Read Online Savage Chains: Scarred (#2) by Caris Roane - Free Book Online

protest, but Engles had already turned and now headed down the central hall that took him beneath the split staircase.
    Angelica’s voice broke into Reyes’s thoughts.
Do we have to go with him? I despise the man.
    We don’t have a choice. He’s the gateway to what I need for Starlin’s destruction.
    Angelica sighed.
I know. My question was more rhetorical.
    Believe me, if there was any other way …
    Engles led them deep into what appeared to be the private part of his home, unavailable to his guests except by invitation. The hallway was part of a much older section bored out of solid rock. Again that odd shiver chased down Reyes’s back. Why did Engles’s home seem so damn familiar?
    Reyes, you’re feeling it again, aren’t you? That you’ve been here before?
    The chains didn’t lie.
Yes.
    Are you sure you haven’t?
She sounded worried.
    I don’t think so.
    Engles led them to an alcove and through a doorway into a smaller room full of books and two maroon leather chairs. “Please sit down.”
    With leash in hand Reyes took a seat, gesturing for Angelica to stand behind his chair.
    Engles poured out a drink. “I hear you like a good Bowmore.”
    Apparently, Engles had done his homework as well.
    “I do.”
    Engles poured from a crystal carafe, then handed Reyes a heavy cut-glass tumbler. He held the scotch beneath his nose but never took his eyes off Engles as he sipped. “Excellent, but I must say I’m honored that you actually have the brand I prefer.”
    Engles planted his hand on his chest. “You do not have me to thank but rather Scorpion. He had you vetted and learned your proclivities and your background. I understand that you were a slave yourself once, but that you managed to elude your captor. I was stunned but, more than that, could not imagine how you escaped. So how did you?”
    Reyes fell to a place of vampire stillness so that his mind could work on these swiftly rendered bits of his life. No one knew of his slavery, so how did Engles?
    “I see I’ve stunned you.” Engles smiled and poured his own drink. He sat down slowly in the chair opposite. Behind Engles’s chair a slow trickle of water ran down the natural cave wall. Reyes watched the water, his mind turning in deep circles.
    Reyes, what’s going on? It’s as though you’ve disappeared.
    I need a moment.
He needed several. What was Engles’s game?
    But how did he know about your past?
    I don’t know.
He glanced around the room and felt uneasy once more.
    And this place seems familiar to you, doesn’t it? I can feel it through the chains.
    Yes. Like a dream I can’t quite remember.
    ###
    Angelica touched the chain at her neck, focusing on Reyes and Engles at the same time, as well as this small, strange room. Suddenly it was as though the edges of the space began to spin and she felt herself drifting backward in time.
    Another revisiting vision, a trip into the past.
    After a few seconds the full vision arrived and she saw Reyes in this exact same space, because she recognized the narrow waterfall along the natural flow of rock.
    There were no chairs, however. Instead, a hard wood platform took up the same space as Engles’s current chair. Reyes lay on the table, on his back. His face was bruised, his arms bound overhead. A familiar woman with a mass of curly red hair straddled him, riding him hard.
    He cried out as if in pain.
    Sweet Dove.
    She lifted her hand, cloaked with the cat’s claw, and dragged it down his chest, cutting deep. Blood flowed from Reyes’s wounds. He screamed in agony.
    Angelica felt faint. She wanted the vision to end, but she couldn’t turn away. This was Reyes, and she needed to know something about this moment in time. She needed to understand.
    She worked hard within the vision to take herself backward, to see more of the room. Someone else was present, but who?
    Then she heard him: “Yes, Sweet Dove, make him come like that. It will be better for you both. He’s taken enough for now. Focus on