Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79244 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79244 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Colin steps inside in his immaculate uniform, but while he stalls at the sight I make with my man curled up against my chest, he doesn’t lose his usual professionalism. The man used to work at Buckingham Palace and has since been employed by my family. This can’t be the oddest thing he’s ever seen. “Would anyone like some te—”
I step close and deposit my darling Killian in the butler’s arms, because I know he can’t stand being without human touch at this moment. He looks at me but doesn’t protest when I give him a reassuring nod.
If I don’t deal with Titus right the fuck now, I might explode, so I turn to my brother like a bristling wolf.
“Why are you looking at me like that? What’s this new drama?” Titus points at Killian, but I see the flush on his face and the vein bulging on his forehead.
He was the one to activate the fucking traps.
I don’t answer his stupid questions, just head through the room like an icebreaker with Titus as my target. Corvus rises from the couch right before I grab Titus by the collar and smash him against the wall.
“How dare you? He’s my husband! You’re supposed to protect him with your life,” I roar and smack away the fist flying my way. I’m about to deliver a punch of my own when a strong arm closes around my wrist. But that won’t stop me. I kick Titus’s legs from under him and send him onto the floor. It is a shame his hand doesn’t land in the lit fireplace, because now I’ll have to kick him in there myself.
“Damen! What is this?” Father yells, but it’s like a blur on the periphery of my vision while another arm tries to pull me back by the waist.
I still manage to swipe my hand over the mantelpiece and throw the whole array of family mementos on Titus, including a vase that smashes on his head. It’s filled with Mother’s potpourri, which instantly catches fire.
“He tried to kill my husband! He activated the traps in the maze! You motherfucker!” I once more rip forward and kick Titus in the stomach as three men pull me back as if I’m a rabid bull.
“Damen, you can’t know that. Calm down,” Father shouts, but I’m already seeing red, and he can’t tame me by keeping his voice level. He’s trying to flaunt his fatherly authority, but how would that work, when his own marriage is a failure, and I’m too old to be chastised like a child.
“I won’t be calming down! I’m going to kill the motherfucker! You hear that, Titus? You’re dead!”
Corvus pulls me back again when I escape his clutches for half a second. “You don’t want to kill your brother, Damen!”
Titus starts screeching, and at first, I think he’s in hysterics. It takes me half a second to realize his hair caught fire from the potpourri-bombs. I just have to bark out a laugh at his suffering.
“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” Aspen yells, grabbing another vase off the mantelpiece.
“No!” Father yells, and a few other men gasp in horror when Aspen shakes our great aunt’s ashes over Titus’s head to put out the fire.
A sudden silence fills the room. Killian’s ragged breaths are the loudest, and they catch my attention, but it’s hard to look away from the clusterfuck that is Titus on his knees in front of the fireplace, covered in Aunt Lydia’s ashes.
Aspen looks around. “What? It’s just dust.”
Father’s face turns even redder than when he saw me with Killian last night. “Those are human remains!”
Aspen hums and puts the empty vase down. “So… do I, like, pick it up? We could probably scrape most of it off…”
Father rubs his face. “Leave it. And you,” he turns to me with a glare that tells me he’s going to blame me for everything, just like he always does. “Have you not caused enough chaos already? Accept that the trap in the maze was a freak accident. Unless you have proof that Titus caused it. And you, Titus, do not cause havoc with your brother’s spouse. I don’t care if you like it or not, and for the record, I don’t, but he is family, just like Victor or Bree.”
I did not expect that.
I do have Father’s support, despite bringing over a person he did not expect and claiming to have married in secret, without his approval. That doesn’t minimize my idiot brother’s actions, but while I don’t believe that, it’s true that this could have been a freak accident. And if it was not, maybe Titus has learned his lesson.
He coughs up some of Great Aunt Lydia and attempts to wipe her off his face, and I’m treated to the uneven hairline resulting from my attack.
Serves him right.