Page 15 of Blood Moon

Like an actual giant, golden fucking birdcage! I got to my feet and straightened my clothes as I slowly padded to the bars. In disbelief, I reached out and touched the cold metal. If I thought they would dissolve as figments of my imagination, I was dead wrong.

As panic seeped in, I rushed around to the door. It didn’t budge when I pushed on it, nor when I shook it. My heart hammered, and as my lips and face started to tingle, I knew I was starting to hyperventilate. “Calm down,” I told myself as I took a slow, deep breath, held it as long as I could, and slowly let it out. I did those box-breaths several more times before I trusted myself not to pass out.

There was enough room that I could slide my arm out, but there wasn’t a handle. Of course, there wasn’t. I could feel the old-fashioned opening for a key, but no lever or knob. Pushing the panic down, I dug deep and grabbed onto my fury that someone dared to lock me up in a fucking cage like an animal.

My gaze swept the interior of the cage, looking for something that I could use to escape. I tried under the bed, but it was on a platform that was bolted to the floor. “Ugh!” I groaned in frustration. In my temper, I jerked the sheets from the bed and threw them.

Of course, my phone was nowhere to be found. Nor was my purse. That was the part that had me almost slipping into panic again. My fairy dust was in there.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Supposedly, no one else could use it—but still. I couldn’t justloseit. I’d discovered that it wasn’t so much the fairy dust; it was the black velvet bag. Call it magic, call it whatever, that bag simply replenished itself.

I had no idea how long I’d been there. I couldn’t see more than a few feet outside the cage.

“Argh! Let me out of here, you fucker!” I shouted as I gripped the bars and tried to shake them. There was no response, not that I expected one, nor did the bars budge.

My bottom lip trembled, but I refused to cry. Holding the bars, I slid down, sitting with my legs folded to the side. My shoulders dropped, and I stared blankly out into the darkness.

I thought I heard a faint sound, and my eyes strained to see where it was coming from. With the lights overhead and pitch black around me, it was hard to tell. There was also the very real possibility that I’d imagined it.

“I want to start by saying I’m sorry,” a familiar voice said, startling me.

“Then let me go!” I shouted.

“I can’t,” it sounded almost… forlorn. I was trying to place the voice, but it was eluding me.

“What do you want? Money? My brother will pay. Hell, let me go and I’ll pay my damn self.”

“If only it was that easy,” he murmured. Warning bells were going off in my head, and my body seemed to tingle because I knew I should recognize the voice.

Something strange was happening as well. It was as if there was a strong pull toward that voice. Like a string was attached to the inside of my chest, tugging me toward the man who spoke. Before I realized it, I was on my feet. Like I was a piece of metal and he was a powerful magnet, I was drawn to the other side of the cage.

“Why isn’t it?” I softly asked. Because though instinct would have me screaming and yelling to be set free, this ball of heat in my chest grew. Something deep within my soul wanted to take away that sad tone from his voice. My heart thudded, and my pussy throbbed. My body seemed to be highly in tune with whoever he was.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Anything,” I blurted out before I could think twice. Shit, that was dumb.

“Take me back in time.”

My jaw dropped, and I took a literal step back. “What?”

“Today… you went back in time approximately thirteen years, didn’t you?”

A chill skated over my skin, radiating to my extremities. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. I think you saw a middle school boy today—bumped into him even. His phone went down the sewer grate. You gave him a hundred dollars,” he dropped each word like they were an atomic bomb.

My stomach lurched, and I swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. How could he possibly know that?

“I was that boy,” he answered in a tone that screamed “checkmate.”

“What?” I gasped.

“I remembered you for years. I’d go so far as to say I developed an instant crush on you that day. I looked for you every single time a blonde woman crossed my path. It didn’t matter to me at the time that you were a grown woman and I was an adolescent schoolboy. It’s utter insanity, but I think I knew then that you were always supposed to be mine.” There was a muted rustle before the lights slowly brightened the room.

A quick glance around scared me more than anything. The room appeared to be some kind of sex room. I wasn’t an idiot, and I recognized some of the things. It wasn’t like in that book that became a movie. It didn’t seem to be a torture chamber or anything; it was, however, very sensual with lots of sexually entertaining items.

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