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)
“Rook!”
What the fuck was I supposed to do?!
Resting my cheek on the top of her head, I smoothed down her long hair, trying to hold all her pieces together as she continued to shatter. “Wake up. You have to wake up.”
Everything about her was wrong and cold and...empty.
Flinging open every barrier I still had between me and the torturous fire, I commanded it to obey me and help her.
My heart coughed with smoke. The tiniest flame spluttered out as quickly as it sparked.
The fire—the same power that’d made my entire life a misery—chose that moment to abandon me.
I wouldn’t let her die.
I’d told her that.
She would never be free of me because I wouldn’t fucking allow it.
“You’re not leaving.” Sinking into the smoky chambers of my heart, I commanded the fire to answer. It spluttered weakly again, giving me a single ember.
Fuck, why?
Why was it so weak? What the hell happened to make me this useless?
My pulse pounded as Rook kept slipping.
What else was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to stop her dying?
Blood.
Hurry.
“You’ll be okay.” I brought my wrist to my mouth and tore like a beast. Blood welled—not gold like before or even crimson, but a thick, tarry black that looked as if I’d been dead for decades.
I didn’t care.
Pressing the bleeding wound to her blue-tinged lips, I begged, “Just a few sips, alright? Drink and you’ll wake up.”
She didn’t react.
Black blood smeared her lips.
But it was fine. More than fine. How many times in the past had she refused to swallow?
“It’s fine.” I forced a shaky smile. “See? I’ll do it for you.” Sucking on bitter, ashy blood, I held the mouthful on my tongue. Bending over her, I hinged her jaw open with my hand and released the sooty liquid into her.
Her skin accelerated its decay.
Her other arm exploded into snowflakes.
“Stop it! Wake up!” Cupping her cheeks, I smeared more blood on her perfect frosty skin. If I painted her in my lifeforce, perhaps she’d heal like she had when I’d poured blood into her punctured lung by the river.
I shook with horror and hope as I ran my seeping wrist over her forehead and chin. But...her skin continued transforming into twinkling dust, erasing her from my reach.
“Damn you, Rook! Don’t do this.” Snatching her close, I smashed my lips to hers, kissing her ruthlessly hard. “You can’t. I won’t let you.” Forcing breath into her lungs, I half kissed, half begged her.
And she didn’t respond at all.
It was like kissing a ghost.
A broken sound tore out of me as I kissed her again and again. “What did you tell me, huh? You said if I died tonight, you’d die with me, right? Well...same. If you dare die on me, I’m coming after you. I’ll tear apart whatever afterlife exists until I find you. But I’d rather have you here. With me. Alive. So fight. Fight, damn it!”
Her back arched as the death throes found her. Just like on the riverbank when she’d reached the end, I fought for a way to stop it. But unlike the time where we triggered an ascension and somehow healed each other, this time...I had no power to call upon and no miracles to use.
I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t watch her die.
I couldn’t sit here and be so fucking helpless.
Placing what was left of her onto the snowy earth, I crushed her beneath me and gave her all my weight. I begged the fire in me to kindle. I snarled at it to burst into the warmest hearth—to heat her and balance her and bring her back to me...
But it completely forsook me as her eyelashes disappeared and her entire body became frost instead of flesh. “You die on me and I’ll never forgive you, do you hear me?”
Pressing my lips to hers, I murmured, “I will literally commit every atrocity imaginable if it means I get to keep you so...you better wake up and stop me.”
If the fire refused to give me power, then...I would take it. I would snatch it from others by using something worse. Something unforgivable. I didn’t care that it might kill me in the process. I didn’t care that it would definitely earn me a place in hell.
I sank into myself. I went deeper than the fire, past all the anger and grief, and hauled on a completely different type of power. A power I’d felt when I’d been on the cusp of death—a power that ensured I could become the most monstrous thing in existence.
My ears rang with a million heartbeats. I heard the trees screaming as they burned. I felt animals dying as they succumbed to their injuries and...I snatched up all their souls and hoarded them.
I used the battleground where so many were slain, claiming each and every one. I shuddered as I grew stronger with every life I claimed, feeding off the trees and flowers, birds and critters. Each soul filled up the wrongness inside me, making me thrum with mind-warping power.