Series: Charmaine Pauls
Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70056 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
I give a start as a part of the back wall dissolves. Behind it, there’s an even bigger cavern with carved pillars and a small square pool in the center of the floor. Steam rises from the water. A sweet smell of milk and honey wafts to me.
Strangely, I’m becoming lethargic, as though I’m dozing off in a sunny spot in winter or, as is usual for me, being hooked up to an IV with morphine. I have an inexplicable urge to curl up like a cat against the hard chest that shelters me and drift off into oblivion. My head lolls to the side as it gets too heavy to hold up, dropping onto the man’s shoulder. The bronze skin of his strong neck is inches away from my face.
For some bizarre reason, that strip of naked flesh draws me in with an otherworldly force. I want to press my lips on that spot and drag my tongue over it. I want to lick the thick vein straining down the side of his neck and taste the salt on his taut skin. The mere idea makes me tingly all over.
I snuggle closer. The sweet milky fragrance that fills my lungs isn’t enough to mask the delicious woodsy and musky smell of the man that reaches my nostrils.
Is that some kind of cologne?
Whatever it is, I want to rub it all over my body. Or roll in it. It’s like a drug to my system. I burrow deeper into his arms, uttering a contented sigh as I nuzzle his neck with my nose.
Even as the man freezes, his heart speeds up. It beats under my ear with a strong, healthy pace. No imminent heart failure here, that’s for sure.
He says something, his deep voice sharp as he carries me to the pool. The woman rushes ahead of us and tips white liquid from her bowl into the water. The sweet scent in the room intensifies, a whiff of some exotic spice infusing the honeyed milk perfume. Almost immediately, my eyes start to droop.
What’s happening?
At this point, I don’t really care. I hardly feel the throbbing pain in my face or the burning stings on my skin. I’m starting to float now, the zapping electricity that vibrates in my rescuer-slash-captor’s chest making my head spin.
The next thing I know, the man is climbing down three steps into the water—clothes, boots, and all.
Blinking up at him, I battle to focus on the crazily handsome perfection of his face. He smiles a reassuring smile that seems to warm me from the inside out, but something disturbing also shifts in his silver-gray eyes, something that makes those steely pools sharpen and darken at the same time.
I try to make sense of the unease that struggles to break through the euphoria fogging my mind, some kind of internal warning, but then he submerges me in the water up to my chin, and my brain detaches from my body. It feels a lot like drifting to the ceiling and looking down on myself.
The floating sensation only lasts a second before I drop like a stone and my stomach bottoms out.
Whoa.
What the hell?
I open my mouth to scream as I fall into a vortex that sucks me deeper, but no sound comes out.
The man cups my face, his big palm dwarfing my cheek, and says something almost tender and encouraging.
The darkness thickens while I barrel down a bottomless pit, my arms and legs flailing even as I lie as motionless as a marionette on a puppet master’s lap.
He shifts his large hand from my cheek to cover my mouth and pinches my nose closed between a forefinger and a thumb. The hold effectively cuts off my air.
I can’t breathe.
No!
I try to struggle, but as if in a bad dream, I’m paralyzed.
The light becomes thinner as my lungs protest.
Too late, I understand my captor’s intention. I grasp desperately for something to hold on to, but I can’t lift a finger. The only thing I can cling to is his unwavering stare.
My gaze pleads with him, begging him not to drown me in a bath of spiced honey milk. But my unspoken appeal is useless. My sadly unpracticed—or rather, nonexistent—charm has zero effect. As he dunks my head into the cloudy water, I realize what that expression on his face that I couldn’t place was. Just before the opaque liquid washes out my vision, I see it for what it is.
The strangely compassionate look in those eyes the color of mercury is regret.
Chapter 6
Aruan
The notion of finally having her here with me is still unreal yet so potent that my power flares with enough force to set the water boiling if I’m not careful.
With effort, I rein it in.
The turmoil within me, however, refuses to abate. Her suffering is torture to my soul. I regret that I had to rip her from consciousness and submit her to the darkness of a dreamless sleep, but it’s better that she’s not cognizant for what’s to come.