Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Ajax groaned, thrusting up and into me harder, stretching out my pleasure in a way only he knew how to do.
I brought my hands to his face, holding his gaze as sparks ripped through my body, sending tiny bursts of energy crackling along my insides as he came right along with me. Our bodies trembled and shook in sync, our souls matched, mated.
I couldn’t help but feel grief as we sat there clinging to each other as we caught our breath. I shoved it away, buried it like he’d bury my body in a few weeks’ time, if we were lucky to get that long.
I forced those thoughts away, clinging to the present. Because in this moment, here with him, I always felt alive.
Felt hope and love and peace.
And I suppose, when death was tapping my shoulder, that’s all I could really ask for.
15
AJAX
“These should help.” Gabriel handed me a little orange bottle.
“Trusting me with narcotics?” I tried to joke.
He was kind enough to smile. “They’re not narcotics. Corticosteroids will help the swelling and pressure. I know your mate is trying to go as long as she can before taking anything stronger for the pain.”
I nodded, my fingers curling around the bottle. “She’s stubborn.” Every moment I caught her trying to hide the pain, the nausea, I wanted to drop to my knees and beg her to medicate.
“Can’t blame her,” Gabriel said, looking at me with something akin to pity. “If I didn’t know how many nightfalls I had left, I’m not sure I’d want to spend them drugged up.” He grimaced. “But I also don’t know how I’d cope with the burden of the pain she bears every day.”
My throat tightened. “And the scans you took yesterday?” Of all the things I had to thank my king for, his spare-no-expense attitude when it came to the imaging machinery Gabriel had purchased over the last month was at the top of the list.
When Grace inevitably left this world, I would spend the rest of my nights serving Alek to make up for it.
Gabriel’s face fell. “She didn’t tell you?”
“She told me that it’s growing,” I managed to say. “Rapidly.”
He ran a hand through his usually perfect hair. “It is.”
I left the how long question hanging silently between us. She’d been given three months over six weeks ago. We were halfway through her time. “She’s been spending her nights in the archives with Julian and Lyric. Have they found anything that might sway your opinion?”
He leaned back against his desk. “There were some experiments done around the time of the renaissance.” His blond brow furrowed. “All very…inhumane really, but some of our kind didn’t hold the highest opinion of humans.”
“What were the results?”
A sigh ripped from his lips and the door swung open behind me. A quick look over my shoulder confirmed what I’d guessed by scent alone. Zachariah was here.
“Nothing positive,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping.
“We’re discussing alternative treatments for Grace,” I explained to Zachariah as he moved to my side.
“Have you found any?” he asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “The experiments tried injecting our blood straight into tumors. They only grew faster.”
My stomach churned. “When I fed her, the tumor shrank. It was only a millimeter or so, but it shrank.”
“Could be that the difference was ingestion. Problem is that once you feed a human three times, they go into transition…” His voice trailed off. “Every record we’ve uncovered has found that to be an unsuccessful method.”
“They died.” I pocketed the bottle of pills and folded my arms across my chest. “Don’t bullshit around the truth on my behalf. If I didn’t want the truth, I wouldn’t have asked.”
Zachariah moved closer, a steady, comforting presence.
“They died,” Gabriel admitted. “But the experiments are flawed, Ajax. They don’t take vampire heritage into account. They don’t mention special abilities like both Lyric and Grace had during their humanity. They didn’t exactly do a control group for those transitioned with normal vampire blood and those transitioned with stronger warrior blood. There are too many variables to make any of it scholarly.”
“So we still have no clue if she’d survive transition.” I had to ask. Every day my resolve weakened, hoping for the sliver of a chance that Grace might live.
Gabriel shook his head. “And she still refuses human treatment?”
“She does. She watched her mother go through it. She was given three months and treatment gave her a fourth month, but she spent most of that month unconscious in the hospital.” I understood her choice, at least part of it. Her choice to transition was…unthinkable.
“I’m researching everything I can find. I just wish there was more I could do.”
We all turned as Saint pushed through the doors from the recovery room, his skin pale and drawn tight across his cheekbones.
“She out?” Gabriel asked.
Saint nodded and rubbed his hand over his close-cropped hair. “I got about a quarter of the canned shit down her. Made her think it was wine.”