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)
Kierse started to tremble. How long before anyone noticed she was missing? She was supposed to get herself out of the Plaza. Graves would be back at the brownstone already. Lyra had been dealing with a diversion. Everyone else had their own getaway plans. She was alone.
Fear filled her lungs and wracked her nerves. The darkness was normally her friend. She needed to get it together. She would not be the girl afraid of the dark. She was a survivor. She had gone through worse than this. Jason had beat her senseless and left her for dead. She’d nearly died from god magic last year. What was a little darkness when she was already filled to the brim with it? She had embraced the darkness long ago.
She would get herself out of this situation. She just had to wait. It was a common tactic. Sensory deprivation. Leave a mark alone with their thoughts long enough and they’d sing whatever tune you wanted.
Kierse wasn’t one of them. She went deep within herself. To the vault that she opened and closed and opened and closed. The memory that grounded her, that had always grounded her. The thing she had thought about when Jason had hit her was the same place that brought her out of the magical connection with Lorcan was the same thing that kept her mind clear of panic.
Kierse jolted at that thought. She and Lorcan were connected. She could sense him, but only barely—maybe he’d already left the Plaza but wasn’t yet back to Brooklyn. They weren’t bound through the ceremony yet, and she had never tried to reach out to him. But if there was ever a time…
She closed her eyes and let her breathing even out. She ignored the feel of the iron biting into her skin and went deep into her magic. She felt that connection at the center of it all. The thrum that beat against her breastbone like a second heartbeat. Lorcan.
It purred to life at the acknowledgment.
It didn’t get any stronger, though. Still just a soft hum. She focused her entire attention on it. She let it build inside of her. Coaxed it to life in a way she never had before. The only time it had felt like this was when he was touching her.
She hesitated. She needed the connection to be stronger. As strong as when they kissed. But to do that…she’d have to let her mind go there. She’d have to think about him…want him.
Her stomach twisted. She didn’t want to want him. But if she wanted his help, then she would have to try. She’d have to let herself delve into that place she had ignored all this time. She had no one else she could reach right now. There was only Lorcan.
She let her defenses down, peeling back the layers of her mind until she exposed that small part of herself that did want Lorcan. And maybe…it wasn’t that small. Maybe it wasn’t just a sliver she ignored. Maybe it was all of her in that moment.
She swallowed hard as she let that connection, that feeling, that man flood through her. All the things she had ignored and pushed aside and cut off from herself. The first time he’d smiled at her when she’d met him at his restaurant. The way he’d caught her stealing. How he could barely keep himself from touching her. The ease of his presence when they talked. The look on his face when he’d realized who and what she was in Graves’s library.
Even then, she’d known. Deep down, she’d known. Her anger had been a living, fire-breathing dragon inside of her, and she’d refused to see it. Now she couldn’t ignore it. The feel of his hands on her skin. The summer sunshine on her face. Those cerulean eyes boring through her. His insistence that she should live in Brooklyn with him, with her family, with his family. That they were connected and she couldn’t deny it. Now she wasn’t denying it. It was there.
Still, she pushed further. To that moment by the Oak Throne, wearing his faerie crown, his hands cupping her face. The devotion in his eyes. The irreverent king wanting nothing more than his irreverent queen. Then the kiss. His lips against hers. The way her entire being had been turned inside out. She shuddered at the memory, at the way his touch, the way their magic rose up, could conjure a storm within her. It ached to look at the memory. She’d made her choice, and still, this was here. This thing she couldn’t seem to carve out of herself.
The magic rose like the tide. The connection strengthening in a way that she feared she wouldn’t be capable of dissipating. But that was a fear for another day. Not when she was bound by iron and helpless.