Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
“Fuck you,” Nathanial grits out. “That whore got what she deserved.”
With a sickening crunch, Lucian kicks him again, laying him flat out with a groan.
Squatting, Lucian hovers over his brother, the only sound the clicking whisper of a tsk. “Now, now. Don’t rush me along. I’ve been waiting thirty years for this.”
“Lucian,” Nathanial cries, none of the cockiness he’s carried for the past three days left in his voice. He’s faceup, weak, and in intense agony from his own brother’s specialty.
And just like that, it all makes sense.
Why Lucian brought us here to do the groundwork he couldn’t do himself. Why he brought me to my brothers and unlocked the door.
Why he waited until the middle of the auction to announce my mating—an event I’m now certain he facilitated all along.
It’s no coincidence that Romy ended up with the room at the end of the hall out of a hundred other women, the only room with a window to the outside.
It’s no coincidence that this place, the chosen location for this year’s Selection, is actually Lucian’s house—a choice he, no doubt, used his position on the Council to lobby for. He wanted the high ground, the tools, and the army to execute a plan he’s had for decades.
A plan he strategized for the sole purpose of avenging our mother. The woman he lost in the first bid before choosing his mate Helenna in the second.
He gave her the life he would have given our mother and loved her gently, all while our mother suffered. Helenna dying last year must have been his breaking point.
Bottom line, Lucian played me.
He played all of us, and he did it with selfish focus. If we were casualties of the game, so be it. But his endgame was the same as ours all along.
Crumble the Council. Buck the tradition. Make the evil men pay.
It’s why Kane’s had such a hard time with the muddiness of his intention, and it’s why I’ve been struggling to get a read on him from day one. Lucian’s a shield, but he picked and chose the moments he kept from me, silencing the conversation he had with Narris in the selection room for the purpose of giving me a reminder of the reason I had to fight in front of all the men so there’d be as much chaos as possible.
He didn’t stop me from listening any other time, something I now know was intentional.
He knew I was prepared to do what was necessary. Quite possibly, he knew the way my brothers and I were raised prepared us more than anyone else. Group homes. Fosters. Raising ourselves and fighting for everything we had.
This man had a plan. And decided we were the ones to help him execute it.
“Lucian,” Nathanial cries again, sounding like a damn baby as the agony takes on new heights. “Brother, please.”
“You, Nathanial, are no brother of mine,” Lucian spits. “I’m disgusted by your blatant disregard for not only Naomi, but every other human woman who’s followed in her wake.”
Naomi. Our mother’s name was Naomi.
My chest surges with pain and pride and a lifetime of longing. I didn’t realize how much her absence meant through the day-to-day, but I can see now it’s what made us the way we are.
The constant drive to live up to the men she’d want us to be—the need to stop what happened to her from happening to other women.
Cal? Romy asks, obviously feeling my despair dancing across her own skin.
I’m okay, my love. Are you safe?
Yes. We just got on the bus and got dressed.
Good. I’ll see you soon.
Reassured that the most important part of our plan has come together, I interject myself into my uncle’s game.
“How long did he wait before he abused her, Lucian? Had the bond even settled?”
“No, Calloway,” he responds. “It’s safe to say Nathanial saw your mother as nothing more than a possession from the start.”
Lucian grabs Nathanial by the chin one final time, his fingers digging into the flesh and melting it right there. Bone exposes and everything else vaporizes just like what he did to Lexor in the cabin.
Except this time, Nathanial is still alive and suffering. His cries are loud and agonized as Lucian spits directly in his eye.
“Rot in hell, brother. For Naomi. For all of them. Not a soul on this earth will miss you.”
Nathanial crumples to the floor, his body half gone in vapored mist.
And Ronan whimpers, painfully awaiting a similar fate, but Lucian is evidently done with theatrics. With one wave of his hand, Ronan expires.
Lucian looks slightly weakened by the exertion, moving slowly to one of the remaining chairs and sinking down into it.
I look back at Julian and the other men who’ve joined us, my jaw tight and my threats anything but empty. “We thank you for fighting with us. But make no mistake, if you betray us and our purpose, we will kill you too.”