Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
I guess if he's going to kill me, I'll go out looking amazing.
I pull a dress down from one of the hangers and finger the fabric. It's more chiffon, this one a pale steel gray with an asymmetrical skirt and a deep vee-neck. The sleeves are little more than caps of ruffles that float over my shoulders, and the skirt ends in even more ruffles, and I decide I love it immediately. I dress, loving the way it slithers over my head, and then go to the attached bathroom and toy with my hair. For the first time in forever, I was able to oil my scalp, and my moisturized hair no longer looks dried and frizzy. It’s been so long since I’ve had good hair that I’m welcoming the wash day shrinkage, just because my hair feels so damned nice. It’s loose and clean and oiled and I can’t stop touching it. I feel like a new woman.
Well. New woman stuck in the same old shit.
I work my hair with my fingers until the curls look deliberate instead of haphazard, and then pull it up to pile atop my head with a pretty, jeweled clip.
If I'm going down, I'm going to go down looking like a movie star.
I poke around with the cosmetics that have been laid out, most of them still with the wrappers intact. They're all excessively expired, but I don't care. I dab a bit of dry lip color onto my mouth when there's a knock at the bedroom door.
Well…that's not a good sign. Azar wouldn't knock in his own room.
I hold my head high and answer the door, giving the soldier there an imperious look. "Yes?"
"Please follow me," he says. "Lord Azar has requested your appearance in the courtyard."
In the courtyard. In the middle of the night. This is it, then. I should run. I should grab my skirts, grab the gun from this man, and see how far I can make it before I'm stopped. But I don't. I just lift my chin higher and sweep past him, down the hall. If I'm going to die because I spat on Azar's dick, well, it's a good way to die.
The moment I step outside into the “courtyard,” though, I'm confused. The courtyard is the old parking lot of the shopping center, the grasses and weeds that crept between the cracks cleared away or stomped down to leave a desolate, blank expanse. Instead of just Azar and an execution squad, I see row after row of his soldiers, all lined up. Some of them look sleepy, as if just roused from their beds, and not all of their uniforms are neat and tidy. Only a few have weapons with them, and a few carry lanterns to light up the darkness.
In the shadows high above, something gleams, and when I look up, I realize there's a dragon nearby. It's come off the walls and roosts a brief distance behind the soldiers.
"Good," says a familiar voice, stepping forward in a swirl of pale robes. "You are here, my consort."
Azar holds out a hand to me as he strides in my direction. Confused, I place mine in his. This isn't an execution. I don't know what it is, but it's not an execution. I remember enough that I'm supposed to be his fawning little woman in public, though, and so I move closer to him as he places my hand on his arm in a gentlemanly manner. "I don't understand what's going on," I whisper. "Did something happen?"
He pats the hand I have resting on his arm, like we're an old married couple. "I have organized this for you, my lovely. Take a good look at them and let me know if he is here."
I'm confused. "If who is here?"
He looks over at me, and I could swear his eyes seem to darken in the lantern light. "The one that hurt you. Point him out, and I will have him taken care of."
"Taken care of?" I echo.
Azar nods, strolling me toward the line of soldiers. "By fire, or rifle, or a more dire torture if that suits your needs. You just point him out and I'll make him pay."
I'm stunned at his words. I just stare at him, not entirely sure what to think. Part of me is flattered that he wants to punish someone that forced me. A smaller part of me is appalled that I could just point at anyone and he'd kill them, no questions asked. It's a much smaller part, though, and I don't know how I feel about that. I don't look out on the men, because I'm afraid if I stare at one for too long, he'll take that as an admission of someone's guilt. Instead, I focus on Azar. I arch a brow. "Suddenly you're worried about women being raped by men?"