Chaos Bound Read Free

afraid.
    “You’re alive.” She reached out and stroked his cheek.
    Holt jerked back at her gentle touch. Instinct. Borne of constant pain from every touch he’d endured since the last day he’d seen the sun.
    “I’m sorry.” Her voice was soft, throaty. He’d forgotten about the beautiful things in life. Soft things. Gentle things. Sights and sounds. Tastes and touches. She was all of them wrapped up in one sweet package.
    “Viper thinks you’re dead.” Her brow furrowed. “I heard him talking with his men before he brought me down here. They’re planning to get your … you and bury you somewhere.”
    He listened to the lilt of her voice, watched her lips move. Felt a stir of happiness that he had the chance to behold beauty one last time on the eve of his death.
    She stepped closer, inspected his bare torso, the cuts and bruises, welts and burns. She choked when she saw the whip marks that crisscrossed his skin, and pain flickered across her face.
    “Viper did this to you.” A statement, not a question, and not one that he could answer, but this close he could see all the bruises on her face, a cut on her temple—Viper’s handiwork on her beautiful skin.
    Rage, the only emotion he had left, coiled in his breast, along with a curious desire to protect the beautiful woman from Viper’s wrath. He jerked his hand, tugging against the manacles on his wrists, and the chain clanked, drawing her attention.
    “He’ll kill me if I let you go.” She glanced around the dungeon, her gaze resting on the Sinner’s Tribe cut pinned to the wall with Holt’s dagger. “You’re a Sinner.”
    Holt shrugged. Once upon a time he was a Sinner. Now he wanted nothing from the club except their destruction.
    She stared at the cut, and then her gaze flicked to Holt. “No one hates the Sinners more than the Black Jacks. You’re their only threat to dominance in the state. I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
    So was he. After months of torture there was little about the Sinners he hadn’t shared with his captors. But Viper was a sadist at heart, and he’d clearly taken more pleasure in Holt’s pain than he would have in Holt’s death. At least until he found another distraction.
    “If I help you, the Sinners will owe me,” she mused. “Maybe they can hide me or protect me. Maybe even work out a deal so Viper leaves me alone.”
    He shook his head, wanting to explain to her that he was done with the Sinners, but she was already searching the dungeon, her hands brushing over the racks and cinder block walls. “I don’t suppose he left the keys.”
    Holt grunted and tipped his chin to the door. Of course Viper had left the keys to the cuffs. Just like he’d installed a light switch in the dungeon. Nothing drove home the hopelessness of the situation as well as leaving the tools for escape just out of reach.
    The woman followed his gaze and grabbed the keys from the nail near the door. “Let’s think this through…” She twisted her lips to the side, the keys dangling from her fingers.
    What the fuck ? This wasn’t the time to think. It was the time to act. The guards might be back any minute, and freedom was within his grasp.
    “Keys.” He blurted out the word, gestured to the cuffs.
    “Just wait.” She held up a hand. “Would it be better to leave you like that so when they walk in, they see you chained, but I’m waiting behind the door to knock them out?”
    Was she fucking serious? Had she seen the guards? There was no way a woman her size was taking out even Viper’s smallest man.
    “Keys. Now.” His voice was hoarse with disuse and the abuse of constant screaming, but she understood him.
    Without hesitation, she unlocked the cuffs. Her hair brushed over Holt’s arm, sending a peculiar wave of sensation through his body.
    “Can you stand?” She stared at him in consternation and Holt nodded. The chains gave him enough freedom to reach the metal toilet affixed to the floor and to stretch his