Forbidden (Blood Ties #7)

Then he bent forward, slid his hands under me once more, and lifted me from the car.

No.

I wanted to demand he put me down and let me go. But my mouth refused to work and the words wouldn’t come. Warmth pressed against me. A softthudcame from the car door before we moved.

The motion of his body rocked me.

The heavy thud of his steps was the only sound.

He didn’t speak, not that I thought he would.

Riven Cruz was a cold, vile sonofabitch.

Hospital.

The word surfaced.

He was taking me to the hospital.

I kept my eyes closed, my mind fading in and out. I faintly became aware of the rush of steel doors, then we were rising, floor after floor, until a faint jolt brought me back once more. I opened my eyes as the elevator doors opened, to see him staring straight ahead.

He looked straight through, not straight ahead.

Through the hallway.

Through everything.

As though he was a ghost.

He didn’t even adjust my weight as he stepped along. Gray ate at the edges of my world, forcing me to close my eyes again. Only this time I didn’t really surface. That hollowness held me under, holding me captive as only faint sounds registered. Footsteps moved away, then the scrape of a chair.

I breathed in the tang of antiseptic. A sting came in my arm, sharp and cruel.WAIT!Panic moved in, unleashing one…single…deafening beat of my heart for only a second, until everything dropped away completely.

There was no fading, no flickers, no…nothing.

Darkness.

That’s all that existed.

Until that darkness gently brightened.

My head swam. Sounds were dull and blurred. I moaned and tried to open my eyes, but my lids were so heavy…sovery…heavy. I blinked and tried again. Colors were fuzzy. White. Gray. Black. Theclinkof a glass sharpened my attention. I inhaled hard, slowly focusing on the man in front of me.

A man I knew.

His head was canted down, staring at me as he lifted a tumbler half full of some kind of Scotch. I could smell the scent of it from here. The room sharpened and colors stayed where they were supposed to be. Especially the dark gray of those eyes fixed on me.

Terror pushed in, snatching away the washed out blur and plunging me into blinding clarity.Shit…shit.My mind raced a million miles an hour. I wasn’t supposed to be here, not in his apartment. Notwith him, on aplush, oversized white leather sofa. Silver and black furnishings drew my gaze as I searched for an escape. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, the city sparkled.

Think.

I swallowed, my mind so slow and foggy as I desperately searched for a backup plan…a planC, now that Plan B had gone to hell. My knees were bent uncomfortably. I shifted, lifting my hands from my side, until a tether snapped, jerking them to a stop. Something pulled on my ankles, biting hard.

I looked down. The room spun when I did that. The view of my bare thighs turned hazy, swimming harder.Whoa. Easy. Easy.

But as my vision cleared and the room sharpened, I saw just how much trouble I was in. My hands were tethered on each side of me, strapped to my ankles, in such a way, I could neither lift my arms nor straighten my legs. People didn’t do that, not normal people anyway. Theydon’t do th—

“Your name.”