Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Our magic,” he told her. “My chuisle mo chroí.”
Between one breath and the next, his mouth landed on hers. Her head went fuzzy at the contact. She couldn’t think or move or breathe for anything except him. His other hand wrapped around her back, crushing her against his chest. His lips were warm and pliant, and as he slid his tongue in her mouth, she tasted summer heat.
She was frozen there in the midst of that kiss. Her mind still under the weight of their soulmate bond and her body reacting to the connection with more. She didn’t know which way was up and which was down. She couldn’t begin to process how she even felt about it.
Intense. Compulsive. Complicated. Painful. Wanton. Frustrating.
The words came to her unbidden from a memory that she could barely grasp onto. But they explained it perfectly. The physical intimacy was almost too much. It nearly tore her apart. It made her want to rip her clothes off and have sex right there on that throne. But it was complicated and frustrating, and she shouldn’t do this. She shouldn’t want to do this.
Her fingers tangled in his suit coat as he tilted her body, aching for deeper access. He groaned into her mouth as everything intensified. Until their magic swirled all around them. A cloud of golden light that circled and circled like a mini tornado in the center of this sacred space.
There was no right or wrong. No good or evil. Only this connection burrowing down between them and attaching tethering hooks to their souls. The perfect one made for the other. Two matching crowns of gold.
Binding.
The word came out of the abyss.
There was a binding ceremony. And she had to agree to it for it to happen. Only…only was this her agreeing?
Because she didn’t agree. She couldn’t agree. There was a reason for that.
She wracked her mind, trying to find the reason in her brain, but there was nothing there. Just this room and Lorcan and this kiss.
Then she felt a familiar memory, one she had gone over again and again and again. She opened a vault and closed it. Opened it and closed it. Open and close. Until that was all she saw and knew. The rest slipped away.
And she was inside her head, separate from her body. She remembered everything.
Kierse pulled herself away.
“No,” she said as the connection abruptly severed and the crown slipped from her head.
Lorcan’s pupils were blasted out, and he looked ravenous. “Did you just…feel that?”
“You were in my head.”
“You were in mine,” he countered. “We were connecting even without the ceremony.”
“That wasn’t the ceremony?”
He shook his head, visibly stunned. “It was just that intense.”
“I can’t do this.”
His gaze shuttered. “This?”
“Whatever this is.” She took another step backward. “I can’t do it.”
“Everything says otherwise.”
Her arms wrapped around her middle. She couldn’t stomach what had just happened. It wasn’t that it had felt wrong, but that it had felt right. Like the most-right thing in the entire world. Which made her wary. Things that looked too good to be true usually were.
Not to mention Graves.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly and meant it.
“Is this because of him?”
“Yes,” she told him truthfully. “I should go.”
She turned to leave, but he followed her down the dais and across the moss-carpeted ground.
“He’s doing it again,” Lorcan said with a snarl. “He’s ruining it like he did with Emilie.”
“He’s not doing anything. I’m making a choice that Emilie wasn’t allowed to make.” She reached for the door handle. Lorcan slammed his hand onto the door before she could leave.
“Emilie didn’t make any choices, because he killed her.”
Kierse shot him a pained look. “I’m sorry about your sister. That doesn’t change what happened between us.”
“I suppose it doesn’t.” He loomed over her, and she lifted her chin, meeting his look with a dark one of her own. “But I’m certainly not going to sit around and wait for him to kill you, too.”
“He’s not the same person he was when you first knew him.”
“No, he’s worse,” Lorcan argued. “When I first met him, he was as close to me as a brother. Now, he’s a fucking monster.”
“We’re all monsters,” she told him. “Now, let me leave.”
Lorcan’s arm dropped from the door. She wrenched it open, and he reached for her instead. “Hey.”
“Lorcan…” she said, retreating to that place in her mind. Fear that she’d lose control again coursing through her.
“Just…be careful. Okay?”
She nodded once and then slipped through the door.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Kierse was still rattled and angry when she made it back to Graves’s brownstone. The team meeting was supposed to start any minute, and she was surprised that it was so quiet. Maybe she wasn’t the last person to arrive.
“Oh Kierse, you made it,” Isolde said with a smile as she came out of the kitchen carrying a tray of drinks.