Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
It shattered against the wall, falling to the floor in bits.
I shot to my feet, shouting, “Aleksei!”
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked.
“Aleks—”
His torso spiked toward me, and he raged, “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
Keep calm and calm him.
Keep calm and calm him.
“I don’t know any fated mates. I needed to talk to him about having a mate,” I explained.
“You don’t know any fated mates?” he asked acidly.
“If you’re suggesting I should have talked to you, right now, you aren’t really talking to me.”
Drat.
That sounded accusatory.
“I mean, I’m giving you space,” I corrected.
“Fuck space, Laura,” he bit out. “That male broke your gods-damned ribs.”
“I know,” I said soothingly.
“When you were nine.”
“I know, honey.”
“You do not comm that motherfucker,” he ordered.
“Listen—”
“Ever.”
“Please, if you’d—”
“Fucking ever, Laura. Do you gods-damned hear me?”
Calm went out the window because…
Enough!
“I can’t not hear you since you’re shouting!” I shouted.
“Were you not fucking there when we pulled royal strings to circumvent a reconciliation meeting?” he demanded.
“Please calm down,” I snapped.
“You are no contact with that male.”
“I know.”
“You know? He was just a holo in your gods-damned lounge!” he thundered.
“I know, Aleksei!” I yelled. And then I kept doing it. “Calm the farg down!”
He didn’t calm down.
“If you need to know something, you talk to me.” He pounded his chest on the “me” in a manner, if it was anyone else but Aleksei, it would leave a bruise.
“You’re dealing with things,” I pointed out.
“Fuck yes, I’m dealing with things,” he agreed furiously.
“And I’m letting you deal with them.”
“By comming your motherfucking piece-of-shit father?”
“I think he’s…I think…I might be understanding him a little.”
Wrong thing to say.
Big time.
If his eyes burst dragon fire and incinerated me with the look he was giving me, I would not be surprised.
Instead, he roared, “You do not understand that weak waste of life!”
“If you’d—”
“That’s not going to be us, Laura.”
“I agree. But I have to—”
“It’s not fucking going to be us.”
“Gods!” I cried. “How do I get through to you?! I’ve talked to Mr. Truelock. My females. Your mother. I even did two hours of research and talked to your brother. And I still don’t know what to do with you!”
“There’s nothing you need to do with me.”
“We’re not sleeping in the same bed, your highness,” I pointed out snottily.
“Do not fucking call me that,” he clipped.
“Why not?” I clipped back. “You’re throwing a royal testosterone tantrum just like a gods-damned prince.”
“Errol was the one who discovered you were my mate.”
I stood perfectly still, except I blinked.
“What?” I whispered.
“He’s right now under lock and key, benzoed, in the dungeons at Spikeback.”
“Holy Lilith,” I breathed.
“That is what we learned from the assassin when he was given the truth serum.”
I didn’t know what to do with this.
It was impossible to process this.
But my lips still formed the words, “Oh, Aleksei.”
“Errol has been interrogated. And yes, he was given truth serum, at my command, against his will. Fortunately, my father agreed, but it wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t. Dad’s crushed. Destroyed. I don’t know how he’s walking around.”
My heart broke for the king.
And for my mate.
“Can I come to you?” I asked.
“No,” he said curtly.
I didn’t like it, but I stayed where I was.
“It was retaliation,” Aleksei carried on with his tale of treachery. “Apparently, Tim fucked with him too, but no one knew. Of course, Rol didn’t say dick, so how we’d know, I’ve no fucking clue. But it’s fucked up his head.”
My eyes closed slowly.
I reopened them when he kept talking.
“It was the same shit as with me, what Tim did, but it stopped years ago. Rol got it twisted up, or he twisted it up on purpose, I don’t give a fuck. Bottom line, he’s twisted. Aleece and I, according to him, were Mom’s favorites. Tim was Dad’s. He was cast adrift, his words.”
It had to suck to feel that way.
But for the gods’ sakes.
Aleksei carried on, “He knew I wasn’t happy with Anna. He knew I’d end it. He didn’t want me happy with anybody. Years ago, someone came to him from Arnaud’s camp, but he didn’t know they were from Arnaud’s camp. Unfortunately, the RIC didn’t know it either. A sleeper, they say. The male has been in Night’s Fall for nearly a decade with the mission to get close to Rol. He accomplished this. He helped this shit to fester. And they came up with the idea to fuck with me by fucking with you. Killing your beast.”
“Dear Hecate,” I whispered.
It was like I didn’t speak.
“Rightly, when they paid the witch to find you, and learned you were in Nocturn, your best friend was Catla Truelock, and Mammon and Freya considered you a daughter, they knew there was a good possibility our paths would cross. They wanted to mute our bond by killing your beast. And when that didn’t work, they arranged for the benzobytines to be pumped into your water supply until they could take another shot at her. For that first attack, the PR60 hadn’t been modified yet. But, according to Rol, he had no idea how deep the plot went. He thought he was getting his own back from me for being a favorite. So he was blindsided when they turned the weapon on me at the gallery, that it had been upgraded, how it had been upgraded, and he was fucking floored when Antheme was killed.”