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)
At least nothing came up.
Not food, at least.
Only the thickest spray of the inkiest blood. It splattered over his black shirt and across the cloud-embroidered blankets covering my legs.
“Shit.” He supported me as I wobbled. “You alright?”
I licked my lips gingerly, trying to clean up my mess. I must look awful. “I’m really sorry, Dil—”
“Wait. Don’t ingest it.” Letting go with one hand, he reached into the many pockets of his jacket and pulled out a handkerchief. Dabbing my mouth, his face turned stony as tarry blood stained the white fabric.
Pocketing the mess, he grabbed a water glass on the bedside table and held it to my lips. “Here.”
“Thank you,” I mumbled, needing to wash away the awful metallic taste. He was endlessly patient as I struggled to remember how to do such a simple task as swallowing. The water was cool and refreshing, but for some reason, it refused to go down. My throat closed up, my gag reflex kicked in, and my body vehemently denied even a single droplet.
I coughed again, clicking my teeth on the glass and convulsing in Dillon’s hold.
“Fucking hell, now what?” Dumping the glass back on the bedside table, he spilled it in his haste. Gathering me close, he rocked me in his arms, patting my back like I was a child. “It’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe. I shouldn’t have given you liquids the moment you woke up. Just get your bearings first, alright?”
I appreciated his kindness, but his patting made fresh sickness roil. Having him this close felt wrong. Every inch of my body recoiled from him. I knew this man. I trusted him and loved him, but every part of me rejected him.
He made my skin crawl. His every touch was utterly abhorrent as if breathing in his air and feeding off his warmth betrayed the only one I belonged to.
He wasn’t mine.
He wasn’t right.
“Let me go.” I squirmed.
“You’re safe.” He held me tighter. “You’re back in Ashfall Cliff. We brought you back three days ago. You’re okay.”
I didn’t care about that. The only thing I cared about was getting free before I did something terrible.
I felt it building.
Felt the tether between me and the one person I was fundamentally born for, snarling and spitting, lighting up my insides, refusing to permit any other person to touch me.
“Dillon, stop—”
“No, you stop,” he snapped, cradling my head to rest on his shoulder. “I’m absolutely furious with you. You slipped out during the night and almost died on me. Again.” Pulling me back, he cupped my cheeks and held me tight for his scolding. “I helped you harness the power inside you so you could stay safe, not go gallivanting into the forest and do who the fuck knows what. Do you know what would’ve happened if someone else found you? What they would’ve done to you?”
The wrongness intensified.
He was too close. Too fierce.
He wasn’t the one I needed.
He wasn’t allowed to—
Something icy and vicious snarled inside me. A different kind of power mapped the fragile rhythm of his pulse, traced the breakable beat of his heart, and ran a talon over the delicate thread keeping him alive in this world.
I could feel where his existence began and ended.
I saw how easy it would be to sever it.
Whisper snarled somewhere in the room as if he sensed me pulling on things that were never meant to be pulled. The sweet scent of death and decay filled my nose. Despicable urgings filled my ears to do it, end him, stop him from touching me by any means necessary because he wasn’t the one—
“Rook.”
Whatever nightmarish power rose inside me vanished. My soul locked onto that one word. Onto the voice and the man it belonged to.
The bed rocked as Lucien fought to sit upright, rising from the covers beside me.
Everything inside me settled and calmed.
He was here.
He was safe—
Batting Dillon away, I twisted to face him. “Y-You’re alive.” Urgency tingled in my fingertips to touch him. To prove that he wasn’t dead. Memories slapped me, one after the other. Of halting time, twisting fate, and then giving up my body in payment.
I shook my head, struggling to understand.
If he was here—if I’d truly been able to save him—how was I not dead? Wasn’t that the bargain I’d struck? Did something go wrong or somehow...right?
Whisper tiptoed over the blankets and pressed against Lucien.
“Thanks.” Giving Whisper a grateful grimace, Lucien used him to haul himself higher.
I couldn’t look away even as Dillon wrapped an arm around my shoulders to keep me from falling.
My heart refused to calm down, racing manically, ecstatically.
He’s truly alive!
Why wasn’t he acknowledging this miracle? How was he sitting there acting as if he was merely hung over from too much blossom wine, rather than returning to his body after it had dissipated into ash?