Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62128 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)
“We’re stuck!” Torin shouts.
There’s a pause, and then the voice takes on a tone of bookish disapproval.
“You’re not supposed to be in there.”
“We know. You’ll have to let us out!”
“I don’t know how to open the vault. It’s not supposed to be open. It’s a vault. You shouldn’t be in there.”
I have had about enough of this exchange, so I step forward and add my authority to the situation.
“This is Enforcer Avel. Retrieve the alpha at once.”
There’s a pause. “That’s not a good impression of the Enforcer Avel. He has a deeper voice. More gravitas.”
Raine
Avel seems to expand with rage. “Get Thorn NOW, or I will string you up in the Hall of Bones and you will discover what true suffering really is.”
Another pause, then a much more circumspect reply comes. “Yes, Enforcer Avel. At once, Enforcer Avel.”
“That showed him,” Torin smirks. He is leaning against the opening of the tunnel, swaying slightly whenever he tries to stand up straight. These two are both so wounded, losing blood as I watch. It oozes from their wounds slowly. Saurians are made to be injured, and to survive injuries. The same can’t be said for humans.
Avel grunts and looks faintly satisfied with himself but says nothing further.
We have to wait a while for the vault to be opened. There is a lot of scuffling, swearing, and general discombobulation on the other side of the wall while that happens, during which time Avel draws me gently and protectively into his embrace. I wait in the shadow of his wings, enjoying his protection, but knowing there are hard conversations and harder times ahead. I am free of the cruel saurians who beat me, but I am not free of captivity entirely. If anything, I am melting into it. Submitting to it. Goddammit, craving it.
I have lived a life of danger, never feeling any sense of safety, thrilling to the wildness of it all. But I am tired of blood. I am tired of loss. I am exhausted from it all. I want to close my eyes and go to sleep and wake up somewhere entirely controlled by him. Every breath I draw smells like him, and that smell is so deeply comforting I feel myself going weak. Adrenaline has kept me upright so far, but it’s not going to last much longer.
Just when I am convinced I am going to collapse at his feet, the vault door swings open with a screech of complaining metal that indicates it has been a long time since it was last touched. They put a lot of faith in that door, assuming because it stayed closed everything they were trying to protect was safe.
It’s actually a brilliant robbery. I’m impressed. If I’d pulled something like this off, I’d be celebrating smugly and baiting the alpha and his men too. Wrath must be a hell of a criminal. He’d be an even better pirate, I’d wager — though he has little control over his men. Or maybe he doesn’t care to have control of them. The problem of Wrath rolls around in my mind, fascination and horror mingling together. That little conversation I had with him held no hint of the absolute disaster that awaited me. He must be able to control his tone and expression to an impeccable level. I pride myself on knowing when I’m being set up, and I didn’t so much as catch a hint of it.
“Avel?”
I say his name in a very small voice.
“Yes?” He lowers his voice to a purring rumble transmitted through his muscular body and into my much smaller frame.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too, my mate. Where can I touch you that won’t cause you pain?”
“I don’t know.” I whimper the words, because I want so badly to be held close again, and to feel the safety I once felt with him running through my veins.
Before we can indulge in any more conversation, the terribly serious voice of the alpha cuts through our little intimacy.
“So,” Thorn says, his big red and gold scaled arms folded over his immense, intimidating chest. His tail swishes back and forth behind him before wrapping around one of his boots. His feet are planted shoulder-width apart, which is quite a ways apart. Thorn is tall, and he is built to do damage. He lacks Avel’s wings, but what he lacks in wings, he makes up for in brutal brawn. The way he is looking at the three of us makes me wonder if we’re not so saved after all.
“I tell you to follow my orders,” Thorn says. “And now, I find you, Avel, inside my empty vault with a tunnel behind you, a criminal next to you, and a very injured human cowering beneath your wings.”
“The tunnel goes to the very heart of the criminal underworld you were so very keen to protect,” Avel says. “You’ve been robbed blind, Thorn.”