Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
She inhaled sharply.
I used her shock to grab the chit and wrench it from her hold.
Letting her go, I marched away. My blood singing from her taste.
“Henri…” She charged after me, following me into the bathroom where I’d flushed one lot of shame already tonight.
She skidded to a stop beside me just as I tore up the piece of paper until it resembled a million tiny squares. Without a word, I flushed it.
Together, we watched the scraps swirl around and around before vanishing.
Neither of us spoke for the longest moment.
Ily made a choked noise, wrenching my gaze to her as she tripped backward and crashed into the towel rail. “Even with it gone, the cameras…”
I nodded. “He knows.”
I’d seen this woman argue with Victor, stand up to Masters, and endure a hundred awful things, but I’d never seen pure terror on her face.
Until now.
Clawing at her collared throat as if she couldn’t breathe, her knees buckled—
Darting forward, I caught her.
In a moment of insanity, I scooped her into my arms and cradled her ever so close.
My world righted.
My darkness paused.
Christ, she felt good.
So, so good.
I could barely breathe as I carried her into the bedroom and tucked her into bed.
Her chest rose and fell, her eyes glazed with panic.
For a moment, I forgot she hated me, forgot she feared me as she looked at me for comfort and safety.
Tucking black hair behind her ear, I bent over her and whispered, “You’ve walked on eggshells around me all month. You’ve kneeled for me when I didn’t ask you to. You’ve tried to seduce me when I’ve done my utmost to give you space. You’ve turned into one of them—a broken obedient jewel—and now…now you think I would happily cash in a voucher that gives me the right to murder you.” Inhaling her perfect scent, I sighed, “I knew you hated me, nightmare, but I had no idea how deep that hatred goes.”
Grabbing my hand, she shook her head. “It’s not like that. I—”
“Go to sleep.” Wrenching my fingers from her hold, I swallowed back another wave of darkness. “Don’t touch me, don’t fear me. I’m the winner of that prize, and I’m not going to use it, okay? That’s the end of it.”
Before she could say anything I couldn’t survive, I turned on my heel and left.
* * * * *
The knife dripped black with blood.
My blood.
I dropped it, and it tumbled into shadow.
The wound in my leg kept growing, growing.
The shadows kept creeping, creeping from my puddling lifeforce on the floor. Every heartbeat, the shadows grew thicker and taller, sucking all the light from the room.
A chasm, not a room.
Rock all around me, cold and entombing like a crypt.
My crypt.
Someone walked toward me.
Someone with light for blood and sunshine glowing eyes.
“Ily…” I stepped toward her, yanked to a stop by shackles made of shadow.
Luminous tears rolled down her cheeks, glowing brighter and brighter. “You have to set me free, Henri. Let me go before you’re completely swallowed.”
I kicked at the shadows restraining me and marched toward her.
Fingers of black jerked me back before I could touch her.
“Help me,” I whispered. “Kiss me.”
She cried harder. “You wish to kiss me? That’s all you have to offer me after everything you’ve already taken?”
“A kiss is worth far more to me than anything else.”
“A kiss from you is death.” She hung her head. “But perhaps…that’s the only freedom I’ll earn from you.”Her skin kept glowing—a perfect star lighting up all my blackness. She stepped into me and tipped up her chin. “Go on then. Kiss me. Kill me.”
Darkness swamped both of us. If it wasn’t for her light, we’d be blinded by my night.
“I’d never kill you, Ily.”
I.L.Y.
I love you.
“You already have.” Another iridescent tear rolled; I longed to drink it down.
My neck bent.
Our noses brushed.
So close.
So fucking close.
Stop!
I jerked back.
Kissing her wouldn’t kill her, but it would kill me.
I’d die from the want, the need, the heartbreaking desperation that made everything so damn hard. “Wait—”
“No.” Catching my cheeks with her luminous hands, she tugged my head down. “Do us both a favour and end it.”
“Ily, don’t—”
She kissed me.
A thunderbolt crashed.
She screamed.
She dropped to my feet, open-eyed and…dead.
Pain I’d never felt before crushed me.
Every memory. Every horror. Every loneliness.
Shadows shot down my throat.
Love broke me into pieces.
Ily’s corpse broke into light-bright fractures, shattering into stardust.
I dropped to my knees.
My heart turned to coal.
I howled—
“Henri! Henri!”
My eyes snapped wide.
Ily sat on top of me, her thighs straddling my waist, her hands shaking my shoulders.
S-She’s still alive.
I wasn’t responsible for my actions.
For the blistering thankfulness and motherfucking tears stabbing behind my eyes.
Just a nightmare.
Thank fuck, just a nightmare.
Jack-knifing up, I grabbed her around the waist and tossed her onto the bed. I rolled over her. Trapped her beneath me. Imprisoned her where she belonged. Where she would always belong.