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)
My hand took liberties while she slumbered, cupping the weight of her breast and running my thumb over her taut nipple. Ice frosted her eyebrows and lips, making it seem as if she’d dipped herself into sugar again...ready to be eaten.
I sucked in a breath as I rolled on top of her.
Being this close quieted all my fears, erased all my worries. I had no pain, no weakness. I had nothing in my mind apart from her, and I wanted her.
A faint breeze stirred the blossoms overhead; a flurry of petals drifted over us. A few crowned her hair while one landed on the very lips I wanted to kiss.
She mumbled in her sleep—
I kissed her.
Her eyes flew open, hazy and sleep-trapped. Well, hello there.
The petals turned to ash on my skin as I caught fire. I need you again.
Fuck, I’d been so naïve back in Cinderkeep. So oblivious to what this woman would mean to me and just how much I would need her to survive. In so many ways...
Her cool hands cupped my cheeks. The iciness of her skin on my overly heated face made every thought disintegrate. “I love you, Lucien Ashfall.”
The bond flared with fire and ice as she returned my kiss.
Auroras tangled around fluffy clouds and petals shot into the sky.
This place reacted to us like it was us. An extension of who we were as I gave her all my weight and kissed her.
I reached between us to thrust inside her—
The dreamscape ripped apart.
Rough, bruising hands grabbed my ankles, yanking me backward. I landed on the floor amongst broken crockery and spilled food from last night. My eyes flew wide just as another man jerked Rook off the bed, leaving her dazed and hurt beside me.
“Hands behind your backs!” a pot-bellied guard yelled.
I snarled as one of the guards kicked my shoulder, pinned me onto my stomach, and lashed a zip-tie around my wrists. Rook’s horrified gaze met mine as she suffered the same treatment. How did this happen? Weren’t we just about to have sex?
“Get up!” another guard barked.
Straining against the imprisonment, I glanced down my body as two men hauled me onto my feet. Fully dressed. Pants zipped. Shirt buttoned. Rook cried out as another man hooked her elbow and jerked her upright. Her dirty nightgown hung down to her ankles. Every part of her was appropriately covered.
I don’t think we were. Having sex, I mean.
Her eyes narrowed on me, searching for signs of what we’d been doing before we’d been rudely snatched out of the dream. So everything we experienced was mental? We didn’t touch each other at all this time?
I flexed my hands, blood throbbing in my fingertips from the tightness of the zip-tie. Flames flowed around my bones with indignation—
Wait. My healed bones. Bones that no longer hurt but sizzled with power.
I smiled.
“Get moving.” Two guards stalked to the open door. The third shoved Rook and the fourth pushed me. “Get.”
A punch of dissonant frequency shredded my skull.
Rook cried out as our ears rang, blood bubbled, bones burned—
“Turn that fucking thing off,” the guard behind me commanded. “Can’t you see they’re barely alive as it is? I know Mr. Swift told us to be wary, but they’re both just as weak as yesterday.”
“I reckon we should shock ‘em...just to be on the safe side.”
“Surgery is booked for this afternoon for a new vitalsync core. Until then, let’s do our best not to kill them so we don’t end up in a shit ton of trouble, alright?”
The frequency cranked up a notch, sending a gush of blood out of my nose.
Rook collapsed, folding to the floor, only for a younger guard with dark blond hair to catch her.
The sight of his hands on her.
The fact that he touched her.
I went to tear his motherfucking throat out—
Frequency drilled harder into my thoughts, knocking me sideways. Nausea wrapped around my throat. Dizziness and weakness and—
“Enough already!” someone shouted. “Mr. Swift explicitly said to bring them down while conscious. Quit it!”
The horror went quiet as a guard snatched the remote from his colleague and pocketed it. “They’re trapped and surrounded. They have a long day ahead of them, and I’m sure we can get them to the dining room without anything going wrong, don’t you? Besides, they say they’re immortal, but they look like they’re gonna die real soon. Let’s not rush it, yeah?”
“Fine.” The two guards by the door disappeared into the corridor.
Rook groaned as the guard manhandling her jerked her upright again and shoved her into a walk. She bashed against the wall.
I saw red. Literally.
Fire surged, flowing through my veins like molten rage. I sank into it. I urged it to grow hotter, angrier. I went to unleash—
Wait. Rook shook her head subtly in my direction. They don’t know we’ve healed.