Michaels came forward, holding my bicep, supporting me while trying to push me back into bed. “Don’t be an idiot, Prest. You need rest. Your body is in desperate need of healing—”
“And I’m in desperate need of killing someone. It’s either that French bastard or you.”
When he didn’t take his hands off me, I shoved him aside and stood. I ignored the rush of black spots in my vision. I gulped back the crest of sickness and agony. I locked my knees against my unbalanced stumble and embraced the pain—mixing it with rage to make a cocktail that even I feared.
Shoving my nose in his, I snarled, “Choose. Them or you. Because if you get in my way, it’s you.”
Holding up his hands, Michaels backed off. His face etched with frustration. “Fine. You want to undo all my hard work and screw up your body, be my guest.” Throwing a look at Selix, he grabbed his bag and stormed to the door. “When he’s enlisted some common sense or passed out, come find me.”
He stalked to the door and slammed it with a harsh smack.
Good fucking riddance.
Selix stood there, watching as I plotted my next move.
Pim had been taken by French men. Their accent hadn’t been French Canadian. It wasn’t fake or second language. It’d been pure and from birth.
They were frogs born to frog leg country.
Natives to the country only a short sail away from England.
Not bothering to hide my indecency, I limped to my wardrobe, daring Selix to say something. Every footstep killed my ankle, elbow, shoulder, head, ribs—fucking everything—but I wouldn’t stop. I wouldn’t give in or relax or permit any kindness toward me.
Not until Pim was found and safe once again.
Not until blood ran in her honour.
So help me God.
Chapter Two
______________________________
Pimlico
EVERYTHING WAS WRONG.
The sour fur on my tongue, the dehydration headache behind my eyes, the utter silence of being in a house instead of a yacht—right down to the horror of being imprisoned yet again.
Old habits had instantly kicked into gear the moment I’d awoken a couple of hours ago.
My fingers craved a pen to write to No One. My voice switched from newfound gift to mute preservation. My skin crawled beneath my ballgown, fearing that at any moment, Alrik would walk in and strip me from it. That I’d be made to live life all over again naked and silent and terrified.
In fairness to the space, it was nothing like the stark white mansion I’d been imprisoned in before.
The atmosphere here was elegant and inviting. The bed soft and pillow filled, the bathroom stocked with delicious smelling shampoos and conditioners. It wasn’t a jail…more like a hotel suite, dripping in understated wealth and femininity.
But no matter what illusions the soft silver rugs and duck egg blue couches tried to paint, it couldn’t ease my panic. The walls kept me against my will. The windows barricaded me from fleeing. This place wasn’t my friend, so I didn’t treat it as such.
Even though my past drenched me with rules of kneeling and submitting and begging for mercy, I’d investigated and torn apart every inch. I’d marched to the floor-to-ceiling windows, rattled the panes, and searched for a weak spot to shatter and jump from the three-story cage.
When that failed, I ran to the door and jiggled the handle, inserting pins from my tumbled down hair and doing my best to pick the lock.
I hadn’t succeeded.
But it didn’t matter.
Clutching to hope and ignoring desperation, I’d thrown up rugs for trap doors.
I’d ripped open drawers for weapons.
I’d demolished the bed, looking for anything that could save me.
And nothing.
The suite remained soft and romantic—almost apologetic for keeping me trapped in its refinement.
Stress pounded my heart, reminding me of another time when I’d flown like a wild captured bird in a tiny prison.
Déjà vu of the week’s spent at the QMB hotel waiting to be sold made me dry-mouthed and panicky. I’d gone over every nook and cranny of that room, and the only thing I’d found was a chewed-on pencil.
No One had been born from that lucky find. My mind had found a way to save itself even if it couldn’t save my body. But in here, paper and pens and make-up and books and everything a normal, cosy bedroom should have existed.
There was nothing to say what my future held other than I’d woken up in a strange dimension where Elder had been shot and I’d been stolen.
Why?
Why was I here?
Where was here?
What could I do to leave here?
One thing was for sure, I wouldn’t sit and write notes to No One like before.
This time, I would fight tooth and fucking claw to get free. I flat out refused to be sold again or inducted into yet another twisted ownership.
I wasn’t a belonging or broken toy anymore. The French man who’d kidnapped me—believing he was my rescuer and living in fantasy denial—would curse the day he’d torn my happy new world apart.