Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79587 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 318(@250wpm)___ 265(@300wpm)
“Yes, he is,” Madeline agreed wholeheartedly. “Anyway, he started fumbling with the bottom of my dress. He pushed it up and he started…” She swallowed hard and Grath heard the dry click in her throat. “Started trying to put himself inside me.”
Grath could hardly stand to hear this, but he owed it to her to listen to the end.
“What happened? How did you get away?” he asked harshly.
“Just then someone started banging on the door to the hotel room,” Madeline told him. “I honestly don’t know who it was—classmates? Room service? A maid? Whoever it was, they saved me. As soon as Luke got off me and went to open the door, I was able to roll off the bed and run under his arm to get away.”
“Gods!” Grath let out a breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “Thank the Goddess you managed to get free of that bastard!”
Madeline nodded.
“I did get free. I straightened myself up and called my sister to come take me home. So I got away, but what happened at the Prom isn’t the worst part.”
“What? How can nearly getting raped not be the worst part?” Grath demanded. “What was the worst part, then?”
She took a deep, shaky breath.
“The next day at school, I tried to tell someone in authority what had happened.” She closed her eyes, as though remembering the painful conversation. “I tried to tell but…they wouldn’t believe me.”
“What? Who did you tell?” Grath demanded.
“The principal—Mr. Thurgood,” Madeline said in a low voice. “I went to his office and tried to let him know that Luke had drugged my drink and tried…tried to rape me.”
“And what did he say?” Grath had a feeling that his list of “human males who need to get the fuck pounded out of them” was about to grow, but he needed to know anyway.
Madeline took a deep breath.
“He told me I had imagined the whole thing,” she said at last. “He said I probably had too much to drink and made it all up in my head.”
“What?” Grath’s voice was a muted roar in his own ears. “What the fuck? Who discounts a female like that when she tells them she suffered a serious trauma?”
“A principal who doesn’t want the reputation of his school tarnished,” she said grimly. “Or one who’s covering for a male student because he’s a football star. I don’t know—take your pick.” She shrugged angrily. “Anyway, when I insisted that I hadn’t imagined it, he called Luke into his office. And Luke said I was lying or confused. He tried to make out that I wouldn’t stop drinking and that he eventually had to call someone to come take me home because I got blackout drunk. And of course, Principal Thurgood believed him completely and immediately.”
“Fucking bastards—both of them!” Grath snarled, feeling the Rage rising in him again. He was so angry his internal temperature was shooting up, making his skin hot!
“Yes,” Madeline agreed succinctly. “Anyway, after that Luke told everyone that I was lying about him—which only made the popular kids pick on me even more. He said…” She cleared her throat, her cheeks going dull red with shame. “He said he only took me to Prom because he was trying to be nice to the ‘fat girl’ and wasn’t I a bitch for trying to get him into trouble.” She shook her head. “It made the second half of my senior year a living hell. I really thought about…about ending it all, more than once. But somehow I got through—I still don’t know how.”
“Son of a bitch!” Grath couldn’t sit still anymore. He jumped up and started pacing. “I’m going to kill them—both of them! First that fucking principal who wouldn’t believe you, and then that asshole we met in the park tonight. I’m going to take my time with him—he’s going to fucking die slowly,” he swore.
“You can’t do that!” Madeline jumped out of bed, a look of alarm on her face. “Please, Grath—promise me you won’t!”
“Why shouldn’t I? The World Court has ruled that a Kindred warrior is well within his rights to kill any male who hurts his mate or even his prospective mate!”
Grath was so angry he wanted to go out hunting right now. He would break in to wherever those two fuckers were staying and take them out before the dawn broke!
But Madeline was looking more and more upset.
“I’m not your mate or your prospective mate, though—not really,” she pointed out. “And if you go killing people, you’re going to ruin my mom and dad’s lives! Christmasville is a really small town and Luke Hartsford is pretty popular—his family owns the local hardware store and he runs it for his dad. People around here love him!”
“Only because they don’t really know him!” Grath exclaimed. “If they knew what he tried to do to you—”