Page 5 of Bond & Protect

“Right, well, let me take a look at you.” Liam indicates towards a chair where I presume he wants me to sit. I have no idea what this guy will do to me, but I follow his commands anyway. There’s something soothing about Liam’s voice that makes me feel much safer with him.

Once I take my seat, I lift my eyes to meet his, and I’m immediately struck by his amber gaze. I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes like that in my entire life. They’re absolutely intoxicating. I can hardly breathe as I look at him and wait for him to see what’s wrong with me.

Gently he takes a warm wet rag and runs it over my knuckles. I flinch a little at first because the touch is so intense, but I soon lean into it eagerly, because it feels nice. I can’t remember the last time someone touched me and it felt this nice.

I almost want to lean into his hand, to have him caress me all morning long. I didn’t know how much I craved a touch like this until he gave it to me. Unfortunately, Sydney’s eyes are burning into me, he still seems to think I’m the bad guy here, so I have to be on my best behavior.

I don’t even know what it is I’ve done wrong to Sydney, but I want to prove my innocence.

“Tell me if this hurts,” Liam almost whispers, his voice sending a powerful shudder racing down my spine. “I don’t want to do anything to make the pain worse.”

I cock my head to one side and lose myself in a bit of a daydream with him. He examines my skin carefully, looking at every inch of me like he’s a doctor. I don’t know if he actually works at the hospital here, I haven’t been there, but he has that presence about him. His presence is enough to make me forget about Sydney’s burning gaze trying to pierce my soul.

Eventually, he leans in to clean blood stains I didn’t even know I had on my face, with his breath tickling my skin. It’s like I’m made of a million nerve endings, and he’s impacting every single one of them. My vision becomes a little blurry with desire, and it takes every part of willpower I have not to lean in and crash my lips to his. To feel what it’s like to kiss him.

“Do you not have any memory at all?” Liam asks me kindly. He’s taking a different approach to Sydney’s brashness, but it doesn’t shake anything in my brain free.

“It’s like a big black hole in my memory. It’s very frustrating.”

Liam nods understandingly. “Okay, well, that’s fine. Just give yourself some grace and time, and adjust to this a little. Hopefully, the memories will start to come back to you, okay?”

A smile spreads across my face. Finally, I feel heard and understood. I definitely like Liam a lot. He’s the sort of guy I would turn to if I were facing a disaster. Liam locks his eyes on mine for a moment, and I can feel something new and powerful brewing between us. It’s like a beautiful flower is blooming and growing––feelings ebbing and flowing.

I suck in and hold a breath because I don’t want to end up saying something stupid, and I stare at Liam. I need to know if I’m alone in this, and going a little stir crazy. Maybe it’s the bump on the head I suffered that might be causing me to see things that aren’t really there.

Now I don’t think I’m the only one who wants to lean in for a kiss. I can almost see the desire flickering in his gaze as well, little flames of passion, wanting to get closer to me, just as I do him. If Sydney wasn’t here, I’m sure we’d be making out like crazy already…

The door to the cabin swings open, knocking about cobwebs that I didn’t even realize were there. Both me and Liam jump back as if we have been electrocuted and whip our heads around to see who’s joining us in this little safe space.

“Elias,” Liam gushes out as the one guy who’s kind of my friend races in. “You’re back.”

“What’s going on?” he asks as he darts his eyes around the room. “Is everything okay?”

Liam steps away from me, breaking the magic we had bursting between us. I let out a breath that I didn’t even know I was holding in and I sink back into the chair. The chair lets my full weight fall in to it. It holds me completely, as I slowly close my eyes.

What the hell is happening to me? What is going on?

I must be exhausted because it’s almost like I roll in and out of sleep. My brain keeps switching itself off for a bit of self-preservation. Only snapping back to reality every time words I don’t recognize and words that scare me, are mentioned every so often. Murder, The Rift, Monsters… I don't know what this means, but I’m too shattered to figure it out.

These words do affect my mini dreams, though, so much so that I can’t help but wonder if they are dreams or memories. Since I have no idea what happened to me while I was knocked out, and I woke up looking, and smelling, like I’d been in a fight with a wolf, anything could have happened. I can almost feel myself lashing out, doing whatever I need to defend myself and keep myself alive. Fur brushes against my knuckles… or something does, and despite the ice-cold fear that careers through my veins, my fight or flight instinct kicks in.

But the monster grows until it’s so much bigger than me, until I can’t defend myself any longer, and that’s the moment everything around me pin holes. Its blackness shrouded me, claiming me, swallowing me up in its little hole and refusing to let me go. I can’t fight against this, no matter how hard I try. I battle until the bitter end, but it takes me anyway.

“You do realize that Mila is the prime suspect, though,” Sydney’s voice suddenly breaks through my shock barrier. I snap my eyes open and try to focus on the man accusing me of… well, I don’t know what. Murder, maybe? Or something linked to The Rift? God knows, but I’m definitely not who they are looking for. “We need to start the interrogation now. Otherwise, we aren’t ever going to get Amos back, and we can’t let that happen. We need to find out what happened…”

All eyes whip around to me, forcing me to remain as awake as humanly possible. I blink a few times as I sit up a little straighter, but still, I feel like I’m in an absolutely ridiculous position.

“Well?” Sydney demands. “Are you ready to talk to us now about what happened?”

His hostility is seriously unpleasant. I open and close my mouth a couple of times, but nothing comes out. I don’t quite know what he expects me to say here. I’ve already made it very clear that I don’t recall what happened, and more than that, I’ve said that I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m starting to think that there isn’t anything I can say to make Sydney trust me.

I’m grateful when Elias steps closer to me because we shared a moment. We shared a bit of time together, so he knows me, right? Only when he approaches me, he no longer seems like the friendly guy who walked me home earlier, our bodies buzzing with sexual tension.

Okay, the sexual tension is still there. The kind that makes me want to tear my clothes and his off right this instant. But more than that, there is a slow burning anger that he thinks he can take me against my will, just to accuse me of something that I didn’t do.

“I don’t know what’s happened here,” I tell Elias coldly. “But it’s time to take me home.”

“Sydney,” he calls out behind him, completely ignoring my statement. “I think it’s time for you to scout the area. And Liam, you go home to rest. You’ve had a long night.”

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