Read Online Passionate Vengeance by Elizabeth Lapthorne - Free Book Online

diagrams and journals scattered one on top of the other until a veritable mini-mountain had been created.
    That struck her as strange, unlike how she recalled his desk, but the feeling passed fleetingly as she saw his degrees, diplomas and various accreditation certificates in their matching wooden frames. The only certificate in a different, plastic, frame appeared old and faded. It was a certificate of thanks for ‘continual support’ from a nursing home. That particular item had always struck her as odd. Continual support of any style seemed very unlike the cool, detached doctor she had seen at each of her appointments, as did his having placed it on his ego wall.
    “I’m going to kill you, just as I killed all those other people,” Harper said, drawing her attention back to him once again.
    Abigail tried to turn away, to ignore the words he’d spat at her, but she found herself helpless, unable to move yet again.
    Panic flared in her anew. Confronting Paul Harper was scary. She had known that from the moment she’d decided to do so. With Lucas by her side, watching over her, touching her, casting that wicked, lovely smile at her she could ignore the fear that always seemed to bubble beneath the surface. She could rise above it.
    Here, alone, she struggled with the darkness of doubt and worry as it slowly blossomed into terror.
    The realisation she was trapped almost undid her.
    “Don’t,” she pleaded as Harper came closer to her with a syringe filled with clear fluid.
    “This is your iron injection, Abigail,” he crooned. “You don’t want to get sick, do you?”
    “Please,” she cried out. “Don’t.”
    “Now, now.” The doctor tutted. “If you don’t take this like a good girl I might give it to Lucas. I’d love to poison him. You wouldn’t want that, would you?”
    “No!” she cried out, petrified.
    “I thought not.” The doctor smirked as he continued to advance upon her.
    Abigail twisted and turned desperately, but her arms and legs were held fast. There was no way out.
    “I’ll kill Lucas slowly, just as I am killing you, even now. Then I can move onto Tristan and Kimber, everyone you know and care for will slowly be eaten away from the inside, just like what is happening to you, Abigail.”
    “Stop it! Let me go! Help!” Abby screamed.
    “Abby, Abby, Abby,” Harper repeated her name over and over and over until she wanted to block her ears. He didn’t let up, though, repeating her name until she finally managed somehow to break free of his hold.
    She tripped on something—she had no idea what it was—then she fell and continued to fall forever…
     
    * * * *
     
    Warm arms caught her, snapping her out of the dream and back into reality. For one wild, terrorising moment Abigail thought she was back in the clinic, restrained to the bed. She was reliving the nightmare.
    “Abby, darling, wake up, please!” Lucas urged her, true fear in his tone.
    Abby twisted around, turning into him to gaze in his eyes, needing to reassure herself he was there, real and she was awake and not still sleeping.
    “Lucas?” Her voice trembled with her need for this to be true. She reached up and he let her shoulders go. Patiently, he allowed her to touch his jaw, to trace her fingers over his lips then stroke his cheek as she tried to catch her breath.
    “I dreamt…Harper was saying… Oh Lucas, I’m not sure I’m strong enough for this after all,” she stammered, barely able to finish one thought before another came crashing over it.
    “Give it time, Abby,” Lucas soothed. This time when he wrapped an arm around her shoulders she scooted closer to him on the tiny cot bed and huddled in the warmth of his embrace, relieved beyond measure he was here for her right now.
    She didn’t recall falling asleep. The last thing she remembered was being at the desk, searching through so many papers and her eyes drooping. Lucas must have carried her there. Peeking out over his arms, she saw lockers at