Page 4 of Bound

A burning pain starts to sear my skin below my ear, but it fades quickly.

I feel the air move around me, then a gentle hand touches my head and my eyes shoot open.

“Your family were fools. It got them killed. But you…” The gunman looks over my body before his eyes reconnect with mine. “You’re special. You’ll be perfect.”

He stands up and yells to his men. “Leash her and bring her with us. Leave the bodies.”

I feel something snap closed tightly around my neck, then I’m yanked up by it, forced to stand on my four legs.

Finally, I let myself look around. The rest of my family lies sprawled around me, blood pouring out from bullet holes in their heads. My wolf and I howl together in pain. My family is dead. All of them. My sisters, my parents—gone in an instant. There’sno mistaking it. As wolf shifters, we have great regenerative powers, but a gunshot to the head is not something you recover from.

The collar around my neck pulls tight, and instinct has me moving with them as I’m led away from their bodies with tears rolling down my face.

Chapter 3

Cherry

Iwake to a familiar burning pain on my skin, near my stomach, and gasp as I try to sit up, but my limbs are still cuffed to the table. A minute passes before the pain eases into more of an intense throb. I know from experience that it will fade completely over the next few minutes.

“Ah, you’re awake. That was your longest death yet. Ninety-four minutes!” Dr. J says happily. I tilt my head and see him sitting in a chair in the corner, checking his watch and writing in his notebook.

Something about the length I stay dead seems to interest him. The type of death somehow factors into the time it takes for me to recover. My theory is that the more of my body that needs to regenerate, the longer it takes. Which makes sense that this would be the longest one. I had to regrow all of my skin.

I shiver as I remember the pain and realize I’m no longer paralyzed, thank goodness, though I am still tied down and muzzled.

I’m not sure what my body looks like while I’m dead, if they watch it fix itself, if I stay in my wolf form the whole time, or if Ichange to human as soon as I die. My family stayed in wolf form when they died. Of course, they never came back to life. Wolf shifters don’t have that power. Not until whatever experiments Dr. J did to me to give me immortality.

Whichever form I die in, is the form I wake up in. Although, it’s been years since I tested that theory with my human side. But I tended to feel a whole lot more in that body.

Besides, I don’t have any clothing to wear, and it’s freezing in my cell. Plus, the raw meat they feed me has to be eaten by my wolf side. I also feel safer in this form, able to better hide my body, pain, emotions, and thoughts from them.

“Alright, you can take her back now,” Dr. J tells the guards.

They take the leather cuffs off my legs and carry me back to my cell, making me internally wince when they drop me on the cold, hard cement floor. They take the muzzle off, but I have no energy to try to bite them.

They probably taste disgusting anyway.

After I regenerate, my energy is completely depleted. It takes me a long time to recover, which I think is the only reason they make me wait a few days between sessions.

What I really need is food, water, and rest to help me heal faster, but they never go out of their way to speed up my recovery. I’ll be lucky to be fed in the morning, if I even wake up for it. Sometimes I’m out for days, although it’s hard to tell most of the time.

Unable to move, I just curl up into a ball where they’ve dumped me and close my eyes, wishing I was anywhere but here.

I try to recall a fond memory from my childhood. It hurts to think about them, but I also want to hold on to those memories and not forget my family. To remember that even though I’m here, in this awful place, there are good people out there.

There has to be.

I think it’s only two days before I’m led back to the lab. I’m usually given more time to recover, so my body is still extremely sluggish. When the two guards, Thatcher and Jason, escort me into the lab, the doc is nowhere in sight. I turn my head to watch as they shut the door, then they turn to look at me with cruel smiles on their faces as they exchange a knowing glance.

“Shift,” Jason barks out with a glare aimed at me.

My stomach drops. I’ve never been alone in here with only the guards before. What is it they want from me? I turn to face them as best I can with the leash stick still attached around my neck.

“I said, shift!”

Thatcher takes a step toward me as Jason holds the stick firmly, not allowing me to retreat. I growl as Thatcher moves around behind me, where I can’t see him. Suddenly, a muzzle is pulled over my head, and I try to shake it free, but he clips it in place with expert speed.

“It’s been a long time since anyone here has seen your human body. Rumor has it, it’s quite something. We want to see for ourselves. Now don’t make us mad, shift!” Jason says with a mix of anger and excitement.