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weeds& right for it. 104 www.samhainpublishing.com Chapter Six Soon someone was lifting her. Strong, hard, warm arms. Van? Caleb? Hey, relax. You re safe now. It was a foreign voice. Her eyelids flickered open to glimpse a police officer. What happened? She struggled to sit up and noticed right away she was covered with a scratchy gray blanket. Underneath that& she was naked. She gasped. Calm down. What the hell is going on? We were hoping you could tell us that. Someone called to let us know you were here, lying in this alley Naked? He nodded. She racked her brain. The Guardian had been chasing her and she d run into the fields. The portal had been there and it had pulled her through& that s all she could remember. Where had her clothes gone? An ambulance siren whined in the distance, growing closer. Anya Bast What s your name? Do you remember what happened? She shook her head, unable to answer. Someone who works at the coffee shop down the block saw you drop your cup outside on the walk and run like someone was chasing you. Was someone chasing you? What? When-when was that? The policeman blinked. When was what? When did the employee at the coffee shop see you run away after you bought your coffee? Her teeth chattered and she shivered. All she could do was nod, afraid of his answer. Yesterday morning. You ve been missing for twenty- four hours, give or take. Only a day? What? At least four weeks had passed since she d met Van and Caleb. There s an ambulance coming to take you to the hospital for a full examination. To see if she d been raped. She closed her eyes as tears welled. God, what was going on? Had it all really been a dream? Had she d been attacked in some horrific way and slipped into a delusion to survive it? Anne let a sob escape her. Were Van and Caleb just figments of her imagination? Sorrow clenched her chest until she couldn t breathe. Sadness dredged itself from the very bottom of her being. 106 www.samhainpublishing.com Taken Dark, bitter, suffocating sludge. Grief. She knew the emotion well. Anne hardly noticed it when the paramedics led her to the ambulance. *** Anne rested her head on the back of her couch and stared out the window. Rain dribbled down the glass, the scene fitting her mood. A cup of tea lay forgotten and cold on the coffee table and the house had grown dark and still. She hadn t troubled herself to move from her spot on the couch for several hours and twilight had fallen. They had found no evidence of rape. She didn t have a bruise on her, in fact. She could remember nothing of what happened to her and she didn t breathe a word of Van and Caleb. They would think she was crazy and she wasn t so sure she wasn t. Because if Van and Caleb had been real, if there really had been a portal and a different dimension, why hadn t they come for her? It had been three days. Anne touched her lips where they d kissed her. Yet, she knew they couldn t have only been figments of her www.samhainpublishing.com 107 Anya Bast imagination. They d been too real& she d loved them so much. She did love them so much. But it made sense that it had been a delusion. Really, portals and different dimensions? Handsome, hunky dream men who only had eyes for her? Sign her up for the funny farm. The most plausible explanation was that she d been assaulted in some way and in order to cope, she d gone into some self-created fantasy world. Surely, that was the case. Her firm had given her some time to recuperate and she was grateful. It seemed she didn t have the drive to work as hard as she d had before. She shook her head. Who was she fooling? She d give up all her cases, her home, her career, all the pretty things her salary had bought her all of it only for another few moments with Van and Caleb. At some point she fell asleep, only to be awoken by a pounding on the door. She jerked awake and listened for a moment, fear rocketing though her. A vision of the green monster the Guardian who d chased her either through her delusion or not, sprung into her mind s eye. Anne shook her head, rose, and went to the door. Beyond the rain-rivuleted pane of glass in the front door, she glimpsed two sodden figures. Two. 108 www.samhainpublishing.com Taken She stopped short in the hallway. It could be anyone. Could be policemen coming to give her an update or ask her more questions, could be coworkers come to check up on her. Could be Mormons on their mission. Anyone was more likely than two hunky, beautiful men come from another dimension to claim her as their mate. The thing was, she knew it was Van and Caleb. Knew it with everything she was. Anne ran down the hallway and threw the door open. On the steps stood the two men of her deepest desire and strongest love. Her face felt ready to break she was smiling so hard. Anne, said Caleb with a smile. She threw herself out into the rain and into their arms. They caught and kissed her over and over, each taking turns. Anne nuzzled Van s cheek. I thought you two really were just part of my fevered imagination there for a bit. I ended up back here, no clothes, hardly any passage of time [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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