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)
The horrified, panicked shriek of a man was cut short as the blaze of amethyst fire bellowed from the dragon’s mouth, starting and stopping in the blink of an eye. The strike so swift and sure, it left the would-be assassin to stand as he was, with arms bent and raised before him in a paltry effort to shield himself from certain death, but the form was now black ash.
And I swallowed hard as I watched it filter to pool on the floor, the calcified weapon clattering into the mess, diffusing a poof of black dust.
I’d barely finished doing this before I was caught between a claw and a crook of Aleksei’s beast’s wing.
“Oh, fuck,” Sirk grunted as I was pulled from his arms.
I had no time to react.
I was lifted and deposited behind the line of lethal spikes that slanted backward and ruled his long neck.
“Stay low!” Sirk shouted up at me. “And for fuck’s sake, hold on!”
I just had time to hike up my skirt so I could straddle his neck and grip tight with my legs, grab the spike in front of me and bend low, before Aleksei took one step, two, and then we were gliding, his bulk so huge, his wingspan covered the large gallery, wall to wall, knocking people off their feet, paintings off their moorings, upending sculptures and scattering installations.
He destroyed everything in his path, including—I tucked my chin in my neck before he hit—the plate glass windows and doors at the front that he burst through headfirst, his impenetrable scales taking the brunt of the shattered glass.
I heard the screams, saw people throwing themselves to the ground to avoid his wings, his flight and his massive, clawed feet, and when we got outside and I raised my head, I saw others running for dear life.
But we were lifting up, up, and up, the wind beating against the satin of my dress, whipping the ponytail out of my hair and chilling my skin to ice.
He was soaring.
I was panting and gripping him with everything I had, whimpering with every powerful flap of the wide span of wings that jostled me.
Fortunately, our flight didn’t last long.
He hit uptown, coasted, circled and landed on a landing pad at the top of his building that was designed for heli-crafts such as JetPanthers, not dragons. But it made do.
When he stopped, he bent his neck low, which I took as him telling me to hop off.
I did, nearly turning my ankle, not only at having to jump off and land, doing it in my high heels, but because my legs were frozen, and I was jittery as all heck because, let us not forget, I just barebacked a freaking dragon.
“Have you lost your mind?” I shrieked at the enormous, ferocious creature before me.
He shook his body, wings and scales like a dog would shake off water.
And then Aleksei stood before me in human form, naked as sin (and, no matter the current craziness of my sitch, his body was such, sin was all I could think about when confronted with what seemed like acres of bulky, defined muscle, not to mention, one particular well-endowed part of his anatomy).
Before I could get my wits about me, he stalked toward me, swung me up into his arms, and prowled toward a door.
“Alek—” I began.
“Shut it,” he growled, no silk or velvet in his tone now.
It was rough, commanding.
Incensed.
“Doors open,” he barked.
The door in front of us opened, he jogged down some steps, jostling me again with this new flight I was taking under his control, that being, this time, in his arms. He strode through another door and into a dark space that had dim light I knew was created by the city.
I heard the door whoosh closed behind us.
And latch.
“Lights, forty percent,” he ordered and dropped me to my feet with a jarring thud.
I barely stopped swaying when I went dead still because his long finger was a hair’s breadth from my nose, and his handsome face transformed to horrible beauty carrying its sheer wrath was right behind it.
His eyes still glowed amethyst.
“You move a fucking muscle, Laura, I’ll gods-damn chain you to my fucking bed for a fucking year.”
With that, he stalked off, leaving me so stunned, I couldn’t even begin to process the new knowledge that the sight of him nude from the back was almost as good as the front.
I took a breath.
Another one.
I got myself together enough to notice I was on a long, wide landing that appeared to be a continuous slab of perfect, gleaming black marble.
There was a sunken living room to my right, which led to a low ledge that rose about three feet, giving way to all windows. It had a splendorous view of the city of Nocturn, the Dolphin Sea and the various off-coast islands connected by old-world, still maintained, rarely used (except for cyclists, walkers and runners), pretty bridges.