Chapter 15

Chapter

Fifteen

DAPHNE

I must have fallen asleep, because as I wake, sunlight is shining through the skylight window above my prison bars. Cocooned in the fur blanket, I surprisingly slept well considering I was locked in a cage inside a madman’s bedroom. Even though I had been on a metal cage floor, the blanket provided enough cushion that I don’t wake up feeling achy or stiff. My sore ass from yesterday has also dissipated, and it’s almost as if the entire nightmare of being kidnapped by my husband hasn’t happened, except when I turn my head and see Apollo sleeping soundly in his bed, the Band-Aid the good night’s sleep provided rips off in a flesh-tearing way.

He doesn’t snore.

He always used to snore.

All dragons in their lair snored.

I sit up and run my fingers through my hair. Not that it matters what I look like now, but it gives me a small piece of humanity. Especially since I’m covered in fur, huddled in a cage like a scared animal.

I watch Apollo sleep. He doesn’t look like a kidnapper, a killer, a creature of the night who steals innocent people from the safety of the life they know. He doesn’t look evil or vile. In fact, the man is handsome. He always has been from the moment I first laid eyes on him. Gorgeous. The man could make me weak-kneed with just one glance in my direction. A part of me had forgotten just how handsome my husband is, but seeing his face laying peacefully against his pillow, and glancing at his newly wounded and still bandaged arm that peeks out from the blanket and hangs over the side of the bed, he has a sexy appearance I have never seen before. This is what the man would look like waking up to him after a night of him fucking my brains out. And it hasn’t been so long that I don’t remember that Apollo knows exactly how to fuck a woman’s brains out. The other night, he took it to a new level, and just the memory of us laying on the floor in front of the fire leaves me…

Apollo must sense me staring at him. He always slept on edge and was ready to pounce at any moment. Insomnia was his best friend, and I remember how he never stayed in bed with me. Never. He paced the house like a lion in a too-small cage.

“Good morning, wife,” he says with a husky voice and a glimmer of mischief in his eyes. He sits up and stretches, revealing his bare chest as he does so.

I try not to look but justify my gawking by saying it’s merely out of habit.

A bad habit.

I need fucking rehab from this man.

“When I came back into the room last night,” he says, “I found you sleeping all wrapped in white fur like a little bunny. I liked it. My little bunny.”

Calling me a damn bunny, and the fuck that I’m in a cage like an animal, any thoughts that the man is handsome wash away and are replaced with rage.

“I need to use the restroom,” I snarl as I try to not picture myself clawing his eyes out like a caged tiger would do. If I focus too much on causing this man pain, then I will act out the minute I can, and I know that wouldn’t be a wise move. I have to out think this man.

Apollo gets out of bed in nothing but a pair of underwear and walks over to the cage with disheveled hair and sleepy eyes. He grabs a set of keys that rests on a dresser nearby—but not close enough for me to reach while I’m in the cage—and opens my prison.

“Come on,” he says.

I climb out of the cage, dragging the fur blanket behind me.

“Leave the blanket,” he says firmly.

I freeze, considering telling him to go fuck himself, but do as he asks instead. I need to use the restroom now and don’t have the time or energy to fight the man… Yet.

Once I cross over the entrance of the cage, Apollo helps me the rest of the way. He then takes my upper arm and leads me out of his room, down the hallway that looks upon the foyer below us, and into a bathroom.

“There're towels, shampoo, soap and stuff in there if you’d like to take a shower. There’s also a drawer with spare toothbrushes and toothpaste. Everything you should need to get yourself cleaned up is in there. If there isn’t, let me know. I’ll send for someone to deliver it,” Apollo says, surprising me with his hospitality.

Am I a guest in his house or a kidnapped victim locked in an animal’s cage?

“Can I have my clothes back?” I ask.

“No.”

“You just said if I needed anything to ask.”

“You’ll remain naked while here,” he informs.

“Which is for how long? You still haven’t told me?—”

“Go into the bathroom,” he interrupts.

Part of me wants to continue to press and find out exactly what Apollo has in store for me, but I don’t wait for him to change his mind while he’s being hospitable, even though he’s forcing me to remain nude.

When I close the door behind me, it’s the first time I feel somewhat human since being kidnapped. I have privacy. No one is staring at me. No one is holding my arm. There is no cage.

There is also not a window big enough to crawl out and to escape from. There is one way in and one way out.