Page 143 of Triple Pucked
The words slip away. Thoughts meld. My breathing slows.
My chest aches.
I try to clench my fists but I can’t.
I take a step back, but my knees buckle.
Weakened, I stagger and then fall to the floor, catching my chin and then eye against the corner of the coffee table.
I grunt at the bright burst of pain.
I lie, unable to move, on the floor. I struggle to regain control over my body but I can’t.
I should be more panicked, but my mind is being lulled into a false calm.
The control of my emotions is more terrifying, feeling a fake tranquility.
I haven’t been this powerless since I was a kid. I swore that I never would be again, when I was reborn as a phoenix.
Whoever this is…?
I am going to kill them for making me break that oath to myself.
A pair of pink designer high heelsclick clickconfidently into my eyeline around the couch, stopping just in front of my nose.
My mind is racing, even though my breathing is kept artificially even and slow.
I am a felled animal, still and unmoving.
What if they have a knife?A gun?
A second set of shoes, sneakers covered with Gothic skulls, follow the first set.
It must be Heine.
They’re moving slower and more hesitant. They stop further back.
“I know that you’re not my bad sub,” a frosty English woman’s voice says. Blythe, the Ice Queen. “But you look like him. You’re just as pretty, and I’m certain that you’re better behaved. He’s pretending on that television right now that he can win the bet and prove that he’s worth something. He always was stupid.”
I try to open my mouth and tell her justhow worthy and smartShay is, but I can’t make the muscles in my face cooperate.
“Using the tranquilizer dart was dangerous, Mistress.” Heine sounds timid and startlingly different to how he used to. “He could die?—”
Crack.
The sound of a slap reverberates around the lounge.
“Are you backtalking me, Charlie?” Blythe’s educated voice is cold enough to give frostbite. “Do I need to teach you what happens when you tell me what to do again? Do you want me to take away your right to talk for another week?”
“Please, Mistress, I’m sorry?—”
“Put these on him.”
Heine truly does appear to be a pawn in this. He’s definitely being used.
Heine kneels over me, and I feel gentle hands turning me on my stomach.
I try to struggle but I can’t.
