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PROLOGUE
Something was wrong. It oozed through her senses like an oily presence, determined to overwhelm her, to overtake her. Dark, invisible chains held her in that place between sleep and conscious awareness. And no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t push past the restraints tightening around her.
Panic raced through her. She knew she had to fight, knew she had to find a way to open her eyes, to force herself to fight. She had to. If she didn’t, then she could die there.
She had to open her eyes. She had to see who was doing this, had to remember. . . . But she couldn’t force them open, she couldn’t move or fight. With each second the sense of danger grew, wrapping around her with razor-tipped bonds.
Hurting her.
Her blood began heating, almost boiling through her veins with so much pain, such agony. It began in her arm, and inch by inch worked along her body until even her brain was on fire.
She couldn’t scream. Her voice didn’t work, the screams and the pleas couldn’t find a path to emit the tortured sounds reverberating through her head.
Icy terror ricocheted through her.
All I have to do is accept it’s real. Just accept it isn’t a dream and the pain will go away. I just have to accept it. It’s not a dream. Accept it, and the pain will stop.
Just accept it.
Accept it and I won’t hurt anymore.
That wasn’t her voice. It wasn’t her thoughts.
What else could it be? If it wasn’t hers, then what could it be?
Oh God, the pain!
It was real. It was really happening. It was real.
The pain eased marginally. Boiling, lava-hot agony no longer ripped at her senses but the pain was still intense, excruciating.
She just wanted it to go away.
—
The whispers moved around her, voices in her head, or were they in the room with her? Demands that she accept it was real.
She was accepting. God, yeah, it was real. Every agonizing second of it was real.
She just couldn’t figure out how it was real. No one should be able to get to her here, at her mother’s inn. Her suite was the safest place she could be. Her mother’s lover, Timothy, was a retired federal agent and revered security gadgets. He would never allow anyone to hurt her like this. She had to wake up. She had to make it stop.
Pain exploded through Zoey’s head with the force of a blow connecting with it, sending shards of white-hot agony tearing through it.
This wasn’t a dream.
“Fight, Zoey . . .” It was a hiss of sound more than an actual order. “You have to fight. Harley will kill you . . .”
Harley?
Why would Harley hurt her?
“Look at him, Zoey.” That hissing demand was like static at her ear. “Look at him. See Harley. See who’s hurting you, Zoey.”
Struggling to force her eyes open, she tried to cry out and couldn’t. Tried to deny it was happening.
Harley was on the bed with her, smiling, his gentle green eyes filled with laughter like they always were. Except he was naked. Naked and aroused and he was pulling at the elastic waistband of her pajama shorts, ripping the side of them, determined to remove them.
Dizzy, sick to her stomach with pain and confusion, she tried to fight, struggling against the harsh hands tearing at her clothes, ripping them from her and leaving her naked.
The air surrounding her was icy, sinking through her skin to her bones as she bucked against the hands holding her down.
Twisting beneath him, she managed to roll from the bed, scrambling to get to her feet, to get to the door of her suite and rush from the room. She had to get away. If she could just get Timothy’s attention, then he’d make Harley stop. He’d find out why her friend was trying to hurt her like this.
Before she could get to her feet, he tripped her, throwing her to the floor. He flipped her to her back and came over her again. Smiling, always smiling at her.
A flash of a darker expression, a darker face flickered across Harley’s features. A jagged scar across his eye, a mean, malicious gaze, and eyes that weren’t Harley’s.
Terror raced through her mind. What was happening to her?
She kicked, trying to cry, trying to scream . . .
Oh God, what was happening to her? Why couldn’t she scream? Cry?
It was like a dream where all sound becomes blocked, unable to struggle free. But it wasn’t a dream.
