Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 497(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“Yes!” The minute her name was spoken aloud, I knew. “Yes, that’s it!” I pointed a finger at Rive. “Something’s going to happen to her!” Then the realization hit me. “Fuck—something’s going to happen to her!”
I ran out of my office with Rive right behind me.
“Hey, Boss—what the fuck are you doing? Where are you going?” he shouted.
“To L’Crist!” I threw a glance over my shoulder. “You stay here—whatever it is, I have to deal with it on my own.”
I knew Rive wouldn’t like that and sure enough, he kept pace with me.
“I thought you never wanted to see her again?”
“I don’t!” I growled. “But I don’t want her to be killed either!”
As I spoke, the impending sense of doom suddenly got much, much heavier. I began to feel like I had a weight the size of a small moon strapped on my back. But that only made me run faster.
Aurora was in trouble! I might hate the way she’d betrayed me, but I couldn’t hate her—no matter how hard I tried. She was still my Fated Mate and like it or not, I was tied to her.
I had to save her or die trying.
48
AURORA
The two goons started dragging me towards Hornsby’s space cruiser and though I fought them every step of the way, I wasn’t nearly strong enough to break free. I struggled and screamed until one of them slapped a big, meaty hand over my mouth, mashing my cut lip painfully against my teeth. Then I struggled in silence as they shoved me into the ship.
But just as I was being pushed head-first into the back compartment—where I supposed I would be hauled like cargo without even the dignity of a seat—another ship landed in the courtyard.
My heart leapt up because the markings on the sleek, silver ship were familiar. Could it be…? I didn’t dare to finish that sentence, even to myself.
But then the driver’s door opened and Slade jumped out.
The guards who were holding my arms suddenly loosened their grip as he came toward us. I was able to wiggle free of them and stand up to get some distance from the ship. But still Slade came on.
The big Brute looked a disheveled mess. His golden eyes were red rimmed and his sleek black hair was rumpled, as though he’d been running his hands through it. The golden paint on his horns was chipped and his usually immaculate suit was rumpled. As I watched, he tore off the jacket and loosened his tie. His eyes were burning and I thought he looked like a man intending to inflict some serious pain.
But who was he after? I knew he thought I had betrayed him and that the sentence for that was usually death. Had he finally come to finish the job he’d started when he left me here like a discarded piece of trash? I balled up my fists and glared at him, but he wasn’t even looking at me.
“You two fuckers—what were you doing to her?” he demanded, talking to the two guards who had been cramming me into the cargo hold just a moment before.
Both of them held up their hands and began backing away.
“Hey, we were just following orders,” one of them protested.
“Yeah—we didn’t hurt her!” the other exclaimed.
“Whose orders?” Slade’s voice had dropped to a low, ominous growl and he seemed to grow bigger, even as he spoke. His golden eyes had gone pure black—the whites too—and he looked like some kind of demon coming towards us with his big hands clenched into fists.
“My orders.” It was the voice of Hornsby. He emerged from the front of the ship with a blaster in his hand. “Step back, Brute,” he snapped at Slade. “I’m taking your slut of a wife to be harvested for cloning and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!”
“Oh, no?” Slade growled. He opened his mouth suddenly the Darkness flowed out of him and over him like an inky black river.
Hornsby paled but held his ground.
“No!” he shouted and shot his blaster.
I saw the thing that Slade had become—the Darkness—stumble and go down to one knee.
“No!” I shrieked and ran to it—to him, because I knew Slade was in there, somewhere.
But the moment I reached him, the huge black monster swept me to one side and rose to his feet again. He opened his mouth, full of razor-sharp teeth, and let out a low, rumbling growl that seemed to shake my very bones.
Hornsby apparently couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He looked at his blaster and then looked back at the Darkness that enveloped Slade. Then he looked at the blaster again.
“What…but…but no. No!” he shouted, as though trying to refute the facts right before his eyes.
The Darkness opened his mouth again and rumbled something that sounded like,