Read Promises Keep (The Promise Series) for Free Online Page B

her blood or his seed. He turned her to her side, and she let him, limbs flopping about wherever they would. What did it matter now? What did anything matter? She felt him slide back up her body. With icy calm, she groped for the oil lamp beside the bed. By touch, she turned down the wick until with a hiss, the lamp went out.
    “I’m sorry,” he gasped in the sudden darkness, his breath soughing in and out as his chest pressed against hers, his sweat dampening her breasts. “It’s been so long and then I couldn’t stop. You’re sweeter than honey, Angel. Did I hurt—”
    She brought the lamp crashing against his skull. He collapsed on top of her. The air whooshed out of her as she took his full weight. “I hope I killed you, you son of a bitch!”
    It was a vain wish. The man’s chest still rose and fell with his breath. But he was going to have a heck of a headache. She pushed and wiggled, but he was built like a mountain, and moving mountains was not something she did daily. Finally, she got her shoulder free and from there it was just a matter of twisting. She caught her breath at the edge of the bed. Her muscles shook as if she’d just run thirty miles. Going one more foot seemed impossible, but she didn’t have much choice. She swung her legs to the floor. The room spun crazily. Her stomach churned.
    “I don’t have time for this,” she told her body as she forced herself vertical. She immediately dropped to her knees, unable to detect up from down, reality from nightmare. The drugs they had given her were too strong.
    After a minute or two, her eyes adjusted to the gloom. She struggled to her feet and made her way to where the man’s shirt lay draped over the chair. She dragged it on, needing to cover her vulnerability as she swayed with the effort to remain standing. She closed her eyes tight. The odors of sweat and sex mingled in the air, clinging to her skin. She took a deep breath to clear her mind but that insidious cloud was back, hazing her brain. A million escape plans swirled like feathers tossed into the wind. There, but just out of reach. Her teeth sank deep into her lip. She could taste the blood but she couldn’t feel the pain and that, she realized, was not good.
    The outline of something large and rectangular against the opposite wall caught her eye. She concentrated with everything she had before finally figuring out what it was. The door. It was right before her. She focused on that. Getting to the door was the first step on her journey back to her mountain. All she had to do was get to it, and she would be free.
    She took one step, and then another. The third got her to her destination. She cast a furtive look at the huge man collapsed on the bed. His face was turned away from her. His fingers twitched, and she dove for the handle like one possessed.
    It came alive beneath her touch, turning under her fingers. She stared at it, not understanding. She was still staring when it hurtled inward. It caught her high on the shoulder, and the violence behind its opening sent her sailing across the room. The only thing that kept her from crashing into the wall was the upholstered chair she stumbled into. When she landed in its depths, she stayed there, dragging in deep breaths of air, trying to clear the nausea from her stomach and the fuzz from her brain.
    When her head cleared enough to push herself up on her elbows, she saw Cecile and Aleric in the doorway. Aleric retrieved the lamp and calmly lit it, ignoring the shards of broken glass that remained of the globe. The smirk on his lips let her know that they’d planned this night right down to this humiliating moment. The malevolent promise shining in their eyes told her that her rape wasn’t the end of their revenge for the trouble she’d given them.
    Well, she wasn’t done yet either. She sprang off the chair. Sheer determination kept her from swaying as the room spun crazily. She clenched her fists at her side to suppress the urge to