She mouthed at me without a sound, “I’ll come find you.”
“Please.” I pleaded more with her than I did with the thug who held me at gunpoint.
Phoenix laughed. “Pathetic.”
My eyes begged her to do something. Jump on his back, and I’d make a move for his gun. Anything other than giving in and letting these men take usagainst our will, but she wouldn’t move. Whatever torture she had been through had her traumatized. Mortified her beyond belief as she retrieved her pants and pulled them up.
I couldn’t hold this act of selfishness against her. She was the victim, we both were, and her horrific journey had taught her to play her cards right. If she didn’t, she knew she’d be dead.
As for me?
I had already been to hell and back—rose from the deadly grip of my abusive fiancé and into tormented arms of darkness. Two pairs, to be exact. Until I was kidnapped because of Sebastian and his greedy motherfucking ass.
I hissed through clenched teeth. “Let me go or you’ll wish you fucking did.”
“You hear that, brother?” Phoenix chuckled bitterly. “Sebastian’s bitch is making threats.”
“No. It’s a promise,” I added.
“Goddamn. The whore tied my laces,” Preston said from behind me. “I oughta throw her in with my pit bulls and teach her a lesson.”
“Cool it,” Phoenix said. “We need her.”
“Fine. But they don’t call me Preston Pit Bull Pitrone for nothing,” he snapped, and I heard him stumble.
As much as I wanted to laugh at Preston’s clumsiness on my account, I couldn’t with a gun pointed at my face. Any minute, he could pull the trigger and splatter my brains all over the wall. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live. Lord have mercy on my soul. I wanted to see them again. To feel my phantoms touch me with their torturous bliss. Ineededmy predators to find me and bring me back to them.
“They’ll make you pay for this,” I whispered, a vow I knew Sin and Saint would uphold.
“Fuck. This bitch is crazy.” Phoenix glared, and he hit me with the butt of his gun.
Everything went black.
Two
Their Universe
Liv
Darkness engulfed me. Eyes wide, I tried to adjust to the blackness, but I couldn’t see anything. Blood rushed to my head, a newfound discomfort I wasn’t fond of. The sensation rained down my entire body as my arms dangled over my head. I was disoriented, and a memory struck me when pain burst through my temple.
That asshole had hit me in the head. Madmen who held me somewhere and wouldn’t let me go. My escape was an awful choice, but I had to try. The attempt ended as quickly as it had begun, and I was in worse shape than before.
I could hear snarling and rumbling, echoing viciously. A wet, sloppy, nasty harmony that wasn’t at all pleasant. Uneasy goosebumps cameto life on my skin when I heard growls from below, and my heart skipped.
What the fuck?
Suddenly, light blinded me, and I pulled my hands up, shielding my eyes with a groan. My deprived vision made my head throb even more as I tried to take in my surroundings from an upside-down position in a devil’s playground. I was still in hell. I had to be because I wasn’t some magical fucking fairy able to transport away from danger, and I was right in the thick of a horror show.
All thanks to Sebastian fucking Chamberlain.
Goddamn asshole deserved all the bad in the world and not me. He should be in my place while I watched him burn, but I was only a pawn for his greed. An unsuspecting piece played in a game I was afraid I might not escape. At least, not today.
Fearfully, I peeked through the slit of my fingers and saw a ferocious dog jump up at me with bared teeth. The untamed animal snapped its enormous jaws, ready to feast.
“Fuck!” I cried out.
My scream echoed with the sound of the dogs hungry for my meaty flesh. Pit bulls. I was in big trouble. As good as dead.