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)
“W-What?”
Beneath his explosive fury, raw misery lurked. His chest heaved. His fists shook. He looked as if he’d gone from finally letting down his guard, to thinking everything about me was yet another trap.
“It’s okay,” I murmured, unable to stand the betrayal in his eyes. “I’m still the same person. I’m still on your side.”
“My side?” he chuckled blackly. “And what side is that?”
“The right side,” I blurted. “The good side.”
“You think I’m good? How many women have I killed again?”
“Fine. I meant the bad side. I’m firmly on the bad side.”
“Ah...” He smiled thinly. “So I’m the villain now?”
“No, of course not. Stop twisting my—”
“I’m an idiot. All this time I thought you understood my need for revenge, but you’ve been secretly trying to get away from me.” He balled his hands. “You lied to me.”
My phone kept on ringing. My head kept on pounding. “I never lied to you. Not once.”
“Then tell me how you really feel!” he hissed. “Give me the truth.”
“The truth about what?”
“Are you on my side or not?”
“I just told you. Yes, I’m on your side. Besides, how can you even ask that?” Hurt pinched my heart. “Especially after everything—”
“Answer the fucking question, Rook!”
“I just did!”
“Then why do I feel like you’re about to betray me like everyone else?”
Whisper shot to his feet and went to his master, wrapping his long tail around Lucien as if holding him back from attacking me.
My heart skipped as I clutched my buzzing phone and tried to give him what he needed to hear. “I will never betray you, Lucien. I will always be on your side.” I licked my lips and added an important caveat. “As long as you don’t hurt innocent people and don’t harm me, then I will never stop being on your side. You have my full support to seek vengeance on those who did this to you and your family.”
His fury faded a little as his shoulders sagged. His hand landed on Whisper’s head, his fingers fumbling with the panther’s ears. He looked so unsure and in such pain, he reached into my chest and ruined me.
I moved to go to him, but his chin tipped up and he sighed heavily. “Are you sure? Are you sure you can even stand to look at me after what happened here tonight?”
My gaze flickered to the barbecued wall.
He followed my stare, shuddering just once. “What if I lose control again? What if I turn out to be a worse monster than them?”
My phone kept buzzing and I didn’t know what to say.
“What if I’m exactly what all those women said I am?” he whispered. “That my very existence is an apocalypse waiting to happen...will you still love me then?”
Love him?
He choked.
We both froze.
That frightening little word fell to the floor and exploded around our feet. A word that came with so much danger and depth...
But...it seemed like I did, didn’t it?
How else did I explain how I felt about him?
How else could I ever go this far or accept so many unexplainable things?
“Lucien, I—”
“Don’t,” he hissed, cutting me off with a swipe of his hand. “Don’t say anything.”
The urge to tell him how I felt came strong, but a dam formed in my throat. An obstruction made of fear and shyness. He was the first and only person I’d cared about since losing my parents. I would do absolutely anything in my power to keep him safe, all while knowing I was absolutely useless.
Especially now I knew how different he was.
How valuable he was to the men who wanted him.
“If I didn’t have feelings for you...how else could I have self-medicated with your blood while you were in the shower? How else could I bring myself to drink your very life-force if I didn’t feel connected to you above everyone?”
His body heat buffeted me like a fallen comet. “What?”
“I drank what you gave me this morning.”
He stiffened as if my admission that I’d willingly ingested his blood—the very blood he’d had to force down my throat before—affected him on a primordial level.
“So you see...I trust you, even after what happened,” I said softly. “I’m not afraid of you and I’m not going to betray you—”
“You were in pain?” he cut in, his voice full of gravel and smoke.
“I was but...now, I’m not. Thanks to you.”
His shirtless chest came alive with patches of heat as if the subject of the conversation turned into molten magma in his veins.
I couldn’t look away as his eyes gleamed, embers replacing his pupils. The longer we stared, the more the air arced with electricity. I could almost taste power bleeding off him, feathering out to lick across my skin and rattle the windows in their frames.
Whisper whipped to look at the windows, baring his teeth at the shivering glass.
“Eh, Lucien...?” I trembled as another wash of ridiculously hot energy blasted from him.