Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Yet I can’t shake this feeling like all he’s wanted to do since he laid eyes on me was make me irrevocably his.
His hand slides down my face, my neck, every caress causing a wave of electricity along my spine. I shudder when his hand travels down my shoulder and my arm until he reaches my glove … and curls his finger underneath to pull it.
I quickly jerk my hand from his grip and swat him away. “Don’t.”
His nostrils flare, and he glares at me, incensed.
I push myself up against the wall, clearing my throat. “Just … stay away.”
His lips part, the scar drawing my attention more than anything. Until he speaks. “You’re scared.”
I frown, but it quickly turns into a scowl. “Of course I am.”
He stretches out a hand. “Why?”
I stare at him, stupefied why he’d even ask. “You tried to kill my father.” I pause to let the gravity of my words sink in. “You killed his guards. My friends.”
My voice comes out like a whine, but it’s the pain and fear all coming out at once.
“Friends?” he parrots, inching back to give me some space.
“Yes,” I say, swallowing away the tears.
“What are friends?”
I frown, terribly confused. How … how does he not know what friends are?
He must be joking, right? This must be a lie. It has to be.
I snort, and it ends up in full-blown laughter. “You’re kidding me, right?”
But he merely stares at me with disdain as though I’m mocking him, and it instantly makes me stop laughing. “You really don’t know?”
He shakes his head, frowning, his nostril twitching like he’s offended I’d even question his reality. But who in the world doesn’t know what friends are?
“How? How do you not know?” I ask.
He shrugs, averting his eyes as he kneels farther away from me.
“You don’t have any friends?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he says.
“People,” I explain.
“People … like my owner,” he mutters.
His owner? Does he mean the man who sent him to assassinate my father and take me with him?
“No, I mean people you like. You know, people you talk to.”
He shakes his head. “The guards … talk to me sometimes.”
I gasp. “Those guys aren’t your friends. They’re keeping you as a prisoner in this cell, just like me.” I look around at the bars surrounding us. “Friends wouldn’t do this. Friends are nice. They make you happy.”
“Then I don’t have them,” he says.
No friends.
My God.
I mean, I didn’t have many, and most of them were people working for my papa, but to have no friends at all … no one to talk to … “Wow.”
“What?” He raises a brow.
“Nothing,” I mutter, trying not to anger him any more than he already has.
He’s been pacing around so much in this cell. I know something is bothering him, but I don’t understand what. It’s almost like he’s been waiting for someone, and I assumed it must be someone he likes to talk to. But maybe that’s out of the question too.
The beastly man gets up, suddenly towering over me again, and I shudder in disbelief at how huge he really is. Then he turns and marches back to where he’s been sleeping. There he continues to stare at me, almost as if he’s wondering why I won’t let him get close. But I don’t think I’d be able to resist if I did. If he’d even allow me to.
This kind of man takes what he wants without regard for anyone else’s feelings or wishes.
Even a girl like me.
Goose bumps scatter on my skin.
So then why did he move away from me?
He sighs. “Friends are a weakness.”
I blink a couple of times to interrupt my own thoughts. “Why would you say that?”
He gazes up at me from underneath his eyelashes, the thick gash on his face making me swallow. “Your friends died, so now you are angry.”
Oh wow.
“Of course I am,” I say, emotions making my voice high-pitched.
“Emotions. Friends. They’re a weakness.”
Well, that’s cold.
“They didn’t deserve to die.”
“No one does,” he replies. “But everyone dies. In the end.”
I blink a couple of times. Even with such little words, he still manages to make me think about them.
He fishes his knife from his pocket. The same one he stabbed my papa with, and the mere sight makes me freeze. “The only question is … how.” He twirls it around between his fingers like a plaything. “Life and death. It’s all the same to me.”
“You’re wrong.”
I don’t know where I get the courage to speak up, but I do.
“Life in here? It is death,” he explains.
“Life could be so much more than this,” I say. “You make it sound like it’s black and white. It’s not.”
“Then tell me what life is to you,” he says.
My fingers scratch along the concrete floor. I don’t know if I should, but I can’t help myself. “Life can be beautiful. Rough. Idyllic. Painful. Sweet. It is a spectrum of emotions and experiences, and if you never once tried to feel any of it, then how can you know it’s all the same?” I say.