Page 52 of The Delta's Rogue
“Little Rogue… Little Rogue…”
Fingers trail down my neck and across my collarbone. My eyelids try to lift, but they’re heavy. Too heavy. Like a dumbbell is attached to each of my lashes.
“Little Rogue…”the words repeat, the chanted nickname taunting me and haunting me.
My eyes yearn to open, to glimpse the speaker, but unconsciousness clings to me like smoke from a campfire. I need to open them, though. I need to seehim.
The caress of fingertips continues to zigzag across my chest, lower and lower with each pass. A shudder runs through me from the rough feel of the hand touching me.
My brow wrinkles as I frown. My brain works to reconcile the harsh fingers touching me with the warm, soothing voice in my mind and the gentle, calming gray eyes that go with it.
“Wakey, wakey, Little Rogue.”
That jolts me from my stupor. That harsh, grating voice. Discordant and brash, and not at all belonging to the male I picture in my mind, who’s lived in my dreams for the last four years.
My eyes fly open and clash with the cold, cruel gaze of Gold Tooth, and the memories barrel into me.
The club. The alley. The syringe filled with wolfsbane and a sedative, and Goddess onlyknows what else.
“¡No me llames así!” I yell, my knee-jerk response whenever anyone utters that nickname.
Onlyhecan call me that.Nadie más. No one else.
But my words come out muffled from the combination of the hoarseness in my throat and a gag shoved into my mouth, preventing me from speaking. I try to yank it out, but I can’t lift my arms. They’re trapped at my sides.
A scream builds in my throat, and I tug again, straining to move my arms, using every last bit of power left in me, desperate to access even a drop of my strength.
The wolfsbane they dosed me with was potent, but I don’t know how long it’s been since they gave it to me. There’s a chance—a possibility, a sliver of hope—that it’s been long enough for me to break one arm free and tear this gag from my mouth.
But it’s no use. The dosage was too high. My limbs feel floppy and useless, like soggy, overcooked noodles.
I shut my eyes for two beats. One breath in, one breath out. I shut out the noises—the laughter, the voices, the almost-too-quiet music—and focus on myself, on feeling and sensing my surroundings and my situation.
Silver cuffs wrap around my wrists and ankles, binding me to a cot or a gurney of some sort. The metal is so cold against my skin it burns, sizzling through the top layer of my flesh. I swallow back the whimper of pain, and as my throat expands, it brushes against a silver collar wrapped around my neck.
The zap of the icy burn forces my eyes open as I gasp, body jerking as I attempt to sit. But the collar is secured to the gurney, helping to keep me immobilized. My fingers scrape on the surface as I once again work to free my limbs so I can yank the collar from my throat. I twist my head side to side, but all that does is exacerbate the freezing, burning pain from the silver restraints.
One breath in. One breath out,I remind myself.Focus. Focus.
I halt my movements again, angling my chin as best I can to survey myself. My clothes are gone, save for my bra and underwear. The cold air tiptoes across my bare skin like pinpricks of ice piercing into each of my pores, driving home the awareness of my exposed vulnerability and magnifying the freezing pain from the silver binding my neck, arms, and legs.
My chest heaves, and my heart pounds, rattling in an unsteady rhythm of panic against my ribs.
They stripped me down while I was unconscious. They could have done anything to me, and I would have no memory of it.
Tears spring to my eyes. I fight harder against the restraints binding me to the gurney, fueled by the panic, fear, and frustration rising from my gut like bubbling magma. The thought of anyone touching me—anyone other thanhim—sets my gut roiling and sends a ripple of disgust and rage through me.
My body flails, hips swiveling as I struggle. Grunts and screams grate in my throat throughout my fight, the sounds loud even with the gag shoved into my mouth.
Everything in me rebels against my current situation. Everything in me is desperate to break free. But it’s useless. Futile. There’s too much silver holding me down.
I breathe through my nose as the panic and fear settle into my bones. Those emotions carve their names into the surface, creating an unending, cavernous ache inside me. The rhythmic breaths do nothing to dispel the yawning chasm of anguish and desperation threatening to devour me, and I can no longer shut out my surroundings.
Laughter, raucous and cruel, rings in my ears. Wind skates over metal, and tires spin beneath me, rolling over a bumpy gravel road.
“She needs more wolfsbane,” someone I can’t see says, his loud, strident voice like sandpaper against my senses. “That scrape on her cheek healed. That means her wolf isn’t blocked enough.”
“Give her one without the sedative, though,” Gold Tooth replies. I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It will haunt my dreams, twisting them into nightmares. “We’re at the warehouse. She’ll want her examined, and we need her awake for that.”
