Read Trueblood 01-The-Consolation-Prize for Free Online

the rest of his body, trying to ease the areas of skin caught under the chains. There was no excuse to touch his wedding tackle. The chains left that area rather neatly exposed.
    Chloe could see no way to free him without cutting the metal. There was no padlock, even if she had a key. In fact, she couldn’t see if there was any start or end to the chain unless it was hidden behind him. It was looped through several rings attached to the wall and wrapped all over him.
    “Who’s done this?” she asked, then mentally asked the question she wouldn’t voice. What did you do to deserve it?
    She didn’t want to believe such a dark, sexy angel had done anything really bad. Chloe wiped his forehead. Who was she kidding? Not angel but devil. This guy looked born for trouble. Her imagination slipped into overdrive and back to her childhood. He’d seduced the spa owner’s young daughter, Phoebe. He was Rufus, a fairy king/dragon who’d tried to drag a guest into his world through the therapeutic waterfall. Or he was into bondage and had asked to be chained up.
    Chloe sighed. That was the most sensible thing she’d come up with. Maybe he liked pain.
    “No.”
    A spike of agony hit straight between her eyes. She clenched her teeth to keep from crying out, and for a few moments struggled to breathe until the pain faded. Her sixth-and-a-half sense getting vicious? Pain didn’t usually accompany the commands. Chloe thought back to the night her family died. Had the voice hurt her then? Had its insistence she leave, been an ache in her head?
    “Yes.”
    But not pain. Chloe shivered. She’d been drawn here for a reason and it seemed clear that reason hung in front of her. Chloe brushed her finger along his lips. “Wake up.”
    Not a flicker.

    “Luka? Is that your name? Luka Varek? I’ll come back, Luka. I promise. Just hang on.”
    She winced. Under the circumstances, that was an unfortunate phrase.

    * * * * *
Chloe drove to Harrogate and only after she parked did she realize that her inner voices had not tried to stop her this time. So this was something she was meant to do -- rescue the hunky naked man from the cellar. Chloe hoped he was grateful. Really grateful. It might seem the wrong place and time but the idea of climbing into bed with him seemed to be occupying rather a lot of her mind. Her mouth watered at the idea of giving him a blowjob. That soft satiny skin sliding over the solid core of his cock. He’d taste -- What the hell was the matter with her?
    She jumped out of the car and strode towards the town center. She had to stop thinking about sex and start thinking about how to free him. Bolt cutters were at the top of her list, tricky to track down in a genteel spa town like Harrogate, dominated by up-market fashion boutiques and trendy restaurants. Chloe walked past Betty’s teashop, past all the clothes shops she’d normally have explored, and kept going until she found a hardware store.
    The tool purchased -- and she winced at the cost -- gee, she could have bought a shoe to replace the one she’d lost -- she detoured to buy antiseptic cream, packets of sandwiches, cans of a sports drink, and a couple of chocolate bars. Okay, more than couple. If he didn’t want them, she did.
    As she pulled into the parking area back at Washburn Hall, she spotted the guy from the garden striding towards her, a scowl on his face. Chloe stepped from the car and grabbed her bags.
    “I thought you’d gone,” he said.
    “I came back.”
    He looked at the shopping looped over her arm. “Lander’s Hardware?”
    “I need to do a bit of repair work.”
    “I’ll give you a hand.”
    “Not here. At home,” Chloe said.
    “I meant I’ll give you a hand with your bags.” He reached for them and Chloe lurched away.
    “They’re not heavy. Apart from the stuff from the hardware shop, obviously.”
    Shut up!

    Her sixth-and-a-half sense and her common sense chimed in together but too late. He frowned and it was more a