Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
I convulse, my mind twisting in on itself as it tries to find the answer. Where is it? Theo. Blond hair, cruel eyes—I see him. Standing behind Juno. In the White Hou—the pain expands, filling every cell of my consciousness as I scream. “I don’t know!” My throat tears, anguish in my heart at being unable to answer Gregor. I must give him what he wants.
“Tell me!” Gregor is in my face, his hand gripping my hair.
All I see is the endless black of his gaze. I’d do anything in my power to tell him. It hurts as I can only say, “I don’t know.”
“Were you there?” he asks.
I would turn myself inside out to answer him. To give him what he wants. Again, the words pass my lips as tears well in my eyes at my failure. “I don’t know.”
His screech echoes along the black walls, and I feel blood oozing from my ears. “You know something. You know!” His fangs are so long they graze my cheek as he speaks. “You were captured near the White House. Where my son died. You were there!” He shakes me, some of my hair ripping free as he slams me onto the floor. “You know. Tell me.”
I close my eyes, but when I try to pry back into my memories, tearing through them to find an answer, all I feel is pain ripping me in half. All I can do is scream, ‘I don’t know’ the only words coalescing amidst the shrieks.
“You lie!” Gregor’s eyes swallow me, crushing me in endless black. “You lie!” he thunders. “You will tell me what I want to know.”
“I don’t know.” I can’t stop saying it even though it fractures bone and crushes my lungs. “I don’t know.”
He snarls. “You know nothing. You failed at your task. You didn’t cure the plague. I’m glad, now, of course.” The merciless pits of his eyes are streaked with veins of red. “Your kind will suffer the same fate. Pain and death. Over and over again. You included.”
He rises and turns. The woman cowering on the stairs screams, but the sound is cut off as Gregor digs his claws into her back, then rips her apart. She splits, her torso in his right hand, her legs in his left. Blood splatters across the floor, spraying on me as he throws the two halves down with crushing force. Her mouth is open in a scream, her eyes blinking once more before she goes still.
“Valen!” Gregor barks as he sags on his black throne, his fury crackling through the air like an electrical storm. “Get that creature out of my sight. Scrape every piece of information from her mind and serve it to me. Break her apart. She knows.” His glare is like a dagger in my forehead. “She knows.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Any scrap you get from her, I want it immediately.” His eyes flash. “If you get nothing, I’ll tear her to pieces myself. Slowly.” He sits back, his body thin and taut, as if he’s fed on nothing but rage. That’s when I realize he’s worn. Tired. Not the invincible creature from some snippet of my disjointed memory.
“If I may, my lord?” Another vampire steps forward, though he stops short of mounting the stairs.
His voice makes my skin crawl, and for one terrifying moment, I think he’s speaking in my mind again. Poking and prodding, looking for memories where I have none.
“Yes, Whitbine?” Gregor’s ire has faded to a simmering, exhausted rage.
“I feel I’m particularly suited to extracting the secrets from this human. As you know, I’ve worked tirelessly with her. I could be close to cracking what’s left of her memory.”
Valen turns toward him, a derisive sneer on his face. “You’ve gotten nothing. Not a single iota of useful information, and yet you have the audacity to ask our high lord for more time?”
Whitbine’s gaze darts to me and then back to Gregor. “I apologize, my lord. But, as I’ve said, I believe I’m close—”
“You’ve learned nothing from her?” Gregor asks. He blinks slowly. “Nothing. She’s been here all along. She knows. She knows everything.”
“Sire, you’ve known she was here. You asked me to—” Whitbine pales as Gregor’s gaze snaps to him. “You—” He swallows hard and seems to rethink whatever he intended to say. “In any case, she is particularly astute at withstanding my efforts. I haven’t had the chance to adequately break her. However, if she were to be placed in my care at all times, I’m certain I’ll be able to—”
“Silence.” Gregor slashes a bony hand through the air.
Valen stands with total nonchalance, his gaze somewhere over my head.
“Valen?” Gregor asks.
“If Whitbine truly had any chance of breaking into her mind, he would’ve done so by now. His blood is weak, just as he is.” Valen shrugs and looks up the stairs at Gregor. “However, I serve at your pleasure, my lord. Do with the creature what you will.”