Page 132 of A Sweet Destruction

It was the first thought that shoved itself to the forefront of my consciousness as my eyes blinked open, my head swimming.

There was a dull ache at the back of my skull, a sharp sting at the top of my right shoulder, but the pain in my chest was what pulled my focus. I tried to clear my vision by rapidly blinking, looking down at my chest and expecting to see a gaping hole gushing blood for all the agony.

When I finally regained some sort of awareness and realized that my chest was in tact, my gaze shot up.

He’s hurt, the Bond snapped, the words sounding like they were pushed through a foaming, feral mouth.

Ford was sitting in front of me, tied to a chair while his head hung between his shoulders. I didn’t even realize that I was similarly bound until I lurched forward towards him and my bindings tore against my wrists.

A pained whimper fell from my lips, and Ford’s head snapped up. My chest twisted when I saw the wild look in his eyes.

I felt tears building, hating that this was happening to him again. He’d already suffered so much at the hand of a Muli general, and now here he was again, tied up and bound.

And worse—this time we had to suffer this together.

"Esme,” Ford growled, straining towards me. The muscles in his neck popped as he wrestled with his bindings.

“No,” I begged, my chest twisting at the idea of him hurting himself even more. I couldn’t see it, but he was injured somewhere. I could feel it. I’d know if he had a sprained ankle, let alone whatever wound was hidden from me, clearly causing him pain. “Don’t hurt your—”

My words were cut off by a sharp pain in the back of my head as someone yanked my hair. Even if I had finished my sentence, it would have been lost behind Ford’s growl.

I restrained a pained sound, knowing it would only send Ford further into a state of madness, one where he wouldn’t care about his own injuries. I’d been there before, experienced it first hand. I knew what the signs were, and he was close.

“Hands off,” someone snapped. At first I thought it was Ford, but a chill shot down my spine when I realized the voice was familiar.

The hold on my hair released, and I had to blink away tears before I brought my head back to its normal positioning. I got barely a glimpse of Ford before Elijah stepped into my line of sight, crouching in front of me.

He was studying me intently, taking in my injuries. I should be in a lot worse states.

It was a fucking miracle that arrow missed my shoulder, that I didn’t have a puncture wound that would heal too fast ripping through my skin. It was a miracle that I wasn’t still unconscious, that I was this coherent.

I recognized the paralytic they’d used, my terror crystal clear as I saw Ford look down at the arrow he’s snatched out of the air and watched as his own recognition struck.

The look he’d given me when he turned toward me…

They’d used a paralytic needed to fell their largest beasts during a hunt, something that should have taken us both out for days.

Maybe that was how long it’d been, or maybe just a few hours.

Perhaps that was what Elijah wanted. To study us like animals and convince himself of something he thought he’d figured out, based on the sickening smirk on his face.

I could taste blood in my mouth. I couldn’t speak with it there, so naturally I had to spit it out. Too bad some of it splattered on Elijah’s face.

He only seemed further amused, calmly reaching into his back pocket to pull out a handkerchief and wipe it down his face.

All the while, my senses felt assaulted—to many things to focus on. There were other people in the room, someone standing right behind me with their hand still hovering too close to my hair.

It was surprisingly bright, which either meant we’d been out for no more than an hour or we’d been unconscious for a day or more.

We were underground somewhere. Rectangular windows lined the upper section of the walls and I could just make out the ground sloping past them.

Ford. I could feel him more than see him, struggling against his restraints and glaring daggers at the back of Elijah’s head. The Bond was just as feral on my end, but I tried to focus on Elijah, knowing that our—incredibly unlikely—path of out here would not lie in the Bond’s snarling mouth but in Elijah’s taunting smirk.

“What do you want?” Well, that still had a bit of the Bond behind it. A fact that only seemed to amuse Elijah further. Fucking asshole.

“Oh, me?” he asked, placing his hand over his heart with all the dramatic flare of an actor on center stage. “I just want to chat.”

“And you needed to fucking poison us to achieve that?” Ford snapped. “We’ve done nothing but fucking talk for the last week.”