Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117336 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
"When you were with the male that hurt you? Did you ever have moments like this? Because I have hurt you, too, and I am wondering if I am the same as him." His hand presses against the base of my spine, broad and flat and possessive.
I'm surprised at his question. He never asks me about who I was with before. I thought he was like most men and just didn't want to hear about dicks that came before him. "You're the only one I've been with where I consider myself here because I want to be here, not because I have no other choices." I feel myself bristling as I think about those old memories, of the time when everything was in chaos and it was a struggle to survive. "But no, you weren't like the others."
"Others?" he asks, voice sharp. "There was more than one?"
"Does it fucking matter?" I sit up, glaring at him. "I could tell you there were twenty men since the Rift fell, and would it matter? When the world ended, everyone did what they had to do to survive. I don't know a single woman that wasn't underage when the Rift fell that didn't have to take shelter with some man in exchange for protection. We can say men and women are equal all day long, but the moment society's rules go out the window, we're back to scrounging for the strongest man to protect us from everyone else. Would I rather have to suck one cock instead of seven at once? Yes, I would. Did I like it? No. Fuck no. I did it because I had to survive. You think I sat around baking cookies in a fucking apocalypse? Let me tell you something. I went to college. Graduated with honors. Got a nursing degree. I had a savings account and a car and an apartment, and a good job. You know what that counted for when dragons started pouring from the skies? Absolutely fucking nothing. So when the only way you can get a meal is on your back? The only way you can be protected from a bunch of murdering assholes is to get on your back? You get on your back, because you'll do anything to survive." I shove at his chest, indignant. "And I'm sorry if you don't approve."
Azar's eyes are hard and glittering as he touches my chin, clamping it in his grasp. "I wish to know if there is one or there are twenty," he says in an even tone. "So I know how many I have to destroy."
His answer mollifies me. A little. "If you really want to know, there were two. A father and son. The father died, and about a year later, I killed the son. Satisfied?"
"No," Azar admits. "But pleased all the same. I hope you made it hurt."
"I poisoned him," I confess, and when he tugs me forward again, I go back to his arms. "I poisoned him because I wasn't strong enough to kill him with a knife."
I know I'm prickly about some of the things I had to do to survive, but men don't get it. Men never get it. They think if they can get by with bluster and hard work, so can a woman. They don't realize there are some places out there that won't take any sort of payment from a woman unless it's a physical one. For all that Fort Dallas is fucked up, there are much, much worse places out there to be a woman. I settle against Azar.
His ways might be unorthodox, but no, Azar is nothing like the father and son I had to deal with right after the Rift, when I had to trade my body just for survival as armed gangs roamed the streets of the city, robbing anyone that had a scrap of food. Those were dark times, made worse by the constant threat of dragons. The Melina of that time wouldn't recognize today's Melina, and I don't know if it's wise of me to get so damned soft. Not with another threat from the Rift on the horizon.
But I know a little something about surviving, even when you're so tired of everything the world keeps throwing at you.
"If you were like him, I wouldn't be with you," I tell Azar. "And you'd have eaten a lot of poison by now."
He laughs, and I feel a little better. If nothing else, even when he's stressed, I can make him laugh.
Something in Azar snaps that night.
I'm woken up in the middle of the night by a servant shaking my shoulder. "Lady Melina?" Her face is hollow and worried. "Are you awake?"
I sit up, confused and tired. "Just Melina," I correct. Azar might want to be called “lord” but I don't want any kind of title. "What's wrong? Is someone having a baby?"