Soulbound Read Free Page A

from hanging brass burners made her head light. And the poor lad laid out before her, desperate for attention, seemed to give a silent sigh, his body growing ever more tense. At Eliza’s side, Mab chuckled before leaning forward to trace a path with her tongue along the young lad’s ribs. He moaned in response, his pale length arching. A mistake.
    Mab lifted her riding crop and snapped it down on tender, unprotected flesh, eliciting another moan from the man. “Silence.” She whipped him again, much to the room’s amusement. “I did not give you leave to make a sound. Or to move.”
    And so he tried again to behave. Mab turned to Eliza, and her dark eyes were alight with glee. “A sturdy hand, Eliza. They relish it, you see.”
    Yes, she saw very well. Mab was grooming her. It had happened slowly, the fall into this particular niche of debauchery. It had been lovely at first, being given costly gowns of the finest silk, velvets, and cashmere, living in Mab’s luxurious home, eating rich and luscious foods every day. And the parties. Endless parties. No one to tell her that she was too loud, too brash, clumsy, frivolous. No one stalking her for favors she did not want to give. Eliza was free. To be herself, to indulge in whatever whim pleased her.
    But then came the cruelty. Eliza had seen enough of the world to understand that those who begged to be tied up and whipped did so in the pursuit of pleasure. They’d come to the wrong place. For Eliza suffered no illusions now; Mab’s pleasure derived from the pain and suffering of others. And the lad upon the table would soon end up like those who had come before him. Dead.
    Unable to take another moment, Eliza pushed back from the table, her voluminous, aubergine satin skirts undulating as she rose.
    Mab’s delicate auburn brow lifted. “Surely you are not leaving.”
    Eliza could make many excuses. She chose the one most likely to repulse. Leaning down, she whispered in Mab’s ear. “Privy.”
    Her aunt’s pert nose wrinkled. “Horrid, the human body.” Her pale hand waved in lazy fashion. “Go. And be comforted in the knowledge that soon you will not suffer such indignities.”
    Why? Eliza hadn’t the courage to ask her. It seemed her courage had left her on the day she’d fled the demon. She ought to have fought him for her right to live free.
    Cool damp swarmed her as she stepped onto the stone terrace that ran along the back of the house. From inside, ribald laughter continued, a trilling sound that scraped her nerves. But here all was clear and still. Eliza hugged herself close. She did not want to be in this house, in this life. And though she was likely as foul and morally wrong as they were, she did not
want
to be. She could run. Again.
    Always running. Since the age of fourteen when her grandfather Aidan died, she’d been running from things. Some nights, it felt as though she were running towards something. But she’d never found it. Only death and entrapment. Oh, but she knew death.
    She had died once. Years ago. Of that she was certain. She’d felt the sting of the knife as it pulled through her flesh. And seen her life’s blood spread in a crimson pool about her still body, and known with cold certainty that she’d suffered a mortal wound. It hadn’t been a dream. It had been real. And yet she now lived. Because
he
had given her life anew. “Him, he,” that is how she thought of the demon who’d held her captive for a time, linking her wrist to his by an enchanted golden chain. Never think his name, much less utter it. To give voice to a name, even in one’s secret thoughts, was to give it power. Eliza May had enough sense to know this.
    Yet, try as she might, the memory of the demon, that darkly handsome fiend who oozed sensual heat and temptation, never left her. Not for a moment. Such a strange demon, the one who created an entire race of supernatural beings. He’d called them Ghosts in the Machine, the GIM. Humans who, like her, had