Chain Me (The Ellie Gray Chronicles Book 2) Read online

  Maybe firing the handyman hadn’t been too smart an idea, either?

  A minor inconvenience. One couldn’t put a price tag on silence—and I had the lion’s share as I wandered the deserted foyer. Cold, drafty desolation lingered between the wooden floors and the cavernous ceiling despite the sweltering heat outside.

  Home sweet home.

  My breath painted the air white, but there was no one around to adjust the heating system, and I didn’t know how. Perhaps Georgie—my estranged sister who belonged to a secret society of vampire hunters—did, though it wasn’t like I could ask her.

  Screaming Get the hell out! at everyone around you tended to have that desired effect. They scattered, no arguments. No desperate pleas to stay.

  It was like magic, screaming—and I refused to regret the action one damn bit. Why, when I could strip my coat and leave it right there at the foot of the staircase with no one to stare?

  No one to judge, or nag, or patronize.

  When I crept into my room, there was no maid to snipe about my rumpled bedsheets or to sigh in pity as I crawled onto the mattress and buried my head beneath the covers. There was no one to witness the shiver that ran down my spine as my stomach contracted. There was no doting chef to care that I hadn’t eaten a solid meal in nearly two weeks, despite a ravenous hunger that plagued me almost as violently as a near-persistent bout of nausea.

  Nothing was wrong with me.

  Nothing but the invisible creature ripping my insides apart, contorting my body in agony.

  I barely managed to clear my head from the mattress before copious amounts of liquid expelled from my throat and pooled on the floor. Then I turned into the safety of my pillow, but squeezing my eyes shut didn’t erase the image of it. Thick. Red.

  No bother. I already knew the CliffsNotes version of what was transpiring. I was maybe dying again. My body was collapsing upon itself, yada yada yada. The doctor’s diagnosis would soon confirm it, and then I could commence with the drafting of a will and whatnot.

  I’d done it all before, so no harm no foul. Only something told me that a mysterious benefactor wouldn’t step from the shadows to offer a solution this time. He had every reason to want me dead, after all, considering I owned ten years’ worth of his soul…

  I was on my own—a fact that didn’t make much of a damn difference in the grand scheme.

  I was Eleanor Gray. The only thing on Earth I excelled at was being alone.

  Silence

  At least there was one person who wouldn’t leave me just because I demanded it. Well, a creature, but he’s no less valid. Mr. Tinkles, my dearest Siamese rescue cat, served as the second-to-last living creature dwelling within Gray Manor.

  The fact that he only had three limbs might have contributed to why he remained behind at all, but that was beside the point.

  The moment I opened the door to his suite, he lunged from the shadows, claws drawn in his typical greeting. A bell hanging from his collar—a custom light-blue velvet one with sterling-silver hardware—jiggled manically, tracking his advance. He lunged toward me, his eyes flashing with murderous intent. By sheer luck, the back wheels of his makeshift wheelchair caught on a bump in the carpet, and I jerked out of range unscathed.

  Until the room began spinning.

  My stomach crawled up my throat as the wallpaper bled into the carpet. White on red, like fresh blood on pale flesh. Gagging, I slumped forward, and I had only enough time to aim opposite the direction of my cat before I ruined a priceless antique carpet with a stream of vomit. Quite the feat, considering I had nothing left in my stomach to bring up. Just more of that unsettling liquid. Red and vibrant, the puddle resisted cleaning no matter how hard I tried to mop up the mess with the end of my skirt.

  It wasn’t like I needed a maid. I didn’t…

  Luckily, I didn’t need to guard from Tinkles, either. The blatant destruction of his private suite startled the poor darling into ceasing his attack. Eyes wide, he slunk toward his favorite corner. A haughty meow came a heartbeat later, demanding more food instead of my flesh for once. After I’d fulfilled his request, he watched me, swishing his tail through the air. Then he approached.

  So much for his brief ceasefire. I tensed, throwing my hands out before me—but he didn’t lunge. In fact, his hackles weren’t even raised.

  The moment he finally reached my side and curled up against my leg—without attacking—I knew then and there that something was horribly, terribly wrong.

  Fear so raw that it packed a punch rendered me spineless. I sank to my knees, curling up against the invaluable carpet. And my devious, hateful feline didn’t hiss at me once. In fact, I swore I felt the silken brush of his fur settling right against my abdomen.

  Hours later, I escaped into the bath and made a game out of ignoring the multitude of changes I hadn’t reported to the good doctor Goodfellow.

  Because they didn’t matter.

  Like how pale my skin had become: tissue paper over the bluish veins snaking underneath, carrying my newly “healed” blood. Brittle bones stood out like exposed scaffolding, propping up my gaunt features.

  One symptom, however, triggered the most alarm. It was a feeling lurking beneath the water’s surface and infecting my skin. Itching. In my muscles. In my bones. Food didn’t soothe the irritation. Water, either. It felt deeper.

  Perhaps the manifestation of some festering tumor?

  Oh joy.

  Looking on the bright side, I toweled off and hunched beneath a terrycloth robe. Why all the worry? I had no terminal diagnosis.

  In fact, I was supposedly cured, thanks to a vampire who gave me his magic necklace. I eyed the jewelry in question, holding it up for inspection. Some women might have cherished the expertly crafted silver cross. If I squinted, I could have called it beautiful.

  Or hideous. It didn’t suit me, standing out gaudily as I approached the mirror and tried to salvage my appearance.

  If my health continued to decline, at least I already looked the part: dead. My frown was the liveliest thing about me. It remained as I ran a brush through my hair and dressed in an old skirt and a sweater. In the end, I put the sweater on backward and only had enough energy to sweep the worst tangles back from my face before my stomach roiled again.

  The Eleanor from yesterday would have written the symptom off. At least it wasn’t hemorrhaging to death, no bother.

  But now… The little detail of my vomit seemed harder to ignore. Remnants of it still speckled the corner of my mouth. Red. Salty. When I swiped at a smear with my thumb, the liquid spread, painting my cheek.

  Dr. Goodfellow had noticed it too—a fact that suggested I wasn’t making it up out of paranoia. Perhaps another scenario, other than a psychotic break, could explain the past few weeks?

  Like the prospect that, despite his sudden disappearance, Dublin Helos wasn’t done with me yet.

  Had he stooped to poisoning me again?

  Or perhaps a more nefarious ailment to drive me insane for good?

  Anything to retrieve the one thing of value I had that might interest him: his contract. He was most likely stalking me from some unseen hiding place, waiting for the chance to pounce. In the meantime, he settled for gloating from afar. Ignoring me.

  Well, I would give him something to ignore.

  Upon returning to my room, I collapsed onto the chair before my desk. Countless brochures littered the surface, and they fell to the floor as I swiped them aside. Some contained the donor lists of city-owned buildings. Others were political donation rosters. Some pertained to the boards of other area hospitals.

  I had scoured them all for even a hint of one name. One mysterious benefactor with a fetish for the dramatic.

  Again, my fingers caressed the cross hanging from my throat. The moment he’d given it to me replayed in my mind almost daily.

  “Wear it,” he’d insisted. “Take it off and you’ll die.”

  Despite the warning, I had considered doing just that. I’d even tried t
o in the days after he’d left. But something always held me back. Stupidity, most likely. Or maybe pride?

  Resisting him was what the pathetic, old Eleanor had done, and look where that had gotten her.

  Though look what the opposite had gotten me, current-day Eleanor.

  The same damn thing—loneliness.

  Dejected, I watched my hand fall onto my lap. Then I wrenched a drawer open and fished out a page of stationery and a pen from inside it. The moment I pressed the nib to the paper, an odd flash of déjà vu made my hand tremble, which made ink splatter onto the page.

  I envisioned a painfully handsome man with the face of an angel, his voice cruel as he dished out his trademark proposal.

  “Live or die, Eleanor?”

  How naïve I’d been back then. After all, there’d never been a choice. Just a game, but this time, I vowed to make my own rules—even if I had to scribble them hastily in black ink.

  I never fell for it, you know. I never believed that you could actually want me. I never did…

  When I finished writing, I folded the page and attempted to stick it into an envelope. I would never send it, of course.

  I had some damn sense of modesty. It was the mere thought of it that mattered: shoving all of my pathetic fears regarding him into a small space and sealing it with a flick of a finger.

  “Damn!” Faint heat prickled the pad of my thumb and I popped the digit into my mouth, though I barely felt the sting. Just…

  Hunger.

  My teeth bored down on their own accord, extending the bitter flavor coating my tongue. I must have grazed my hand over something without realizing it. Something that didn’t make my stomach rebel in disgust. Instead, it triggered a thought that blotted out all others.

  I need more.

  I scanned the surface of the desk as I sucked, hunting for whatever substance I might be tasting. Solid oak. Paper. Black ink.

  Red droplets on white parchment.

  Light flickered over the domed surfaces while my brain finally connected the taste with sight.

  Oh god! I wrenched my thumb from my mouth and lurched from the chair. Too fast. My hand flew out, grasping for the edge of the desk, but I missed. Both legs gave way, pitching me onto my knees. My stomach lurched at the pain. Demanding, sharp, pinching cramps…

  Food. That would fix it. All I needed was a meal.

  I considered bread, or a salad, or whatever might be lurking in the pantry down below, and I’d barely made it onto my hands and knees before my stomach roiled again. There was no hiding from what came up this time. Crimson painted my fingertips, caught beneath the spray, tainting my touch. Still gagging, I snatched the finished letter from my desk, hauled myself upright, and staggered toward the door.

  Modesty was for healthy people.

  Sane people.

  And I was well beyond both states of being.

  My new driver asked way too many damn questions. “Did you cut yourself, miss? You know this place is deserted, right? Are you sure this is the right address?”

  To compound my irritation, I didn’t even know his name. As he opened the door on my end, I asked him purely out of spite.

  “François,” he blurted after a moment’s pause. His wide-eyed expression probably had something to do with the red liquid drying over the corner of my mouth. And my hands.

  Rather than explain myself, I shoved the door open farther and pushed past him to mount the curb. A scorching sun cast the property in an uncharacteristically bright light. Spring was waning and warm weather had rudely invaded. Those who passed by were wearing vibrant sundresses and short-sleeved ensembles in pastel pinks and dreamy hues.

  On the other hand, I was wearing a thick skirt. And a sweater. And an overcoat.

  The layers were in vain—I was shivering anyway.

  Perhaps my inner emotions were projecting outside? Though, in that case, I should have felt nothing. Numb was the word du jour as I pondered the hollowed-out shell of a building before me.

  It had been a bustling cathedral only a few short weeks ago. Now, a sign nailed to the grand entrance claimed it closed for renovations. How subtle.

  If only its worshippers knew what had taken place within this supposedly holy space, just beyond the beautiful façade of stained-glass windows.

  God didn’t live here alone—that was for sure. Or at least, that used to be the case. Even now, the back of my neck prickled, but a paranoid glance over my shoulder revealed no one in sight. After a moment’s hesitation, I crouched and finally slid my bloodied letter beneath the door.

  There. Whether anyone actually read it or not didn’t matter. I’d made an attempt to have the last word.

  The last laugh.

  Nonetheless, I returned to the car knowing that it was a fool’s errand—but how else did you reach someone who didn’t want to be found?

  You shouted into the void, of course.

  And only silence answered back.

  Fortune Favors the Gray

  No mysterious visitor appeared to darken my doorstep the next morning. No parcel arrived, stuffed into the mailbox. Either I was losing my touch when it came to dramatic gestures or blood-soaked letters didn’t pack the same punch of urgency they used to. Almost as if…

  Well, almost as if Dublin Helos wasn’t lurking in the shadows, watching me.

  At least one person did seem interested in my welfare, considering they called almost daily, leaving a message each time.

  “Ms. Gray, this is doctor Goodfellow. I am still waiting to hear from some experts in the field about your case. I hope to have an answer soon…”

  “Ms. Gray, I’ve received the results of your last blood test. We should schedule another appointment immediately…”

  “Ms. Gray, doctor Goodfellow again. I must ask if you are a government official or in possession of some kind of high-level security clearance, because accessing an opinion on your case at all seems to involve an unusual number of hurdles…”

  Dublin Helos had left a void in my life that even one of the best doctors in the country couldn’t fill—and he refused to offer any explanation as to why. But I didn’t scream, or cry, or fall into hysterics at the possibility of being ignored. Instead, as any uncaring socialite would, I simply wrote him three more letters, each one colder than the last. Four more. What they said didn’t matter, just what they symbolized. Nagging. Desperation. Taunting.

  I never needed you.

  I never wanted you.

  I don’t dream of you. Every night. I don’t imagine slapping you. Punching you. Hating you.

  I don’t think of you.

  Meaningless words. No matter what, he wouldn’t have the last say. I would drown him in parchment if I had to. Anything to prove I had already caught on to his little game.

  Because I’d come to the conclusion that he was trying to kill me again. How dreadfully uninspired.

  I barely had the energy to care. Oh, no, Dublin didn’t consume my sole attention. I was much too busy tending my household. There were sheets to change. Puddles to mop. Floors to wear down by pacing circles over them. Most of the time I spent pacing in Mr. Tinkle’s room, muttering to him as he watched from his corner.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I insisted, my hands clenched at my sides as I stormed across the Persian carpet. “It doesn’t. I mean, even if he is that stupid D.H. donor, I don’t care if he ever shows up at all. All he’d want is that stupid book, anyway. Right?”

  My cat flicked his tail lazily through the air and blinked.

  “Exactly!” Groaning, I paced faster, swaying as my stomach roiled with every erratic movement. “I mean it’s not like… It’s not like we were a real…” I gritted my teeth rather than hiss the word couple. “It was a transaction. I knew that… I know that.”

  My future husband—should the universe decide not to make me a spinster—would be a creature far different from Dublin Helos. Some smug rich aristocrat who would fall hopelessly in love with my wallet. Together, we would suffer a b
itter, stiff existence within Gray manor until the day he slipped too many sleeping pills into his nightly brandy.

  It was the wholesome, ideal partnership my parents had modeled.

  “It wasn’t like I even liked him,” I added, slowing to a stop. What woman would? Who would consider a man who looked like a pale Adonis attractive? Especially when he ran hot and cold. One minute he claimed to be only interested in money. The next, he had you pinned to a wall, demanding you submit yourself to him fully.

  The memory stole into my thoughts, so potent it tore the breath from my lungs. His mouth on mine. His hands, ruthlessly grasping at parts of my body. Him inside me…

  Shaking my head, I banished the images. “Who would want that?” I croaked, turning to Tinkles. He extended his tiny forelimbs into a laborious stretch and promptly darted deeper into his corner.

  “I wouldn’t,” I whispered, watching him go. “I don’t need anyone. I need… I need to get out of this house.”

  Every second spent within the ancient dwelling heightened a growing sense of paranoia. That I was being watched, followed and haunted, despite all evidence to the contrary. The walls themselves seemed to be hissing to me, a million admonishments. Secrets and lies.

  This was all some elaborate trick, obviously. I wasn’t really sick. These symptoms were designed to make me seek him out on my own, placing myself right in his trap. Because that’s all he really wanted: revenge. Or, more specifically, payback of something more vital than money.

  And he would never, ever find it—his precious contract secretly in my possession.

  In retaliation, he wanted me panicked and desperate. Paranoia was his goal. Just like before he’d waltz right in with all the answers.

  And I would be ready for him.

  The following day, the phone in the old servant’s alcove rang, breaking the monotony. I took my time answering it. Dr. Goodfellow was probably desperate to deliver another vague update as to my health status.