Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
“Missed me,” he taunted.
Breath stalling, I whipped my head around. Where did he—?
His hand clamped down on my throat, immediately cutting off my air. He lifted me clear off my feet, his grip tightening as I clawed at his hand. The fragile cartilage of my windpipe ground together. “I wanted your screams before, and I got them.” He smiled. “Now, I want to hear you apologize.” His grip loosened, letting in the tiniest bit of air. “Let me hear it, so’lis. Apologize.”
“Fuck,” I rasped, “you.”
Kolis’s eyes briefly closed, and then he sighed as if I were a small child who had disappointed him.
Without warning, I was flying backward into the alcove. I crashed through something—a table? Sharp glass sliced through my back as I felt something wet that smelled like whiskey. I hit the floor hard on my side, the air whooshing out of me.
I can handle this.
Breathing raggedly, I put my hand down and pushed up.
Kolis stood before me. “Apologize.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
The corners of his mouth tightened, and then he moved, the back of his hand striking me across the face. Starbursts exploded behind my eyes, and I smacked into the side of a crimson settee, knowing the skin of my cheek had split wide open.
I can handle this.
Lifting my gaze, I spotted the still-intact crystal decanter, lying among the bits of ruined furniture and shattered glass. It looked pretty solid. Snapping forward, I gripped the neck and whirled as a hiss of pain escaped my tightly sealed lips.
Kolis caught the bottle, ripping it from my grip. “Now. Now.” He set the bottle down on the small end table. “Let’s not go wasting more good whiskey.”
Spinning, I extended my leg, aiming straight for his—
Kolis vanished.
Either he moved that fast, or I was losing the ability to track him. I stumbled, catching myself on the settee.
“Apologize, so’lis.”
His words once more stirred the hair along the nape of my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. I drove my elbow back, this time connecting with a hard wall of muscle.
Kolis grunted out a laugh. “What was that supposed to do?”
Clearly, nothing.
Absolutely fucking nothing.
And that infuriated me.
I whipped around—
He drove his foot down on the back of my leg, snapping the bone. A short, strangled cry escaped as red-hot pain shot up and down my leg.
I can handle this.
His grip burned my arm, and another bone cracked. Then another and another. Both legs. Both arms. The pain…it was everywhere. There was no escaping it. No way to breathe through it or hide from it.
Kolis picked me up by the throat, and before I could break his hold, before I could really feel the raw fear taking root in every fiber of my being, he slammed me down, back first, onto his knee.
Something cracked somewhere deep inside me, and that snap rang dully in my ears as pain came in a bright flash, shorting out every nerve ending.
Kolis let go, and I fell to the floor. I didn’t feel the impact. My legs and arms had no feeling, but inside, I felt wet and cold.
“Hmm,” Kolis hummed, drawing my wide eyes to him. He loomed over me, one side of his still-bloodied lips curled up. “I think I broke you.”
I thought he had, too.
Because when he knelt and ran the backs of his knuckles across my cheek, I couldn’t move away from him. Couldn’t even lift a hand as he worked an arm under my shattered body and lifted my upper half. Couldn’t stop my head from lolling back and exposing my throat.
He’d broken something important deep inside of me, and I didn’t have enough essence left in me to heal. Panic sprouted in my chest and unfurled like a noxious weed. There was no stopping it, even as I told myself that I could handle it. That I wouldn’t show him an ounce of fear again. But it coated my skin and drenched my blood.
I can handle this.
“Such a fucking waste.” Kolis’s voice thinned. “I really did love you, so’lis. All you had to do was love me back. That was all I ever wanted.”
My heart thudded heavily as my eyes flickered over the ruined, bloodied Hall.
“But you couldn’t do that for me.” He brushed back some hair that had come loose from my braid. “No one could.” His voice thickened then, becoming rough around the edges. “No one except my brother.”
Before I could even process his words, he sank his fangs into the flesh of my throat once more. I barely felt them pierce the skin, but I could feel the deep tugging motion in my chest as he drank. I willed my body to move, but nothing did.
I can handle this.
The panic and fear were reaching deep inside me, finding the part that had hidden itself away the moment the thing masquerading as Isbeth delivered her message. The part of me that was Poppy. Not the version from when I wore the veil or the one with godly powers, but the one who had finally found the courage to face the truth, no matter how harsh it was. The one who’d learned how to really laugh. Who had learned to stop hiding her scars—both seen and unseen. Who had learned to accept them. The Poppy who’d discovered what freedom felt like. And what love tasted like. The Poppy who had only begun to discover herself. And that fear and panic wasn’t just rotting that part of me from the inside; it was undoing all I had done to become the person I was today. And it felt irrevocable.