Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79938 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Galen was still titled. He had two residences in Thalania—one in the capital Ranei, and one in the middle of his holdings, which included three towns and a small city, all of which he collected an income from in the percentage of a small tax. All of it could be stripped from him, but they’d already made arrangements to combat that eventuality.
Not to mention Galen had trusted Theo to invest his money for over a decade. He was wealthy even without any of his connections to Thalania.
Theo couldn’t tell Meg any of that. She saw a kindred spirit in Galen, someone who stood in Theo’s shadow or some shit. And they saw him as the heir apparent, the one who would reclaim his throne and leave them both behind in different ways.
He didn’t have an answer for that.
He didn’t have an answer for a lot of things right now.
So Theo let the conversation fade into silence, rather than spark into an argument that would ruin the flickering happiness they’d claimed for their own. It wasn’t forever, but it didn’t have to be. He had to be content with that.
When have I ever been content leaving something I wanted behind?
Galen took a turn onto a wider road. They still had a good thirty minutes of driving ahead of them, so Theo leaned forward and clicked the radio on, picking up on one of the local channels. His German was just as rusty as Galen’s, but the station played Top 40 hits, and that was good enough for now.
To one side, the road fell away into a ravine, dark and twisted with old growth. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Theo straightened. “Galen—” He never got the rest out.
One second they were cruising along, and the next they were airborne. Up was down. Down was up. Theo hung suspended in his seatbelt as the world rushed by for one breathless second.
Then they hit and everything went dark.
Meg must have lost consciousness. The last thing she remembered was looking out the window and now she was upside down and blinking blood from her eyes. She touched the bright spot of pain on her arm and cried out at the feeling of something big and sharp protruding from her skin. Glass, her mind so helpfully supplied. She knew better than to yank it out, so she swiped the blood from her face and tried to figure out what happened.
Theo hung from his seatbelt, his body limp. Unconscious. That was all. He’d passed out. He wasn’t dead. He couldn’t possibly be dead. Theo’s life shone too brightly to be doused like this. It had to.
You’re going into shock, Meg.
Galen’s seat sat empty, door closed. The windshield was gone, but she couldn’t tell if it had happened during the crash or afterward. It didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was getting out of this car and then getting Theo out as well. Cars didn’t really explode as easily as the movies made it look, right?
Oh god, what if they did?
She fumbled for her belt clasp, her movements slow and uncoordinated. Must have gotten knocked on the head…or it’s blood loss. The roof of the car over her head was stained a wet red that made her stomach lurch. How long had she been unconscious?
Too long.
She pushed on the latch, but it resisted. Jammed. “Oh, fuck.”
Footsteps outside her door. Meg blinked, but she didn’t get a chance to react before someone wrenched her door open and then Galen was there. He looked just as shitty as she felt, small cuts peppering his face. It didn’t seem to bother him, though. He touched her head and then cursed as the sight of the glass shard in her arm. “Hang in there, baby.”
“Theo.”
“He’s breathing. He just knocked his head really good. He’s not bleeding out.” He pulled a knife from somewhere, a viciously long serrated blade that had her heart leaping into her throat. Galen guided her uninjured hand over her head to brace on the ceiling. “I’m going to cut you out of your seatbelt.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Try not to crack your head.”
This was right about the time she should fire off a snappy reply, but Meg didn’t have anything. She just nodded and locked her elbow as best she could. Galen sliced through her seatbelt and her arm went out. He must have expected it, though, because he caught her around the chest and helped ease her down. “Almost there, baby. You’re doing great. We need to get out of the car and then I can get a better look at your arm.”
“Theo,” she insisted.
“I know.” Galen dragged her out of the car and propped her against a nearby tree. He paused, staring up the embankment where they’d been driving not too long ago. She couldn’t see the road from her position, couldn’t hear anything that might be a car driving past. Galen turned back to her. “Are you going to pass out again?”