Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
My fingers seized, dropping the guns. I bit my tongue as my knees buckled, slamming against the ground.
“Lucien!” Rook skidded to my side, catching me as I folded.
“I told you not to push me,” Marcus said quietly, adding yet another dose of despair. The vitalsync burned me alive, making every bone turn molten.
“Guards, pick him up and put him into the car. Doctors, prepare to operate the moment we arrive. If he dies, you will too.”
“How could you?!” Rook snarled. “He’s already hurt so badly and you’re torturing him!”
“He’s well enough to threaten my life and try to escape,” Marcus snapped. “He’ll survive.”
“You’re a bastard!” she yelled, her arms tightening around me as I choked on endless agony. The Cryolyt pills completely abandoned me, leaving me to feel every flame.
“This is just business.” Marcus stepped toward us, his umbrella pinging with droplets. “Just like it was business when I threw you in with him. Just like it was business when I noticed your blood mirrored his in ways I’ve never seen before.” His mouth curved into a mocking smile. “I should thank you, Rook. After two decades of trying to get him to propagate—of forced semen taken when he was unconscious and multiple attempts at test-tube pregnancies, you’re the first to actually succeed.”
I choked.
What?
They’d done what to me while I’d been knocked out?
Marcus came closer, making every part of me crawl. “Thanks to you, he’s finally lost his virginity and done something worthwhile. Turns out, you were the one he was waiting for all along, but I do have to wonder if it’s you or something to do with the fact that your blood is eerily similar to his.”
My ears rang as unconsciousness came for me.
Wait...
Her blood was like mine?
Was that why I was drawn to her?
Could sense her?
Sucking in a breath, I focused on the fire burning around my heart.
I tried to push past it. To snuff it out.
The flames crackled hotter, licking around my ribs and scalding me alive.
Stop.
Just...give me time.
In the pain-delirious part of my mind, I swore, just for a second, the fire paused and listened. Fresh heat stirred around my bones, but...it didn’t hurt. It felt soothing, powerful—responding to my hatred like a living thing, reaching for me as I reached for it.
It transformed from my enemy into something else.
Fresh flames suddenly surged through me, smashing against the imprisoning metal around my heart, turning inward instead of outward.
I groaned, seizing on the ground as heat incinerated me.
Rook’s arm tightened around me and her strange coolness trickled through my veins—cooling the fires in my bones and easing the fevered mess in my blood.
I sagged against her as my pain faded.
But I didn’t get up.
Didn’t alert Marcus to the fact that the woman they’d given me had turned out to be everything I didn’t know I needed.
Whisper snarled as Marcus stopped close enough to shield us with his umbrella. The panther churned up dirt and whipped his tail, but he didn’t attack—knowing as well as I did that Marcus would put him down.
Rook tensed, trying to protect me the best she could.
Marcus sniffed. “Let’s stop squabbling, okay? We need to get you two out of the rain.” He held his hand out to Rook. “Come on. You’ve done what you needed to do and gotten pregnant with an Ashfall. You don’t have to return with him.” Bending over as if to grab her, he added, “Of course, Lucien does have a tendency of lying, so you’ll forgive me if I insist on testing you.”
Rook jerked away from his hand, tilting her chin in defiance. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Marcus exhaled heavily. “I suggest you don’t pick up bad habits from him. Come. I’m releasing you. If you turn out to be truly pregnant, you have my word you’ll receive everything your heart desires.”
“And if I’m not?” she asked frigidly.
“Then...” He shrugged. “I’m afraid I can’t have you running around out there. Not when I’ve found another like him.”
Another like me?
Images slammed through me in a sickening rush—Marcus tormenting her, trapping her. Strapping her down and cutting her open. Inserting a vitalsync to control and cripple her—
The fire around my heart roared.
The grave I’d stepped into shattered as my hand shot toward my pocket. My fingers curled tight around the same blade Rook had driven into my chest. The blade I’d kept...just in case.
With strength that threatened to kill me, I pushed Rook away, swayed to my knees, and pressed the dagger against my throat.
“Wait.” Marcus froze. “What are you doing?”
“Touch her,” I said quietly. “And I die.”
Marcus blinked before a slow smile stretched his lips. “You won’t do it.”
Angling my chin, I cut.
Not deep enough to sever my jugular but definitely enough to make more blood spring free. “If you lay a single finger on her. If you take her from me. If you even think about torturing her like you’ve tortured me—” I swallowed and kept drawing the knife “—you’ll be collecting what’s left of my blood off the driveway.”