?

I need to wake up and now. I don’t want to know where thisdream is going.

“What’s your name then?” His voice rolls over my skin, evenfrom across the tent.

And just like that I know where we’re going. I can playalong. I want it over with. I always wake up before the truly bad stuff begins.When I have dreams about being killed, I wake up right before the first blow.So all I have to do is push through and it can be over, and I swear I’ll stoplistening to true crime podcasts before I go to sleep.

He’d hit me, that thing that had taken me. He’d reachedout with his emaciated arm and struck me into darkness. I hadn’t imagined hewould be so strong, but then he hadn’t been a man at all. He’d been a shadowstalking me on my way home, following me into the alley, and then I’d woken upsomewhere else.

“Are you all right then?” The man in front drew me away fromthose dark, confused thoughts. “Come on. Don’t be afraid. Tell me your name.”

Maybe I’m sick and this is some kind of fever dream. I’dbeen stuffy the last couple of days.

“My name is Twenty to Life because that’s the time you’ll dofor kidnapping me, you son of a bitch.” A little anger flares through me, and Ican’t help but push.

I steel myself, waiting for the broad man to strike, thenI’ll wake up and go about my dull life.

Then maybe I can forget those red eyes and how cold hishands felt. I can forget how those eyes burned into me as he chuckled, andright before I lost consciousness, I’d been certain he was taking me to Hell.

I’d gotten out of that nightmare. I can get out of this one.

I should have known it wasn’t a pleasant dream and thatthese weirdos with their soft beds and good-smelling food would eventually turninto monsters. It’s how my damn brain works since the divorce. Sure enough,someone is going to smack me, rape me, and then potentially gut me. It lookslike it’s the big, hot guy’s job. I wait, ready to feel the terrible blow thatwill likely signal the end of this dream, but the man with the long black hairsimply smiles, showing even, white teeth.

Despite the terror, or maybe because of it, his expressiontakes me totally off guard. When he smiles, he’s devastating. An unwelcomeattraction sparks through me, and once again I am forced to reconsider all ofmy life choices.