The Awakening: Liam (Entangled Covet) (5 page)

“I know you don’t, but he doesn’t have to touch me to torture me. I can feel your emotions, remember?

I feel every bit of your terror while I’m forced to watch, trapped inside this room, unable to get to you…to

protect you. In those moments, I would give
anything
for it to be my own pain, my own torture, instead of

yours.” He stepped forward, wishing he could take her face between his hands, while he delivered the part,

and make her see the truth in his words. “For some reason, I
have
brought you into this, but I
swear
to you

I don’t know why. I know that becoming hard for you to believe considering what that bastard is saying,

but you are my mate. I would never put you in danger, ever.”

She swallowed. “Why would someone go to such great lengths to hurt you…to hurt me?”

“Don’t have a damn clue, but I’ll do anything to get you out of here so you can resume your life.”

She shook her head. “No. No matter how strained things are between us, we’ll
both
get out of here.”

The small rectangular opening in the middle of his door creaked opened and a tray laden with steak and

potatoes slid inside, filling the room with its marinated scent. His mouth immediately began to water, his

beast gave a low rumble, and his stomach growled, but he was conscious of one thing: the food had been

given to him through the door.

The man had walked right into Ava’s chamber, leaving her door open as he delivered her food, had

even stopped to have a conversation. He obviously considered Ava weak, easily subdued, which,

considering the man’s towering build, was the truth. But it was also cocky. Which gave them a possible

advantage.

Liam glanced back at Ava to find her staring at his tray and scowled. All she’d gotten was some sort of

slop, and he had a feast before him. He turned away from the food and moved back her.

“You can eat, Liam.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“That’s a lie.”

Shrugging, he ignored the way the smell of the food made his beast pace and his stomach twist in

hunger, and sat back down beside the glass. She grabbed her bowl and sat next to him. After scooping up a

generous spoonful of oatmeal, she stuffed it in her mouth and looked at him with a forced smile. “
Mmmm
,

it’s good,” she said around the mouthful.

He scowled again. Giving him such a fulfilling meal while watching his mate eat crap was just another

form of torture—though a mild one in comparison to what they had already been through.

“If anyone is going to get us out of here, it’s going to be you,” she said. “You need your strength.”

Always the voice of reason. Growling, he fetched the tray. After he sat back down, he lifted the steak

and tore off a mouthful with his teeth.

“Happy?” he asked around the meat.

She smiled, lifted her bowl again. “Yep.”

To placate her, he forced himself to take a few more bites before pushing the tray away. When she

noticed, she lowered her bowl. Suppressing a groan at her stubbornness, he decided to just let the food

issue go…for now.

The silence that fell between them was heavy, deafening, making it all the more clear they were trapped,

that at any second that man could return and hurt Ava some more. He couldn’t stand the tension, the

underlining fear, in the air. He needed to hear her voice, her sweet cadence that had always had the ability

to calm him in the past.

“So yesterday?” he asked.

There was a long pause and he started to wonder if she would answer when she finally said, “My sister

got into a prestigious summer program in France.”

“Emma?”

Ava’s fifteen year old sister had stayed with them a lot on the weekends while they’d been dating.

Despite the age difference, the sisters were very close, probably because Ava had practically raised Emma

while their parents had worked long hours. Though she had done everything she could to be a good role

model for the child, Emma had gotten in with a bad crowd about two years ago. The teenager he

remembered was one arrest away from juvie.

“She’s come a long way since she moved in with me.”

“Emma is living with you?”

“Yeah, about eight months now. Mom and dad were at their wits’ end and were close to just letting her

go to juvie, especially after…” She inhaled. “Anyway, I suggested she come to live with me for awhile

before they took that route. I hoped by getting her into a different high school and away from those kids,

she’d turn around. And she has.

He’d noticed her pause during her speech. “After what?”

Lips pursed, she looked at Liam. “After
that
night.”

Not the night she’d rejected him, but the night Emma had really gone over the line. Thankfully, no one

had been hurt by Emma’s reckless behavior, but Ava had once again immediately jumped up to rescue her

sister, and hadn’t told him about it until afterward. They’d had a doozy of a fight over it—one of many

when it came to her sister.

“So she’s finally straightened up?”

“That night scared her, Liam. I didn’t even realize how badly until later.”

A dark shadow passed across her eyes, and her anger started to boil his blood.

He took a deep cleansing breath, not needing the spike in her emotions to affect him, not wanting her to

see what her feelings could potentially do to him. If she ever saw him go into a
Bahrraj
episode, saw him

completely helpless to her emotions, he’d have no dignity left. Plus, she was so sensitive. The guilt would

eat her alive, possibly push her to do anything to fix him—including bonding herself to him. While that

would give him the internal peace he craved, Ava being stuck with him for eternity out of guilt wasn’t the

solution. He’d rather suffer than feel like he’d forced her hand.

“Why…” he rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the pressure of her emotions building within his

body…“Why are you angry?”

Her mouth popped open before she shook her head with a huff. “This is really an unfair advantage you

have.”

He didn’t want this advantage. Wouldn’t have it if she’d bonded to him. “Maybe so, but I feel it

nonetheless, so explain.”

“What’s there to say? Emma could’ve died for being so damn stupid. I still have some residual anger

over that.”

Her bottom lip disappeared beneath her teeth. She might know his tells, but he also knew hers. She

wasn’t telling him everything. “Did we break up because of Emma?”

He made sure to use her human term instead of his shifter one, not wanting to get her refocused on his

terminology.

“Why would you think that?”

“We never saw eye-to-eye when it came to your little sister.”

“No. We didn’t, but she wasn’t the reason I left. We just weren’t a good match.”

He didn’t need to see her gnawing on her lip to know she’d just uttered a huge lie. They had been the

perfect match. A match made for each other. “Why did you really let me go?”

“I’ve already told you.”

“I don’t buy your excuse. You were set to dump me before we’d even sat down to talk.
Before
I told

you what I was. What is the real reason, Ava?”

“Is this what it’s going to be like until we either escape or die? You bringing up the past?”

“We’re not going to die, and it’s hard not bringing up the past when you’ve never had the decency to

tell me why you left. I know you aren’t telling the whole truth. Out of the blue you didn’t want anything to

do with me. I want to know
why
.”

A hissing sounded in the room, and clouds of white smoke billowed from the vents on the floor on his

side of the glass. He jumped to his feet. She did the same.

“Liam! What’s going on?”

Eyes and lungs burning, he started coughing. The smell of sleeping gas overwhelmed his senses.

Grabbing the front of his shirt, he pulled it over his mouth. He looked up, making sure Ava was all right.

She stood staring at him in horror, then she ran up to the glass and pressed against it. As the gas filled his

room, her image faded until he was surrounded by nothing but white smoke.

Groaning, Liam lifted his head groggily then pushed off his stomach and sat up. Memories of the gas

filling the room, his inability to stay awake, hit him.

Ava!

Blinking his vision into focus, he found Ava strapped down on the board again, unconscious. A dark

bruise now discolored her left cheek. Rage blinded him as he fought to his feet. What the fuck had the

asshole done to her while he’d been out?

The bastard hadn’t injected her with whatever it was that made her dead to Liam. Her life flowed

through his blood as always. But why gas him? The man had already proven he could overpower Ava. Had

it been so Liam would wake to this? Wondering what had happened, how she’d been strapped down?

Where that fucking bruise had come from? Or was it to make him aware that he was powerless against their

captor, that with one flip of a switch he could be rendered helpless?

The masked man entered the other room, and Liam froze, dread consuming him. When the man pulled

a stainless steel rolling cart out from behind Ava, dread become outright fear.

Scalpels and an assortment of other surgical instruments littered the metal tray. Ava was still out cold. A

part of him was thankful she had no clue to the horror developing beside her. The man lifted a scalpel and

approached her. “Have you ever heard of the game Operation? I love that game, but it missing something

for men like you and me. Yeah, we have bones and stuff, but it leaves out the important parts that make us

what we are. I thought I’d create a game especially for us.”

Liam threw his body against the glass. No words of protest came to his lips, no thought, just blind terror

to get to her. To save her. The glass didn’t budge at his assault, and he bellowed his rage, ramming it again.

“I hope this is sharp enough.” When the man ran the blade down Ava’s forearm, she woke up

screaming, trying to thrash away from the pain. “Oh, good. It is.”

Liam’s beast roared, and his skin prickled, his face burned. The sensation fizzled as quickly as it had

appeared, but he charged the glass with all his force. It rattled, but kept in place.

“Now the rules of this game are simple. I have to carefully remove the bruises without slicing into the

delicate skin around it. I won’t get zapped like you do if you mess up in the human game, which is a little

anti-climatic, but I have to work with what I have.”As the man used the blade to carve around the bruise,

Ava’s screams intensified. A caterwaul came from deep inside Liam and the prickles intensified.

He tapped into the surging presence of his beast, its raging power. With the added strength, he smashed

his body against the barrier between him and Ava. A loud
pop
ricocheted in the room.

The masked man stopped, then took a step back.

That’s right, motherfucker. I will kill you. Fear for your life.

“You can’t do that, Liam! It’s not how the game is played. You’re ruining everything!”

He continued to pummel the barricade. The glass webbed.

“Shit.” The man dropped the scalpel and backed away.

With one more forceful drive, the webbing exploded across the entire surface before another
pop

sounded and the glass barrier disintegrated, raining onto the floor in thousands of small chunks. Liam

launched himself through the opening and dove for the fleeing bastard, seeing nothing but the red haze of

rage. The door crashed shut in his face, just as he slammed his body against it. Bellowing, he rammed

against the steel again and again. Even with the added force of his beast, the door laughed at him. He placed

his palms flat on the metal, hung his head and yelled—a long, frustrated, enraged sound.

The bastard had escaped. He shoved away from the door and stalked the room. Fury made his chest

heave as he eyed every crevice, searching for a weakness in their prison, looking for a way to get him, kill

him…and found none.

They were effectively trapped, but sooner or later the bastard would fuck up, and he would be ready to

pounce.

“Liam!”

He wasn’t sure how many times she’d called his name, but her yell finally penetrated, and with it the

adrenaline fled, making him blink out of the bloodlust that consumed him. Agony radiated up and down his

torso, but he pushed it away. Only one thing mattered. Ava.

Blood ran down her arm and leg as he fumbled with her bonds until they released. She fell into his arms

and he held her tight. The amazing part was she held him just as fiercely, as though she never wanted to let

him go, her face buried in his shoulder, her arms locked around his neck. Then he heard the first hiccupped

sob.

Knotting his fingers in her hair, he tugged her head back, then latched his lips to hers. The peace that

entered his body was like coming home. His beast hummed and he felt it all the way to his marrow as the

disconnection to his beast snapped back into place, where it belonged. Making him whole again.