Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry you’re in so much pain,” I whispered. “Even if we could find our way back into that snowy, dreamy place, you’re not up to doing anything—let alone making love to me.”
“I could be one heartbeat away from a grave, and I would still have the energy to pleasure you, Rook.” He tensed as more pain echoed. “And...I actually think we’re being driven to have sex because it might be the only thing keeping us alive right now.”
“Really?”
“Why else is my entire soul craving you?”
“Because you lost your virginity late in life and want to make up for lost time?”
His eyes narrowed, not appreciating my little joke. “Or because the moment I slipped inside you, you became the only thing I needed to exist. Come here.” He groaned as he lifted his hand then dropped it back to the covers. “Let’s experiment.”
“And they say romance is dead.” I smiled but my heart hurt for him.
He smirked. “Alright, strip off your clothes, lie on your back, and let me have my wicked way with you before I pass out again. That work?”
“Behave, my fluttering heart.” My fingers strayed to the filthy nightgown. “How could I refuse such a wooing?”
“You can’t.” He winked, paying for it with another wince.
Holding out my hand, I wriggled my fingers. “Touch me.”
His eyebrow rose but he didn’t ask questions. We shivered as our fingers grazed and—
Nothing.
I slouched in disappointment. “I hoped the second we touched the illusion would appear.” Sighing, I forced my blurry gaze to sweep around the bedroom we’d been locked in, searching for a hint on how to enter a dimension I wasn’t entirely sure was real.
At least this prison was better than the last one.
The smell of old money clung to the brass light fixtures and damask wallpaper. Heavy crimson curtains were half-drawn across the huge windows, allowing meagre moonlight to slip inside.
Night again.
How long had we been unconscious this time? Just a few hours or a few days?
Clenching against misery, Lucien reached for a watermelon juice box. Stabbing its tiny plastic straw into the silver hole, he flashed me a wry smile. “If we can’t figure out a way to fall into the dreamscape, then...I guess we better try eating.” His gaze hardened. “And if I’m going to kill them next time they come for us, I need to find a way to at least get strong enough to do that.”
My hand balled around the forgotten grape.
The thought of him in yet more pain...
Snatching the juice box from his hands, I wrapped my lips around the straw and sucked.
He flinched, knowing why I’d offered myself up.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured as the sweet liquid splashed into my stomach.
I braced against the violent rejection but...all seemed well.
“I...feel okay.” I smiled tentatively, taking another sip.
For ten glorious seconds, everything was totally fine. The sweetness from the watermelon. The wetness from the juice. Sweet and tasty and normal.
Until it wasn’t.
My body spasmed as viciously as it had when it’d rejected the apple a few days ago.
I clamped a hand over my mouth, eyes watering as I fought the urge to heave, but it was too late. A wet, choking cough ripped out of me. Black blood and watermelon juice spilled between my fingers, staining the white blankets.
Well...shit.
I had no idea who thought that. Him or me. And my other power—the one that allowed me to commune with the dead, even while surrounded by the living—flared loudly.
I stiffened as a million souls bombarded me.
Bones in the soil, spirits on the wind. The potentiality of using the strings of death to twist time and change our future...
Come join us, be with us, stop fighting us—
“Rook?” Lucien shoved the entire tray off the bed with one violent sweep as I collapsed.
Porcelain shattered and food splattered across the antique rug as his arms snapped around me—broken bones be damned—crushing me to his chest. “You’re alright. Just stay with me.”
I flopped against him, twitching with a seizure as my useless muscles spasmed with living and death. Living and death. My ears rang with their song. They beckoned me to let go, to leave—
Be free with us, be lost with us, come with us.
“Rook. Don’t you dare.” Shaking me, Lucien interrupted their melody. “Talk to me. I’m right here. Neither of us is abandoning the other, got it?”
His pain swamped the bond, giving me something to focus on.
“You shouldn’t move so...m-much.” I coughed again, spraying my chest with blackened blood.
“Don’t you get it yet?” He bent over me, nuzzling his nose with mine. “I’d break every bone in my body if it meant I could save you.”
Tears rolled down my cheeks as I looked up from where I lay in his trembling arms. Licking away the blood still staining my lips, brutal truth slipped free. “We both know we’re dying, yet...we keep convincing ourselves it’s not true. That we can reverse it if we just hold on a little longer. But what if we’re deluding ourselves?”