Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
The auroras spun faster as I tried to capture his ashes with shaking hands. How I went half-mad, willing his body back into existence by reversing time all over again.
Lucien staggered as the sky showed me reaching my limit and screaming.
“That’s what you did?” He choked. “That’s why I woke up and found you dissolving into snow? You sacrificed yourself for me?”
“I didn’t have a choice. You were dying. You were dead—”
“And so you thought you’d trade your life for mine?” His hand slid up to my jaw, his thumb pressing hard enough to bruise. “Do you have any idea what that did to me? Waking up and finding you breaking apart?”
“Probably exactly what it did to me watching you disappear!”
“How could you?” he snarled, his fingers dropping to my shoulders to shake me. “How could you give up your life for mine? You’re priceless to me, don’t you get that?”
He glanced at the sky again, the auroras revealing my death as I bargained with time to bring him back. His eyes were positively wild, ringed with glowing scarlet. “I had no idea what happened. How I was still alive. And now I find out you saved my life at the cost of yours? Did you think I would be grateful? That I would be okay with you trading yourself for me? That I could live a single hour without you? That I wouldn’t be fucking heartbroken?”
His hands slid into my hair, fisting tight. “What would’ve happened if I wasn’t able to reverse what you’d done, huh?” He shook me again, his eyes welling with furious tears. “What if I hadn’t been able to bring you back? Did you honestly think I could let you leave me? That I wouldn’t raze the world if it meant I got to keep you?”
“Don’t blame me for this.” A bolt of power flared from my fingertips, sending a flurry of icy daggers flying. They smashed into his chest, making him stagger even as fire surged and melted them. “You don’t get to be angry at me. You don’t get to scold me or curse me. You left me! You knew we were the only things keeping each other in stasis. You knew how fragile that bond was. You knew that no one else survived the immortality trials, yet you snuck out of bed and left anyway.”
“I was trying to keep you safe.”
“Yes, well, so was I!” Furious tears rolled down my cheeks, transforming into glittering crystals. “And of course, I get that you want to protect me. And I’m grateful. But...you should’ve confided in me, trusted me. We could’ve gone together and none of this would’ve happened. You wouldn’t have slaughtered so many creatures, and I...I...” I sobbed, forcing myself to continue. “I wouldn’t have done far worse to bring you back.”
In one step, he collided with me.
In one breath, he crushed me in his embrace.
The silver auroras suddenly caught fire, showing the darkest secrets of his heart.
I saw it all through his eyes.
The moment he woke by that scorched river and found me draped across him, breaking into snowy pieces. The gut-wrenching terror as my body dissolved. The way he’d roared and fed—not on food or water—but on life itself. How he’d torn the remaining shreds of life from every injured creature just so I wouldn’t have to die.
We’d become inhuman...all because we couldn’t say goodbye.
“You’re it for me, Rook. You’re the only reason I exist. And if that reason is taken away from me...well.” His gaze locked onto my mouth. “I’ll happily become the villain if it means I get to keep you.”
His lips suddenly crashed on mine.
The betrayal I’d felt ever since I’d woken to an empty bed shattered like tinkling glass. My anger snuffed out and a different kind of fire roared in its place.
A soul-deep ache almost made my knees buckle.
The ache was far, far worse than thirst or hunger. It was primal, instinctual—a matter of life and death.
I flung myself into the tempest and kissed him back.
No softness. No sweetness. Just teeth and tongue and the desperate collision of knowing what it felt like to lose each other.
Ice unfurled with a flash of goosebumps, imprinting my skin with white snowflakes.
He kissed me deeper as if trying to erase every second we’d been apart. His tongue speared into my mouth as my hands fisted in his hair, yanking him closer, closer. His arm banded around my waist, lifting me half off the ground.
And it wasn’t enough.
I needed more. I needed everything.
I felt him everywhere—inside my heart, behind my eyes, in the hollow ache between my legs. His emotions poured into me, full of jagged edges, terror, and rage.
He raked a hand down my side, bunching the nightgown up my thigh.
I moaned in encouragement.
He tore away from my mouth, his eyes utterly wild. “I can’t...” He swallowed and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can’t stop. It’s like I’m being driven by something other than myself.”