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“Prince, A’zal. Please, come this way.”
A guard stepped threateningly inside.
Tapping on his bracelet, A’zal braced himself for what he was about to do. Kimber would see him like this, without his human skin.
After what she went through as a child, he didn’t want to traumatize her more. But she was his mate. She’d have to acclimate to his Luxxorian form, eventually.
He enacted the teleport signal and disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kimber
“Hey,Danacanyouturn off the lights?”
Groaning, Kimber clenched her eyes against the glare. Dana had insisted on staying over and was sleeping somewhere on a pile of blankets on the floor. Tossing and turning most of the night, Kimber wasn’t sure she’d slept at all, but it must be morning already because Dana had turned on every damn light in the living room.
“Dana? Turn them off, please.”
When did her lights get so bright? Even with her eyes closed, the silvery glow seemed like the brightest LED known to man. Waking a little more fully, she tried to fling her right arm over her eyes, but it felt heavy and numb as if the limb had fallen asleep. Both her arms felt tingly and weird. That’s what she got for sleeping on her old, sunken couch. Especially in her condition.
She was pregnant. Kimber groaned again as it all came rushing back. The test, the pink lines, her impossibly round belly. She opened her eyes and gasped at the burn of lights grinding into her pupils. Turning her head, she grimaced and tried to move off the damn couch.
Everything was stuck. Her arms, her legs. Her hips. Fear raked sharp nails down her spine. Something was very, very wrong.
“Dana?”
A soft sound came from somewhere close. Rustling. A clacking sound. Metal scraping against metal. The barest of a touch fluttered against the crook of her right arm. Kimber gasped and tried to recoil but her limbs were held tight. Her brain suddenly hyper focused on the ligature of something tight around her ankles and wrists.
She was bound! There was a strap over her hip bones, another just below her ribs. Struggling against the restraints, she tried to lift her head to see her surroundings, but the lights were too aggressive.
“Dana!” Her friend’s name ripped from her throat, ripe with terror. “Dana, where are you?”
Had someone broken into her apartment? Was this a home invasion or a robbery gone wrong? Her mind whirled with possibilities but a little voice in her head said she wasn’t in her apartment anymore. The air felt different. It was cold with an antiseptic scent in the room. The sounds around here were unfamiliar—especially the metallic sound, like a knife scraping against something hard.
Was someone sharpening a knife? Bile rose in her throat. Heaving, she turned her head to the side to take a breath, but she couldn’t breathe as panic swarmed her. Panting, gasping, she struggled to control it, but it was too strong. If only she could throw the covers over her head and pretend it wasn’t happening like she had the night the grays came for her father that night, their blinding lights cutting into her room and obscuring her vision.
Memory of that night stared aggressively into her mind’s eye. The window opening as if the nails weren’t there to hold it shut, the gray bodies slipping in. It hadn’t but had been a dream. Her fourteen-year-old mind had known it deep down just like she knew what was happening right now was very, very real.
Only this time, there was no way to hide.
The light suddenly snapped off. The glow of normal light after the brilliance momentarily stunned her.
Someone was in the room with her. She could feel the presence.
A scent like formaldehyde scorched her nose.
Slowly, her vision acclimated to the dimmer lights. White walls. A white ceiling. An enormous overhead medical light partially pulled down. Wiggling her fingers, she touched her fingertips to the cool surface beneath her. Metal. Cold, hard, bare metal.
She was lying on a medical table.
A shadow flickered in her peripheral vision. Turning her head that way, she caught a dark form morphing into a human male with a face she’d seen before. Furrowing her brow, she contemplated if what she’d just witnessed was real. A shadow… turned into a man. She was dreaming.It’s not a dream. It’s not a dream.
“Oh my God, did I eat Pel’s crazy fish?”
This was a bad trip. It made so much sense now. None of this was real. Not the baby, she hadn’t gotten fired. Dana wasn’t here. And she was still in Ireland having an absolutely insane mental trip from Pel’s ridiculous hazardous sushi.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she started to relax but her brain rejected the reality she was attempting to create.This is real, Kimber. It’s real.
