HAZEL

Pain exploded through my mouth. I tasted copper immediately, felt blood flood over my tongue and spill down my chin. I tried to jerk back but his teeth were buried too deep, tearing through flesh as I pulled away.

I screamed against his mouth. My hands pushed at his chest, trying to create distance. But despite the platinum chains holding him to the ceiling, he moved. His hands shot out and caught one of my wrists, as his fingers wrapped around flesh covered bone with crushing strength.

He bit down harder.

I screamed again. The sound came out wet and broken around the blood filling my mouth. I yanked myself backward with all my strength, not caring that my lip was still caught between his teeth. Flesh tore. The pain was white-hot and immediate, but I kept pulling until I ripped free.

Blood poured down my chin and onto my nightdress. I stumbled back, but he still held my right arm in an iron grip that was starting to do more than just restrain me.

Pressure built in my wrist. I felt my bones grinding together under the force of his hold.

"The woman I touch and will ever touch is her." His voice came out wrong. More animal than man, shaped by a throat not built for human speech. "How dare you."

I swung at him with my free arm. My fist connected with his jaw, then his cheek, then his temple. I hit him again and again, screaming through the pain in my mouth and the terror flooding my system as his grip tightened further.

Something cracked in my wrist. The sound was small and wet, followed immediately by pain so intense my vision went white at the edges. I kept hitting him anyway, driven by panic and the horrible realization that this had gone catastrophically wrong.

But even through the pain, even through the fear, my body was still responding to his scent. The sage pheromones wrapped around me, pulling at something deep and primal that didn’t care about broken bones or torn flesh. My core clenched with need even as I fought for my life.

My punches weren’t doing anything. He barely seemed to notice them.

"I don’t understand." The words came out slurred around blood and damaged tissue. "Why aren’t you under my wiles? The aphrodisiac should have worked."

"Aphrodisiac?" His laugh was harsh and devoid of humor. "That’s fucking flour."

The world stopped.

Flour? What the fuck did he eman that was flour and not aphrodisiac?

Then it slowly clicked.

Delta...

Delta had deceived me.

The realization hit like a physical blow. Everything I’d planned, everything I’d counted on, had been built on a foundation of powder that would do nothing but make us both look ridiculous covered in wheat dust.

That fucking bitch!

I snapped my head forward and slammed my forehead into his nose.

The impact sent stars exploding across my vision, but his grip loosened just enough. I tore myself free and ran for the door, cradling my broken wrist against my chest as blood continued to pour from my mouth.

Behind me, his chains rattled with violent intensity. Metal shrieked against metal. He was pulling, I realized. Actually pulling at the restraints anchored into the ceiling itself.

A groan filled the room. And that shit did not from him but from above.

I glanced back as I reached the door. The ceiling where the chains connected had started to spiderway. Cracks spread outward from the anchor points in thin, branching lines that looked like lightning frozen in plaster.

My hands fumbled with the lock. Blood made everything slippery. My broken right hand screamed in protest as I tried to use it anyway, but when I managed to get the mechanism to turn, the key snapped off inside the lock.

"No." The word came out as a sob. I stared at the broken piece of metal still clutched in my trembling fingers, unable to process what I was seeing. "No, no, no."

I threw my weight against the door, trying to pull it open. But the damaged frame had warped when I’d forced my way in, and now it held fast. The door wouldn’t budge no matter how hard I yanked.

Behind me, metal shrieked.

One of the chains tore free from the ceiling in an explosion of plaster and wood. The sound was deafening in the enclosed space.

I spun around just in time to see him swing the freed chain like a whip.

It caught me across the face before I could move.

The world went red. Pain unlike anything I’d ever experienced exploded through my skull, radiating from the point of impact. I felt my cheek split open under the force of it, felt blood and something worse start to pour down the side of my face. My vision filled with crimson and I couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything but stand there screaming as my brain tried to process damage it wasn’t equipped to handle.

If he got completely free, he would kill me.

The certainty of it cut through everything else. The fear overrode the pain, sharp and clarifying. I turned back to the door and started kicking it. My bare feet slammed against wood over and over, driven by pure survival instinct.

The window...

I could go through the window. Better to risk the fall than stay here and die a sure death.

I turned to run toward it just as a thunderous bang shook the entire wall.

The door flew inward, torn half off its hinges.

Lysander stood in the doorway like something out of a fever dream. His eyes took in the scene with startling speed. Me, covered in blood and flour. Wenzel, half-freed from his chains and the destruction around us.

I didn’t wait for him to process it. I could escape now. So I ran, hoping to slip past him and run for my life.

My dreams turned out to be just dreams as his palm met my face like a wall.

The impact was absolute. My head snapped back, and I felt my skull connect with the doorframe with a crack that seemed to echo inside my bones. Darkness rushed in from all sides, swallowing thought and pain and fear until there was nothing left but black silence.