Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 58226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 291(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 291(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
I’m trying to get away when a deep, angry voice cuts through the melee of screams and hoarse screams.
“Stay right there!”
They see me leaving, and don’t want me to escape.
I move faster, but I don’t get far. There’s a howl and cursing behind me, a sickening thud, and snarled curses. I’m trying to run but I feel as if I’m caught in quicksand. My feet are too slow, my movements too labored, when a hand catches me at the back of my head, tangling in my hair.
With a scream, I fall to my knees, grasping at my hair, but I’m unable to move him. “Stop! Let me go! Leave me alone!”
I’m howling but not moving, for every movement brings blistering pain to my scalp. I look up to see the largest of the men standing over me, his violent blue eyes piercing mine.
“Who the fuck are you?” he asks.
Okay, then, so he actually is human.
“Harper,” I say. “Let me go.”
He doesn’t even acknowledge my request but grabs my elbow and drags me to my feet. “Come with me.”
As if I have a choice?
“Fine, but let me go, will you? God!”
He ignores me. He drags me back through the underbrush to where they fought. The ground is stained with blood, and the man who tried to rape me is strewn on the ground, his limbs askew. Eyes vacant.
The monster of a man narrows his eyes on me. “I’ll let you go while I do what I need to, but if you run, you’ll regret it. Understood?”
My God, what is his purpose here?
“Yeah,” I sputter, confused and shaken, but it works. He lets my hair go and kneels beside the broken body of the man who attacked me.
“You killed him,” I accuse, angry at him for doing what I wanted to do, though I know I wouldn’t have had the actual nerve to go through with it. “I was supposed to kill him.”
He’s holding the man’s wrist between his fingers, frowning, and when I speak, he turns to me with a fierce snarl. I shiver. He’s like half wolf or something.
“You had your chance,” he mutters.
“He tried to rape me,” I say, my voice shaking, as if I’m pleading with the universe to understand why a human life was taken. “He tried to rape me.”
The savage man kneels on one knee and turns to look at me, his blue eyes piercing straight through me. “Of course, he did. He was nothing more than an animal when he saw you.” He shakes his head and his eyes narrow on me. And what he says next sends a terrifying chill straight through me. “None of us are. You shouldn’t be anywhere near us. You shouldn’t have come here.”
I blink in surprise. “Oh, this is my fault? I brought this on myself for setting foot on your precious island?”
He nods. “Yes.”
I don’t even know how to respond. The women I write for would have a field day with this line of thinking. Instead, I change the subject.
“Is he dead?”
I’m still shaking, from nerves and anger.
Scowling, he takes the man’s second wrist in his hand and feels for a pulse, as if to confirm what he already knows.
“Sure as hell is.” He shakes his head. “Not many survive a broken neck.”
“You broke his neck?”
He just gives me a withering look and pinches his lips together.
I take that as a yes.
“So, he’s dead.”
“He is,” he says with a sigh. “I’ll have to get rid of the body.”
I’m pissed he did this. I hate that he killed this man, when all I wanted was to do the very same.
“He was supposed to be for me,” I repeat.
What am I saying? Who am I? I don’t kill people. What is it with this place? I shudder. I can’t seem to stop speaking. I’m angry at him for killing the other guy but not because it’s a savage thing to do.
“I was the one who was supposed to kill him for trying to rape me.” The more I speak, the angrier I become. “No one asked you for your help. No one asked you to save me. You did that on your own.”
At first, I don’t heed the way his eyes narrow and gleam with flicks of fire in them, the way his body grows taut and he flexes his fingers.
“I was going to kill him myself,” I protest again, repeating the words as if somehow, it’ll give them more weight. “He tried to rape me. He was mine to kill, not yours.” I want to stomp my foot and shove him, I’m that angry, and I think the shock of it all has made me maybe a little insane. “But no. You had to swoop in here and kill him for yourself, didn’t you?”
What the hell am I even saying?