Page 43 of Manacled Hearts

Then why didn’t Katya mention anything? I shake the subject away and grasp one other voice screaming inside my mind. It’s the loudest one and the one I want to squash the most—she’s legal now. I would punch myself in the face if there weren’t so many people around me, because that thought eases the sickening guilt. It shouldn’t. It will not, because her age makes no difference at all. One year added onto it is still too many away from mine. This is still wrong.

But it could feel so fucking right.

Goddamn it, no!

“It’s your birthday? Did anyone know?” I strain to pull myself out of the cesspit of dangerous thoughts.

“Nope. But don’t change the subject. There’s nothing stopping you now,” she says, a smug expression on her pretty face.

I shake my head and snort. “It doesn’t change anything.”

Before she can further protest, and before I can convince myself that it does, indeed, change something, I grab her hand and pull her toward the exit. This time she does fight me, but I don’t give her any leeway as we pass through the door and into the crisp night air.

“Are you serious right now?” Even now, in her drunken state, she still doesn’t yell.

Her tone is filled with annoyance and a hint of embarrassment, but no raised voice. I ignore her as I catch sight of one of my guys who’s my designated driver tonight and gesture him over.

“Are you even listening to me?” She pulls on me to grab my attention.

The hurt in her eyes takes me aback, but I can’t fucking falter.

“Listen to me, Evelyn. You and I are never going to happen. I don’t do relationships, and I certainly don’t do quick fucks with girls like you.”

Her nostrils flare at my choice of words and tears pool in her eyes, but there’s much more fury than upset shining in her gaze. She’s livid. The rejection seeps through her just as fast as the regret does through me. But it had to be done.

My driver pulls the car next to us, and I yank the back door open. When my eyes drift back to her, the drunk Evelyn is gone. The one I see now could cut me into a million pieces and not even bother burying me. Her back is straight, her gaze stern, and I almost… almost cave and go back on my words. Even if they are for her own protection.

I can’t stand the way she looks at me. Fear seeps down to my bones, the kind I never wanted to suffer. Because now, I’m scared she’ll never again look at me like she did mere moments ago.

What have I done?

CHAPTER 9

EVELYN

I wake up with wrongness in my veins.

It burns all the way up my throat, and the flood of emotions and pain from all those weeks ago when I was taken, fills me with a raging vengeance. I flip the cover off my body and run to the bathroom, sliding to my knees and hugging the toilet.

Not much comes out as I wretch—apart from the alcohol I drank last night that burns all through my throat. Though I’m surprised I didn’t just absorb it all into my system, because it certainly appears that way.

Only, that’s not what’s making me sick right now. This sickness is different, raw and needy, emptying my veins and leaving me desperate. The itch beneath my skin, the need in my blood vessels, the craving for escape, is back. I should be used to it by now. It comes every morning, and even as it eases through the day, it returns at night. It haunts my dreams and calls for me in my nightmares.

I want to rationalize it, I try to anyway, but I haven’t managed yet. I can’t wrap my head around the fact that I was only drugged on one occasion. Yes, it was multiple times in a short amount of time, but that was it—one night. I can’t justify why this need is chasing me still… it was just one time. It’s a terrifying desire to poison my blood, and I’m not sure for how long I can resist this call.

I don’t know if I want to anymore.

Images from last night flash through my treacherous memory, and I slide all the way down to the floor, my back hitting the cold tiles as the blue-eyed bane appears in my mind.

“God, what have I done?”

I completely threw myself at him, stupidly thinking he was dragging me out of the bar with such possessiveness because he wanted me. All day at Vincent’s house he pushed me away, until we were alone, and suddenly, he seemed lost. It twisted my perception of us.

“You and I are never going to happen.”

The stare he pinned me with was just as cold as those words. Then he threw the final blow.

“I don’t do relationships, and I certainly don’t do quick fucks with girls like you.”

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