Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Hot, lancing pain punched into my shoulder like a giant wasp.
The vaguest acknowledgement that I’d been shot came and went as I spun to my left. A swarm of guards poured into the cave. Two, six, ten, twenty—
They kept coming, appearing from a different pathway, hopefully giving the prisoners time to escape.
Spreading out, they trained their guns on me.
The woman who’d just given birth clutched her newborn baby, while the man clutched her. They were the only two left, including the animals too sick to move. The panther that reminded me so much of Whisper wobbled out of its cage, its shoulder blades almost cutting through its skin as it fought to stay breathing.
“We were told you might stop by.” The guard who’d fired glowered at me. “What a fucking mess you’ve made, but...your timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Mr. Ward is on his way. He’ll be so happy to see you.”
I bared my teeth. The fire grew fangs and the little girl made a sound that wrenched my soul right out of my chest. My gaze snapped to hers. To the hole where her heart used to be.
The bullet that’d lodged into my shoulder had torn straight through her, blending my golden-tinted blood with her muddy-amber life-force.
No...
Her tiny body jerked as confusion arched her eyebrows. Her thick, filthy lashes fluttered. “I’m...” Blood bubbled at the corner of her mouth as her arms loosened around my neck. “...hungry.” Her final word branded my neck with the last puff of air she would ever breathe and...that was it.
Flames no longer waited for me to give them an answer—they claimed me.
A bargain struck.
A life stolen.
Just like all the lives they’d stolen down here.
I sank into the fire and...
broke.
Chapter Sixty-Four
I WOKE SCREAMING.
My body exploded in agony, my heart threatening to burst.
Bolting upright in bed, I clutched my shoulder where I swore a phantom dagger drove right into me.
Whisper leapt to his feet, snarling at shadows as I gasped and hugged my stomach.
More pain crippled me.
God, the agony in my shoulder was nothing.
Nothing.
I’d never felt such pain. Such raging, roaring fury.
It threatened to shatter my bones.
It felt as if lightning gathered inside me.
The bond swelled, scorched, then tore at the seams.
The tether binding me to Lucien became murderous. I felt him pulling. Summoning me, siphoning the cold right out of me, falling into a cyclone of power.
The room warped as frost burst free with jagged faultlines, making Whisper leap off the bed.
“Lucien?” I looked wildly for him, gasping and quaking as excruciating agony kept building, building.
Ice crackled over my ribs, sinking its silver tendrils directly into my heart.
Flickers of despair fed down the bond, clashing with snowy suffocation.
I slipped into his mind.
I saw from behind his eyes—
Surrounded by men. Guns all trained on him. A cave system that reeked of death. His heart incinerated. His humanity disintegrated. He surrendered to the fire and—
“No!”
Whisper let loose a thunderous snarl as if he felt what I did. Felt that Lucien was only moments away from total annihilation.
Why wasn’t he here?
Where did he go?!
The tether in my heart yanked violently. The connection between us went blinding. Fire so hot it burned my blood. Frost so thick it turned the room white.
Prehistoric cold threatened to shatter my spine, answering the breaking in Lucien.
It wanted me to break with him.
It wanted...me.
Throwing the blankets off, I flung myself out of bed. A giant snowflake appeared beneath my feet as the temperature plummeted. The air glittered with extinction—
A great cloud of roaring fire. No longer human. Just power. The mountain trembled and sky split.
“LUCIEN!”
The bond jerked—
then detonated.
Winter swarmed me. The rafters groaned as lightning forked inside.
He tipped his head to the sky. The fire didn’t consume him...it crowned him. His wrath turned tectonic—
A shockwave of his hate punched through me, shattering the ice’s hold. Gasping, I flung myself toward the wardrobe, hauled on the closest clothes, and fled.
Chapter Sixty-Five
SUMMONING HELL WAS AS EASY AS breathing.
The fire stole everything, delivering catastrophic power in return. I choked on blood as my organs turned to ash. I suffocated on air as my body broke beneath the weight of pure anarchy.
All the rage I’d nursed since I was nine years old. Every wish for vengeance. Every promise of revenge. It fed the fire until there was nothing left.
I would never be able to undo this.
Never be able to stop the flames feeding off my feelings—growing stronger with every surge of horror and terror and hate.
I screamed as a concussive blast shot out of me in a perfect sphere of incandescent force. Air ignited. Stone exploded. The cavern’s ceiling blew apart with a shower of molten debris. Flames punched through solid rock, carving a chimney straight to the surface.
My heart caved in with guilt.
Rook.
I didn’t know if leaving her had triggered this breaking or if this was always my fate.