Bound By Blood and Lies (Bound By #1)

Prologue

FAE

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The sound doesn’t echo the way it should.

It lands heavy and swallowed. I keep my eyes open because when I close them, he gets creative.

The air smells metallic and damp. My wrists burn where the cuffs bite into skin that is already red raw and my shoulders ache from being pulled too far back for too long but none of that matters.

None of it even registers properly anymore.

What matters is the rhythm.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

My pulse tries to match it, and I cringe as I force it not to. Instead, I count to ten as I breathe through my nose. I learned a long time ago that pain is easier when it has numbers. When it has shape or edges. The problem is this pain just keeps going.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It helps to disassociate.

I can almost feel Roman’s hands on me; how soft and tender they are as he lazily draws circles on my hips.

The ghost of it settles over my skin like warmth after standing too close to a fire.

I cling to that. He always smelled like jasmine and cashmere.

I imagine pressing my face into his chest and feeling the steady drum of his heart under my ear.

It was always strong, always alive… will I forget what it feels like beneath my palm?

Thud. Thud.

The rhythm in the room falters and my breath catches.

I replace the sound with his voice in my head.

His low and certain tone telling me to breathe, to focus on him and only him.

If he was here, he would probably tell me I’m stronger than this room, stronger than the cuffs, stronger than the man sitting behind me.

Roman once told me I was born with fire inside of me.

I didn’t believe him then, but I do now.

You see fire doesn’t beg, it waits, it takes the oxygen in the room and then consumes it when the time is right.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

I want to groan. My wrists sting, my shoulders scream, my back is on fire. But beneath it, the truth burns. Soon this rhythm won’t belong to them anymore. Soon we will be free.

A sound breaks from the other side of the room.

It’s not dramatic… just small. But it’s the smallness that carves into me deeper than any metal ever could.

I pull against the restraints but they don’t move.

They never fucking move. This time when my eyes move, they land on her.

My beautiful angel, broken on a table too filthy for her.

“Close your eyes," she mouths to me as tears fall down her red and blotchy face.

I shake my head. She never closed her eyes for me; I will never close my eyes for her. I won’t give up and I will not let her suffer alone. I already did that for too many weeks.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The light above us flickers. The bulb hums like it’s trying to die but doesn’t quite manage it.

I still remember the fairy lights she strung across our dorm wall.

Now as I look at her, I yearn to see her pink and gold once more rather than this grey and red.

We used to lie on her floor and talk about stupid boys and dramatic futures like we had time.

Now we lie on a floor and hold eye contact just to survive.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

“Harder!” he barks from behind me and I jump as I look at the man bending over Robyn. “She needs to cry before this is over,” he growls.

She whimpers.

It’s been days now and no-one’s come. I’m not sure if I thought Roman would but I knew Felix wouldn’t give up.

Is he okay? Is he breaking? Does he think I ran?

God, he’s now lost two women. His twin and his future wife.

I hope Roman isn’t mad at him for me disappearing.

I hope he’s helping him. I hope he’s reminding him he needs to eat and wash and live.

My throat burns but I refuse to make a sound.

He feeds on it. I know that. I learned that lesson young.

You see, silence can be a weapon too if you know how to use it.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

My mind tries to drift. It tries to split, to float somewhere above my body where none of this touches me.

I drag it back down by force. I won’t leave her here alone.

Not even inside my own head. She needs to see me steady.

She needs to see that I am not broken. There’s a tremor in the air now.

In him. I can feel it. The performance is escalating because he wants a reaction.

He wants to see which of us cracks first.

But he still doesn’t understand.

We don’t break separately.

We break together.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Her cry is guttural as I watch the hulk behind her rip her head back by her hair.

Her neck bends at an awful angle as his disgusting penis penetrates her.

As he pulls out this time, I see the blood and remind myself not to be sick.

She warned me. She told me he wouldn’t stop until blood had been spilt.

How is this training? How is this okay for his bloodline?

I refuse to buy into his narrative that this is anything but torture.

He tortures women simply because he can.

Because his bloodline isn’t strong enough, isn’t elite enough, isn’t pure enough.

He can convince himself of whatever helps him to sleep at night but I know the truth. Robyn knows the truth.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

I feel his hard cock press against my spine, and I try to use all my training not to flinch as the stench of onion washes over me.

The sick fuck is getting off. Is it his daughter being naked?

Or being raped? Or is it the power he has over us right now?

Maybe he’s just so turned on by cock he can’t fucking help it.

I refuse to believe a man who loves women can treat women like this.

No, Fisher doesn’t love women… he loathes them. But men… men he loves.

“Blood is so beautiful isn’t it, wife?” Fisher sneers in my ear as he licks my earlobe and I shudder involuntarily.

I don’t answer. I haven’t spoken to him since the first day and I know it’s getting to him.

I can see it in the twitch of his eyes and the way his fists clench.

But I don’t care. The thing is he wants me to talk; he wants me to engage and now that I know that I would rather die than let him hear my voice ever again.

My fingers twitch behind my back as if they are searching for hers across the concrete that separates us.

I can’t reach her. I know I can’t. But if I could just touch her, just once, I could anchor us both.

I try to remember her laugh. It was always so loud and unfiltered.

The way she threw her head back when something genuinely surprised her.

Now instead of laughter there are tears, instead of her throwing her head back in joy, it’s in pain.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

Something shifts in me as I hear her scream.

It’s the part of me that survived Father, the part that survived training, the part that learned how to catalogue weakness and wait.

Fisher thinks this is punishment. He thinks this is dominance.

What he doesn’t realise yet is that he is building something with every rape, every whip, and every scream. I lift my chin slightly.

Robyn’s blue eyes land on me as I mouth “I’m here.”

She nods.

I’m still here.

And when this ends, because it will end, I am going to kill him. Not quickly. Not mercifully. But completely. The sound lands for one final time as the hulk groans his pleasure. This time, instead of flinching… I memorise it.