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)
A scent in the air speared into her nose. And then her brain made the kinds of connections that scared her into a scramble.
Allhan. The transition had finally hit him.
“Let me do it!” she called out. “I carry the blood of a Chosen in my veins! I will feed him!”
As she skidded to a halt, faces lifted and stared at her in shock and wonder. On the other side of them, Allhan was sprawled on the floor under his desk, all the color drained out of his face, his frail body contorted in pain. His eyes were bloodshot and wild as they rolled around, his hands curled up so that as he dragged them over the floorboards, the scratching sound competed with his heaving breaths.
“Move!” she barked.
Without hesitation, she grabbed the shoulder of the nearest person and all but threw him out of her way. The others broke apart in response, and she fell down beside the male whose transition had hit him like a freight train.
Scoring her wrist, she put her face into his own. “Drink. Now—”
As her blood welled and started to drip on his vintage Prince concert t-shirt, his stare swung around to her, and there was a sudden fear in his eyes. “No—”
“Yes.” Tears made her vision wavy. “You will drink now—”
“No,” he said in a hoarse voice. “I can’t do that to you—”
“If you want to live, you will take my vein—”
Twisted by a fresh spasm of pain, he writhed on the floor, his leg kicking out, one arm knocking into the footing of the desk with a horrible, cracking impact.
“No,” he moaned as he turned his face away from her wrist. “Can’t do that to you—”
With her other hand, she moved him back to her. “For me, then.” She stared into his eyes. “Do it for me, Allhan.”
In the periphery, she was vaguely aware that other people had rushed up on them, but again, she ignored all that.
“Allhan,” she said urgently. “I want you to drink for me. Do this, take my vein—I am begging you, do this for me.”
His myopic stare locked on her own.
“Yes, Allhan. Please.”
This time, when she brought her wrist to his mouth, a single drop of blood landed on his lower lip, glistening and vitally red, and she watched as it slipped into his mouth—
The groan of hunger that came out of him rose up to the rafters. And then he lifted his head—
The seal was sloppy. At first.
But as he started to take draws, it improved, the suction set properly. Shoving her other arm under his head, she shifted him into her lap. As her hair fell forward, she impatiently tried to get it out of her face—
A hand in a black glove drew the weight back and held the blond waves out of the way.
Looking over, she recoiled at who was next to them.
The Brother Vishous was kneeling beside her, his diamond eyes with the navy blue rims staring at her with an expression she had never seen before. And behind him, looming tall and strong, was her father Qhuinn, whose lips were moving.
Even though her hearing wasn’t working right, she knew her sire was speaking to her, encouraging her.
Praising her.
She glanced back down at Allhan. He was breathing harder now, his nostrils flaring, as a flush bloomed in his face. His body was still moving with restless abandon, but she witnessed the strength come to him—
With a hoarse exhale, he cried out in fresh pain and twisted on the floor, his limbs straightening all at once, his fingers splaying. As he jerked and spasmed, she locked a hold on his head and pushed her wrist against his lips to keep them in place.
“Don’t stop,” she said. Then more loudly, “Allhan, you have to drink, no matter what happens. It’s too soon for you to stop—”
He did as he was told, and she prayed she was right. She was just remembering what it had been like for her several years ago, the racking agony, the gnawing, horrible hunger, the sense that she was surely going to die. And oh, God, she knew what was coming next, and it was terrible.
“Drink, drink, drink…” She repeated the entreaty over and over again as minutes passed.
The first of the bones breaking occurred in his right leg, the snap of his femur loud in the tense silence. As curses from the assembled rippled through the beats between the male’s tortured breaths, his sneaker changed position on the floor—and not because he’d straightened his knee any farther.
The growth was starting.
“We have to get his jeans off or his skin will tear,” someone said.
Vishous. It was Vishous.
“Everybody down to the break room,” he continued. “Monitor protocol on laptops and phones. Now!”
The males and females who worked at the facility immediately dispersed, and she was aware of Fritz coming in with blankets and pillows, juice and bread.