Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
He just prayed that he would get to her in time.
38
ALEENA
“Say it! Renounce him! Renounce your husband!” Faleesha shoved the recording device in Aleena’s face. “Say you don’t want Ambassador Bear as your husband anymore!”
“No!” Aleena whispered and turned her head away.
“Horrible girl! Hit her again!” she heard her stepmother demand.
One of the men who had dragged her out of The Plaza moved and a heavy hand struck her face.
Aleena cried out as her lip split and her mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood. How long had this been going on? How long had she been tied up in this dark, dank space with the two of them shouting in her face and demanding she renounce Bear?
She didn’t know but her body and face ached and her wrists and ankles were chafed from the harsh ropes they had tied her with.
“You know he’s going to disavow you anyway,” Faleesha snapped, shoving her face into Aleena’s. “So you might as well renounce him first! That way he can marry me right away!”
“Never!” Aleena spat out blood and had the minimal satisfaction of watching it splatter her half-sister’s pristine white gown. Bear might not love her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love him anymore.
Though the big Kindred had wounded her deeply, she refused to renounce him just so Faleesha didn’t have to wait the customary three-month post-disavowment period to Join with him.
Never, she thought. If Faleesha is going to steal my husband, so be it but I won’t make it easier for her!
“Wretched, ungrateful girl! After everything we’ve done for you, how can you still refuse to do this one small thing for your sister?” her stepmother demanded, cutting into her thoughts. “Why can’t you show her even a tiny bit of consideration?”
“You mean the way you showed me consideration?” Aleena demanded, stung into speaking up at last. “The way you swore to pay my mother’s medical bills and then went back on the deal? Or the way you stole my father away and sent my mother and me to live in poverty? Or maybe I should be grateful for all the nasty things you said to me after my Joining Ceremony right in front of my husband!”
“He’s not your husband—or he won’t be for long!” Faleesha snapped. “It’s me he wants! Not you.”
Aleena laughed through her cracked and bleeding lips.
“Bear doesn’t like skinny women,” she informed her half-sister. “And he especially doesn’t like you. He says you’re spoiled and nasty and cruel and he’s right.”
Faleesha’s face grew red with fury and she slapped Aleena across the face. But since she wasn’t nearly as strong as the two goons she and Grindelia had hired to kidnap Aleena in the first place, it wasn’t a very painful blow—at least not compared to theirs.
“Enough of this!” her stepmother exclaimed. “I think we need stronger methods—the girl is absolutely intractable!” She looked at the two men standing on either side of where Aleena was bound to the wooden beams. “You know what to do! Change the color of her eyes—and don’t be gentle about it!”
Aleena sucked in a breath—this was her greatest fear! But there was nothing she could do about it—she was bound and helpless with her arms and legs spread wide and no way to stop her attackers.
But to her surprise, Faleesha stepped between her and the men.
“Wait!” she exclaimed imperiously. “Before you ruin her, I want her jewelry! It would look much better on me than her.”
Reaching up, she snatched the amethyst necklace off Aleena’s neck and tore the earrings painfully out of her ears.
“Ouch!” Aleena gasped and writhed in her bonds.
“Take that breast shield too,” her stepmother ordered. “It’s too big for you since your sister is so fat but it will fetch a pretty price for your dowry, my sweet.”
The two of them yanked off Aleena’s breast shield, leaving her bare from the waist up and she cried out in pain and shame.
“Don’t! Don’t do this to me!” she begged.
“Are you ready to renounce him yet?” Faleesha demanded, shoving the recording device, which was whirring as it took in the scene, into her face once more.
Aleena gritted her teeth. No matter what, she wasn’t going to give in!
“No!” she said, trying to make her voice strong. “I refuse to renounce my husband. If he wants to disavow me, so be it. But I will not renounce him. I love him!”
“Too bad he doesn’t love you, then!” Faleesha sneered. “As if he’ll ever want you again after your eyes are the color of soot from having more than one man go at you!”
“Your sister is right—you’ll regret your decision very soon,” Grindelia snapped. Then she put an arm around her daughter. “Come, my dear—it’s better that innocent eyes don’t see what’s about to happen.”
“But I want to see her suffer!” Faleesha whined. “She deserves it—she’s keeping me from my husband!”