Free Stolen Hearts: Book 1 (Grim's Labyrinth Series) by Ariana Gael, Grim's Labyrinth Publishing Page A

chest and shoved her inside. She fell to the floor and slid some distance but whirled back around to scramble for the door. Before she could reach it, the first guard reached into the room just long enough to grab the knob and pull the door shut, locking it behind him.
    Jessica felt for the door and pressed her back against it, unwilling to move any further forward than she had to. This very room had been the stuff of her nightmares for as long as she could remember, and she couldn’t have forced her feet to move forward if she’d wanted to. She managed to stand still with her gaze averted to the floor, staring at the area just in front of her shoes. No blood yet, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t lingering elsewhere in the room.
    As she slowly willed herself to look forward, her eyes took in the rest of the stone floor. There was no blood, no signs of carnage, but of course there wouldn’t be. She hadn’t gotten to her task of destruction yet. She looked to the bottom of the table in the middle, eyeing the bolts that kept it firmly in place. Up the single wide shaft of the table, up to the cloth that draped down the sides, up to the raised mound of a body beneath a thin sheet, the straps of the shackles at the corners of the table disappearing as they snaked their way beneath the white cloth.
    Jessica squeezed her eyes tightly shut as she raised her face to look at the body on the table. She had memorized every feature of the woman over the years, seeing her face in her sleep and learning to recognize every single line and wrinkle in her pale skin. Before she could open her eyes and confirm the woman’s presence in the room with her, she heard her name spoken aloud.
    “Jessica!” a woman’s voice said imploringly. “Help me!”
    She snapped her eyes open at the sound of Faydra’s voice calling her name. On the table, bound by the shackles, her stepmother lay fighting against the restraints, hopeful for a moment now that Jessica was in the room with her.
    “Help me out of here,” she begged. “Please. Undo these straps, I know how to get us both out of here.”
    This was new. Even when the dream had suddenly shifted on her—had it really only been a day or two ago?—Faydra had certainly not been allowed to speak or beg for her life. Jessica was conflicted. She didn’t want to face the prospect of ripping Faydra’s heart out and eating it again, but at the same time, there was something so tempting about it, too. The more she let herself be pulled into the rhythm of her dream, the more she wanted to finish the task, evil stepmother or not. Faydra’s heart called out to her, every bit as much as the woman’s pleading voice grated her last nerve.
    This was the woman who had tormented her for so long, who’d caused every single hurt Jessica had felt in the past ten years. Blood lust or not, revenge would be almost too easy, too natural.
    “Don’t do it, Jessica,” Conlan’s voice said too close to her ear. She whirled around and came face to face with him, knowing it was impossible for him to still be here. Was he asleep somewhere, and had managed to work his way into her dream? No, that was impossible. That would only work if she was dreaming, but Jessica had already confirmed that this was all too real.
    “This is a trap,” he pressed. “You can’t do this.”
    Jessica rolled her eyes at his urgency. He wasn’t even really here, so why should she listen to Dream Conlan, especially when Faydra’s heartbeat called out to her? She took a step forward towards the table, noting the triumphant smile on her stepmother’s face when the woman clearly thought she had commanded her teenaged stepdaughter to unleash her. Conlan hissed nearby.
    “Jessica, stop it! Don’t let them use you! They just want you to take the blame for killing her! They’re trying to kill two birds with one stone!” He grabbed Jessica’s arm and tried to turn her around to face him, to look into his eyes and see that he was