They just took turns holding cotton pads to Lucien’s bleeding chest, all while arranging an IV line and snarling at me to drive smoothly so they could get it in his vein—

The memory shattered, dumping me back into the honeymoon suite as the two doctors placed a very dead-looking Lucien onto the towel-draped desk.

His legs dangled off one end, his arms loose and splayed over the sides. The silver around his wrists made him appear as if he truly was an escaped convict, still wearing the handcuffs.

He didn’t move as the blond doctor grabbed a pair of scissors and cut off his blood-soaked shirt. The shock of congealing crimson all over his chest sent a flood of sickness into my mouth.

I grabbed my raindrop pendant.

It triggered another memory—

The rain had stopped, leaving the world wet.

My foot pressed harder on the accelerator, even though I had no idea where I was going. All I knew was Marcus was chasing us and Lucien was dying—

“There.” One of the doctors appeared through the middle of the seats. “Stop there. His vitals are slowing and we can’t afford to wait.”

Up ahead, a thatched house with old bones and storybook charm sat prim and proper behind a manicured hedge and apple trees. It looked as if it’d been growing out of the countryside for centuries with its whitewashed walls and sagging dark timber.

The home looked so tiny after the majesty of Cinderkeep but big enough to house multiple rooms—ten to be exact, according to the hand-painted sign welcoming weary travellers to spend a few nights in Misty Meadows B&B.

“It’s not public enough,” I gasped around the pain in my head. “We need to be around people, so they don’t try to take Lucien—”

“It’s either there or he dies,” the doctor cut in.

Whisper hissed, sending the man hurtling into the backseat. Every instinct told me to keep driving. To never stop until I’d gotten Lucien far, far away from this place. Preferably out of England. But...what would be the point if his heart gave out?

“Ready?”

The daydream ended, dumping me back into the nightmare.

“Ready.” The older doctor nodded, holding a scalpel above Lucien’s wound. An IV line looped from his vein to a bag of liquid hanging from a tasselled floor lamp. His naked chest was now orange from iodine, and the metal disc over his heart looked sinister and sore. The doctors peered at it as if they’d never seen anything like it.

Dismissing it in favour of the open wound, they inhaled sharply.

“I’ll tidy up the wound, and you prepare to suture.” Both doctors leaned over Lucien, headtorches firmly in place thanks to dusk falling outside and romantic, gloomy lighting inside.

Lucien didn’t twitch as the knife touched his skin.

I almost threw up, clamping a hand over my mouth.

“Wound has no debris,” the blond doctor muttered. “It looks okay to close.”

Whisper shot forward as fresh blood oozed from Lucien’s chest, trickling down his ribcage. The panther snarled and the doctors immediately backed away from the table, leaving Lucien vulnerable and that much closer to death.

“Whisper,” I choked, stumbling sideways to the little bench meant for luggage. “Come here.” My knees gave out as the panther looked between me and his unconscious master before slinking back to me and pressing his muscular bulk against my thigh.

Gritting my teeth so I wouldn’t throw up, I placed both of my blood-soaked hands onto his shoulders and focused all my willpower on not passing out. Rain dripped off me onto the carpet and reality fragmented again as the first stitch was drawn through Lucien’s flesh—

The stout, round-faced woman with a blue-rinsed corkscrew perm almost fell over as we entered Misty Meadows B&B. Her gaze flew from me carrying two medical bags, the doctors carrying Lucien, and Whisper as he prowled behind them, his tail stiff and fangs glinting.

One of the doctors had slung his beige overcoat over Lucien, trying to hide all the blood, but wasn’t entirely successful, seeing as he’d gotten red handprints on it. The woman might not realise Lucien currently bled all over her overly patterned carpet, but she definitely realised there was a panther in her parlour.

Clutching the reception desk, her eyes popped wide. “I-I don’t allow pets.”

“Just give us the biggest, brightest suite you have. Immediately,” the older doctor barked.

The carpet had so many swirls and colours in it, it made me feel faint, and the scent of potpourri would’ve made me sneeze if my senses weren’t so broken.

“Do you have any other guests?” Marcus demanded, spinning me around as he burst into the B&B like a king returning to his castle.

I hated him for following us.

How exactly were we supposed to escape if he never let us out of his sight?

“N-No,” the woman stuttered, brushing down her knitted pink jumper. “Not at the moment. The previous couple checked out this morning.”

“How convenient.” Throwing down a black credit card, Marcus said smoothly, “I’m buying each room for the night.” He smiled with a hint of flirting, successfully hiding his evil heart. “I’m so sorry to impose like this but my son is hurt.” He pointed in Lucien’s direction. “We can’t afford the time it would take to travel to a hospital. Our company doctors are well equipped to tend to him. But they need to do it now.”

She gulped. “What happened?”

“He got hurt in an accident.” Marcus played the tragic father so well that if I didn’t have first-hand accounts of how he’d tortured Lucien, I’d believe his terror at his ‘son’s’ condition.

“H-How?” the woman asked, shaking and wary but not so afraid that she couldn’t run Marcus’s credit card through her machine and charge him whatever rate she felt like.

“Circus accident.” Marcus sniffed. “The panther is part of the troop.” Leaning forward, he took his credit card back with a grin. “He’s house-trained and won’t hurt a fly. You don’t mind if he stays here too, do you? Actually, I’ll tell you what.” Passing her the card again, he added syrupy sweet. “Charge me another ten thousand for the inconvenience. Call it gratitude for being so accommodating and...for keeping this just between us.”

I wanted to scream at the woman to call the police.

To beg her to summon a thousand witnesses but she just returned Marcus’s smile and ran his credit card again. She passed it back, along with a tray of keys. “It just so happens that I’ve been meaning to visit my sister in the county over. Might just be the perfect time to go.”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea.” Marcus grinned, running his fingers over the wooden tags. “Which is the biggest room?”

“Dewdrop.” The woman plucked a key and held it up. “It’s the honeymoon suite.”

“Thank you.” Marcus took the key, and tossed it at me.

I fumbled to catch it, juggling my rucksack, the two doctors’ bags, and a seriously bad case of tunnel vision.

Grabbing my elbow, he dragged me toward the narrow, whitewashed stairs.

Once we were far enough away from the woman, he hissed under his breath, “If he dies, you’ll take his place. If you run, I’ll kill the cat. If you call anyone, I’ll hunt down your loved ones and make them pay. If you do anything to jeopardise what I’ve worked so fucking hard to achieve, I will ensure every loss will be taken from you as slowly and as painfully as possible, got it?”

Wrenching me to a stop, he forced a tight smile even as his eyes churned with hate. “Just because I’ve allowed you this little adventure, doesn’t mean he’s free. Every inch of this place is surrounded. He can’t get out and no one can get in. You’ll soon learn that you don’t have to be in Cinderkeep to be trapped.”