Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
“What in the crap is wrong with you?” I yelled at my animal.
It took me a moment to realize my voice was reverberating against the walls, not an inward yell at all—and that I’d thrown the scissors in frustration.
“Oh my gods, I am so sorry!” The scissors were lodged in the back of Vemar’s thigh. He’d frozen, his hands held high, not engaging. I’d stabbed an innocent guy for no fucking reason. “Fuck! Gods . . . Help! Help! Don’t . . . move, probably? Don’t move. I’m so sorry, I meant to throw them, but I wasn’t aiming. I just— Don’t—let’s— Cecil, what do we do?”
“Enjoy the show, that is what I am doing,” Cecil said, very unhelpfully.
“What? No! No, Vemar, don’t move!” I pointed at Vemar because I didn’t know what else to do. “Don’t move. You have scissors stuck in your leg.”
“Yes. And you put them there. Who are you hoping will help you, Captive Lady? Someone to take me down or bind me up?” He turned with a manic smile and started laughing. “That was refreshing. You’re fierce when you lose track of yourself.”
Hadriel was right. Dragons were crazy.
“I don’t . . .” I was breathing heavily. I swiped my hair away. “It’s fine. You’re a shifter. You’ll heal, right? So we need to pull them out.”
He reached around, took hold of the scissors, and yanked.
I swayed and fanned my face. I suddenly felt a little faint.
“Whoops, here we go.” Cecil directed me to sit in a chair. His smiling face filled my vision. “New animal, yes? Fun. Do not worry, he is the mad dragon. He don’t care about a scissors. Dicks on a jacket, scissors . . . He don’t care.”
The door ripped open and Weston rushed in wearing boxer briefs and a glistening, sweaty chest, probably from the run here. His eyes were wild, sighting in on Vemar immediately.
Vemar put up his hands again. “I didn’t touch her, boss. She stabbed me. I did not engage.”
“It was my fault.” I stood, swayed again, felt stupid for my reaction because this was all my fault, and then took a deep breath to try to steady myself. “It’s fine. Sorry. I—” It all came out in a torrent of words. “I was okay but then my wolf threw power at me and then I was fighting her over scissors and I realized that was dumb so I threw them in a huff and . . .”
“I’m only bleeding a little,” Vemar said, such a good sport.
“A little? He’s bleeding all over my floor,” Cecil grumbled, not as good a sport.
“Why are you out of your tower?” Weston stalked toward me, reaching me and cupping my face in his large, gentle hands. I swayed now for a different reason, soaking in the deliciousness of his proximity, drunk on his scent. His gaze slid over me and he stroked his thumb softly along my cheek, assessing for damage. I closed my eyes and basked in the exquisite hum of him.
True mate, the feeling whispered.
“Why are you fighting, Little Wolf?” His deep voice rumbled through his chest.
I struggled against the tide of his heat, the magnitude of my want.
I took a deep breath, wrapped my hands around his wrists, and fought the urge to run them up to his shoulders and down his chest, pushing him away instead. I was the logical one in my human/wolf pair. I owed it to both of us to learn more about this situation before allowing her to push us to act on it. I owed it to myself, maybe my future. I was just so confused about it all. About my wolf, about that burst of power—hell, I was still a captive, possibly facing a death sentence. How the fuck would a true mate situation even work?
“What happened?” Weston asked. “Why are you out of the tower?” he repeated.
“It was dawn,” I said, sitting again. “I wanted to get to work. I picked the lock and Vemar found me in the hall. He said it wasn’t okay for me to wander but decided it would be okay to run errands, so he brought me here. And was rewarded with scissors in his leg.”
“Why did you stick scissors in his leg?” Weston demanded, delicately curling a lock of hair behind my ear. I shivered, wanting to stand up and work my way into his arms. But was that me, or just the bond?
Did it matter?
I took a deep breath, miserable with this confusion.
“Stop thinking so much. This is the way things should be,” my wolf said.
“What do you know? You’ve been in the world for less than a day.”
“I stuck scissors in his leg because I think my animal is unhinged. Maybe I should just get a jacket covered in winged dicks so that I’ll fit in with this crazy place—I don’t know. Everyone seems a little off-kilter. If you can’t beat ’em . . .”