Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
“You loved him?” Elijah’s voice was hoarse.
“Yes. But it was teen love. It wouldn’t have lasted.” The words slipped out.
“Why?”
Their gazes locked as the shuttle moved and Echo was distracted from her fear of being underwater. Distracted by the intensity of Elijah’s expression and the questions she could see in his eyes. Questions about them. Their connection.
Unwilling to answer any of them, Echo tore her gaze away. “I found out when I was turned that William had a hand in destroying the lives of the parents of those girls who tried to drown me.”
A few seconds later, “How?”
“Financial ruin. He told me he’d wanted to kill them, but it would be too easy to trace back to us. Instead, he made sure their parents’ careers were destroyed, that investments went south. He couldn’t let it go.” Bitterness rang in her words. “I thought it was just his way of loving me. It wasn’t. He can’t stand anyone to get away with crossing him. And he has patience. He’ll wait until the optimum moment to punish them for any perceived insult or offense, no matter how long. That’s the male who raised me.”
Elijah let out a slow exhalation. “Why does it feel like you’re warning me off?”
“I’m not.” Or was she? Echo was so confused. One minute she didn’t want him to believe her to be a monster, the next she was trying to talk him into it. “But you were raised by kind, brave parents. I was raised by one of the oldest psychopaths in the world.”
“Which is what makes you so bloody extraordinary. You can pretend to be cold and ruthless all you want, Echo Payne. But I see through you. I see the woman who gave up everything to save her sister, to save me, to save the bloody world. I see a woman who can’t bear to watch a dog cry in a crate by itself. A woman who saved my parents lives’ and mine. I see you.”
“I also tied you to a bed with iron and gave you permanent scars!”
“And you were sick to your stomach after it because you didn’t know what you were doing.”
“I’ve killed.”
“So have I.”
“I’m not … good.”
“No one is just good. We all have good in us, but we all have bad. We have light and dark. You’ve lived in the dark for so long, you think there’s no light in you. But I see it. I see it all, and I think every part of you is beautiful. The dark and the light. Nothing you say will change that.”
Fear and hope coalesced inside her. Trembling a little, she turned from the warm heat in Elijah’s eyes and closed hers against it.
At least she was now more preoccupied by this thing between them than the fact that they were on a train in a tunnel in the middle of the English Channel.
18
The drive northward through the UK wasn’t filled with easy conversation this time. The motorway grew quiet once they hit eleven in the evening, and Echo and Elijah fell into a tense silence. Awareness surged between them, and all Echo could hear was his heartbeat. All she could smell was that fae scent of earthiness mixed with heady, hot caramel. She could still remember what he tasted like. What an exceptional kisser he was. How his strong hands felt on her waist. Elijah wasn’t like the alpha douchebags she’d grown up around. He was a modern man who respected her opinions and often let her take the lead.
But when he kissed, he dominated.
And she couldn’t help but admit to herself she liked the dichotomy. She was always in charge. Always had the weight of the world resting on her shoulders.
What would it be like to let someone else take the lead in bed only? Someone she trusted.
Echo couldn’t help the traitorous musings that flooded her mind. If Elijah was as dominant in bed as he was with his kisses … What could he do with that immortal body of his? Worse, in her hunger, she wondered what he’d taste like. If he’d come if she bit him while he thrust between her legs.
Not wanting him to scent her arousal, she’d quickly shoved the thoughts from her mind, clenching her hands into fists.
She wasn’t going to make it to the Highlands, she realized, as her stomach clenched painfully.
Somehow she got through one more day, sleeping off the hunger, though it made for a fitful rest. She was even more taciturn on the drive from Yorkshire to Scotland, and she could sense Elijah’s impatience and confusion. By the time they reached the medieval city of Stirling, one of the tiniest cities Echo had visited, she was hanging on by a thread. While she had phenomenal control for a vampire, this was the longest she’d gone without blood.