Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
“Who cares? My personal convictions and your opinion are irrelevant to what I’m going to do.”
“Nah, this is not about that fee-fee bullshit.”
“Huh?” L.W. frowned. “Fee-fee—”
“Feelings. Emotion.” Shuli batted the air with his hand. “But I digress, you big, dumb, royal asshole. What you’re wrong about is my part in your grand plan. This is a suicide mission for me, not you. Did you hear what the Brothers were talking about down at the clinic over-day? There’s a plot against your father.”
“Yeah, I heard.”
“They’re going to kill that Whestmorel guy. Soon as they find him.”
L.W. shrugged on the side that didn’t have the crutch. “As they should.”
“So what do you think is going to happen to me if I aid and abet the heir to the throne on an undisclosed, rogue mission to get to Lash. That’s treason against the throne because your ass is next in that fancy chair, you dark, brooding idiot. The King and the Black Dagger Brotherhood will absolutely kill me, and that’s true whether you succeed or fail.”
“They spared you last night.”
“They are not going to cut me any slack on this one.” Shuli shook his head again. “You fucked me off in the field then, I had no control over that. What you’re talking about requires my full participation.”
“No one needs to know.”
“How the fuck do you think that’s going to work.”
“Because I’m not saying shit, and neither are you.”
Shuli looked around his room, at all the paintings he’d bought with his dead parents’ money just to spite them. He wasn’t sure he even liked the blotchy fucking canvases from an artistic point of view. He’d bought them because they were a fuck-you to those two aristocrats. The truth was, if his brother hadn’t overdosed a year before they’d died, Shuli would have been out on the street without a dime. As it was, the “spare” got the goods by default. Probably because they were so grief-stricken, they forgot about revising their wills.
So yeah, he understood complications with parents.
“Tell me you need my help,” he said in a low voice.
When nothing came back at him, he cocked a brow. “You ask a male to put his life on the line for you, you can damn well make the request properly. And I’m not too proud to admit that I’m a little bit hurt.”
L.W. rolled his eyes. “About what.”
“That the only reason you’re coming to me is because your eyes are failing and it’s dawned on you that you might not be able to go it alone. Oh, and P.S., I rubbed my fucking feet raw trying to find you two nights ago. Blisters all over them. If I were a human, I’d be crippled.”
“I’ll buy you orthotics.”
“And Band-Aids.”
“Deal.”
Except then L.W. lowered his chin and stared out from under his brows. “What’s your answer, aristocrat.”
“What’s the question, prince.”
L.W.’s voice went low and so level, it was all but dead. “Don’t fucking toy with me.”
“So no’s not an option, then.” Shuli rose up off his pillows. “You going to kill me if I don’t play ball, huh? Make it look like an accident in the field tomorrow night? Whoops, good ol’ Shuli got caught in friendly cross fire. How sad. Or maybe it’s more like you slaughter me and my doggen here and now, and pretend a lesser did it. Probably better, the latter. If you give me too much time, I might just have to go to the King with your bright idea.”
“Guess we’ll find out, aristocrat. What’s your answer.”
“Tell me you need me,” Shuli shot back.
L.W.’s upper lip lifted from his fangs. “It’s the other way around. You have no purpose, no calling, no reason to get up at night. You’re a fuckboy, trust fund junkie who can’t hide his boredom at the very parties he throws to distract himself from his zero existence. The money you have is inherited, not earned, and you buy your friends with it because it gives you control over them and that way you don’t have to worry about them seeing the real you and judging you for being so fucking useless. You even have to pay for sex because you’re in love with a female who wouldn’t have you if you put a gun to her head on account of—unlike the suck-ups who drink your liquor and snort your coke—her knowing that underneath your thin skin there’s nothing worth fighting for or falling in love with.”
Shuli swallowed through a thick throat. Then he said roughly, “And you’re the one asking me to commit treason with you. So, sorry, your epic, shit-talking soliloquy was nice and all, but you’re not exactly looking like a genius here if you’re choosing me and that’s your opinion of your partner—Little Wrath.”
“Fuck you,” came the growl.
Cupping his ear, Shuli turned his head and motioned toward himself with his free hand. And then he just sat there.