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)
She wriggled against me, trying to find a comfortable position in my cage. Her palms landed hesitantly on my lower back, her heart hammering against mine.
I hated the distance that’d formed between us.
I hated that I couldn’t keep my distance.
She tied me into fucking knots and unless she helped undo them soon, I would go certifiably insane.
“You’re okay...” she whispered, stroking my back and delivering wakes of chilled relief. “I’ve got you. Just don’t blow up your home before you even step through the front door, okay?”
Smoke feathered from my shoulders, vanishing into the air as I held her, breathing her in, bathing in her coldness.
The helicopter finally took off, whipping us with wind and grit as it swooped into the valley. In the ringing silence left behind—standing in front of the stone dragon that’d protected my family for generations—I almost gave in.
Almost told her that I didn’t care if she was the reason I was burning.
As long as she never stopped touching me—as long as she never left me—then...fine.
I wouldn’t get angry.
I wouldn’t get even.
I’d just—
“You know...” Rook squirmed in my embrace. “I’ve been lucky enough to see many historical sites around the world and lived in luxury most of my life, yet that...” She successfully wriggled out of my hold and arched her chin at the stone dragon. “I can’t get over how lifelike it looks. Its eye seems alive instead of carved from rock.”
I suspected she redirected my attention to distract me, but a lamenting musical note rang out as air played in the dragon’s flowing whiskers, dumping me into painful memories of my mother.
She’d often told me stories of Qingxiang Long—also known as Whispering Dragon.
She made the stone beast come alive with tales of it flying to the lake, bathing in the moonlight, and dining on deer before returning at dawn to protect us.
My heart folded in on itself, layers upon layers of guilt and regret and loss.
I’d spent twenty years in Cinderkeep hating my parents for taking the easy way out and leaving me to suffer in their place, but...I couldn’t stop the hottest swell of gratitude.
I thought they’d abandoned me. However, they’d also done their best to protect me. If my father hadn’t arranged the Sovereign Retrieval service and drilled me to remember the numbers necessary to save my life, I wouldn’t be standing here now.
Whisper suddenly hissed beside me.
I caught his gaze as he pawed at my leg. His feline sensitivity knew I’d fallen into familiar patterns of grief and blame, but then his hackles bristled, revealing he was still pissed about the forced helicopter ride.
“I’m sorry.” I scratched his flicking ear. “It won’t happen again.”
He grumbled, the soft sound eerily similar to the lamenting song formed by the wind playing in Qingxiang Long’s whiskers.
I froze, glancing between the dragon and panther.
His name.
I’d almost forgotten I’d called him Whisper because of Qingxiang Long.
I’d named the tiny panther kitten that’d saved me after the guardian Whispering Dragon of Ashfall Cliff because I’d hoped—when I was all alone and so, so afraid—that he would grow up and become a living embodiment of the protector I’d lost the day I was taken from China.
A surge of heat worked through my blood as Whisper purred, leaning into my scratches, all my sins forgiven.
I wouldn’t be alive without him.
I wouldn’t have survived.
“Thank you,” I breathed, hoping only he would hear me.
The giant predator cocked his head, held my stare, and seemed to know exactly what I was thanking him for.
He licked my hand with his sandpaper tongue, and I made the mistake of looking at Rook.
The second our eyes locked, a rift cracked right through my chest.
Heat billowed, need burned, desperation arrowed directly between my legs—
Stone groaned. Metal shrieked. The gates of Ashfall Cliff wrenched open.
Stepping away from her, I tried to smother the feelings she’d caused, only to change my mind and snatch her close. Her eyebrows rose as I leaned in. “Don’t leave my side, understand?”
She nodded, flicking a look at the two people who’d stepped over the threshold, coming toward us on the barren clifftop.
“I’m clinging to the edge, Rook. I truly don’t know how much longer I can hold on and the only thing that stops me from losing control is you so...help me.”
Glancing at the two visitors, I blanched as the rage inside me reignited, not able to tell friend or foe anymore. “Don’t let me hurt them.”
Rook merely nodded, stepping a little closer with a determined look in her eyes. “I swear to you, Lucien, I won’t let you do anything you’ll regret.”
I held her stare.
I tried to thank her...
My tongue refused.
Wrenching away, I glowered at my birthright and the two people shuffling closer. The elderly woman walked with her arm looped through an equally weathered man who limped slightly and leaned on a cane. They made eye contact with me but offered no smile.