Rise (Roam Series, Book Three) Read Online Free Page A

falling in love with me. The whitewashed, hardwood floor is cool and gritty with sand under my bare feet.
    The scent of his aftershave is strong as I press my face to his bare chest, reaching for him as he sways with me to the music.
    “I told you that you’d dream about this,” he hushes, his lips catching mine.
    “I miss you,” I speak into his mouth, and he smoothes his hand down my long hair and over my bare back.
    “I love you, Roam.”
    I turned inward. As the drugs began to wear off, the painful reality of his body on mine left me searching over and over again for unconsciousness. I’d wake for minutes, calculating small facts, like an estimate of the time, or voices near the door, but would press my bruised face against the pillow and hold my breath until I fainted.
    Sleeping on and off for most of the following day, I had no dreams, but my waking moments were worse than any death I’d ever experienced in my nightmares. When a strange girl helped me to the bathroom, I fought her, locking the door and moving to the scalding hot shower stream. Distantly, I heard the key in the door, and two women pulled me from the shower, fussing over my raw, reddened skin. His majesty will be angry , they whispered, helping me back to the bed.
    Troy came to me again that second night. Without the fog of whatever Helena had drugged me with, every detail of his hands on my body forced uncontrollable screams to my throat. He ignored me until I cried for West; at that point, he slapped me, threatening me never to speak his name again.
    On the third day, I continued to refuse food and quit speaking.
    Troy ordered Logan to my chamber. I lay on the ebony bed, the pyre of my nightly suffering, not moving as he was ushered in. His left eye was smudged purple and black, and bruises and cuts flawed his handsome face. He was not permitted to touch me, and guards stood on either side of him, holding him in chains.
    “ Cam ,” his rough voice told me he’d been deprived of water. “Please eat. Don’t do this to me, or to West… or Eva . You’ll hold her again, I promise you.”
    Feebly, I turned my face away from him on the pillow.
    “You are brave,” he ordered, coughing drily. “Your dad was a hero… and so was your mom. You owe them more than that.”
    My mother’s face drifted into my memory, and my mind focused on the folds of the blue scarf wrapped around her head. Dark blue, like West’s eyes.
    “ Don’t lose yourself, Roam, ” he whispered before being shoved out of the chamber.
    Helen a tended to my needs again, helping me to the chair at the vanity so that she could brush my hair. I met her elderly eyes in the reflection in the mirror, lines like the ones on my map stretching from the corners of her lashes to her white-gray hairline. Sorrow consumed her gaze.
    Finally, I spoke quietly. “You… didn’t mean to hurt me. You were trying to help me, and… I forgive you.”
    A single tear slid down her cheek, and she blinked rapidly, pulling the wide hairbrush through my thick, mahogany hair. “My queen.”
    I stilled her hand, my chin quivering. “Will you bring me a cup of tea each night?”
    She gripped my hand in both of hers, dropping the hairbrush. “He would know. I would be put to death.”
    I nodded, letting her hold me as I crumbled.
     

Chapter Three
    Days became measured , wasted interludes between torturous nights.
    Though I was finally permitted to leave the room under guard, I clung to my prison, resigning to the oversized arm chair near the balcony window. The world outside reminded me of the month of March in Ohio; windy, rainy, and eventually littered with sun-filled hours of daylight. I stopped screaming when Troy would come in late in the evening, centering my eyes on that red, crushed velvet armchair trimmed with leather near the window. Strangely, the chair began to represent safety, or the hours that I was left to my own self. I would focus on the chair, willing my mind to believe that it