Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 401(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
My entire body is seized with the trembling that has come and gone in fits since I left what remained of Arcus. The excitement has exhausted me, the fear has made me restless. And now, to hear Luthian threaten me... Luthian, who I thought I loved...
“You wouldn’t,” I whisper, my vision wavering behind my tears.
“You have far more faith in me than you ever should,” he warns.
“And you underestimate me,” I spit back. “I would name you before my head ever touched the block.”
“You have a wish remaining. You could waste it on Kathras’s freedom.” Luthian shrugs coldly. “Unless you were saving it for something else.”
I was. In the back of my mind, even from the moment that Luthian and I ended our agreement, I’ve held that wish apart. I didn’t want to admit it then, but there is no denying it now. “You know what I was saving it for.”
“Was?” He arches a brow.
“Was,” I repeat. “Why would I waste it on you, now? When I see you for what you really are?”
Something flashes across his face, too quickly for me to read it. I think it could be sorrow. I hope that it is.
“You want to me to believe that you’ve fallen out of love with me?” His dismissive laugh stings my heart, for we both know the truth. I love him still, even in this moment.
“Believe what you will. It’s no concern of mine!”
He steps close to me, reaches out with those elegant fingers to trace the curve of my jaw. “One wish, Cenere. Two desires. Which do you choose? Kathras’s life, or my love?”
I swat Luthian’s hand away. My chest aches. I feel I may faint. But I hold his mirrored gaze, lift my chin in defiance. “Why would I ever want love that I must wish for?”
“Then say it,” he whispers. “Wish for his freedom. Deny my love.”
My stomach turns sour, and I barely manage the words. Everything in me fights against saying them. But it isn’t right to let Kathras die for what Luthian and I have done.
“I wish for Kathras’s freedom and safety.”
Luthian’s face falls. The silver in his eyes goes dull, then black. He grabs my shoulders, pulls me against his chest, and covers my mouth with his in a crushing, painful kiss.
I go weak. I don’t want to. I want to shove him away. I want to beg him to take back my wish. But I spoke the truth when I told him that I wouldn’t want to be loved because I wished for it. I sag against him, let him ravish my mouth with his tongue, thread his fingers into my hair to hold my lips to his. I work my hands between us to jerk the tie of his robe free, and my hands smooth up his chest to push the fabric from his shoulders. I feel his naked skin against mine; my clothing has vanished like it did so many times before. He pulls me with him to the table and sweeps place settings and candles to the floor, extinguishing the flames before they can catch the rug beneath our feet on fire.
Luthian has never been gentle with me. That was a part of our training and expected. But he’s never been as wild and hungry as he is now. I cry out in shock and pain when he slams me bodily onto the table, my head and elbows drumming the wood with cracking thumps. I plant my feet flat, arch up to rub my aching sex against him. I’ve wanted this. How I have wanted this. We’ve been so close, much closer than this, but I know he cannot stop. He will fuck me like it’s a punishment. He will fuck me like it’s revenge.
I know enough of both now that I do not fear them. I welcome his deep, battering thrust as he enters me and shout with relief at finally, finally taking him into my body.
He slaps his palm on the table beside my head, cursing. “How dare you! I never offered you my love, I offered you a kingdom!”
“I know,” I sob into his shoulder, locking my ankles behind his back, just under the space where his wings meet his body. I want to fall into him, and him into me, to remain in this moment of pain and anger and passion unrestrained forever.
“I don’t want you!” His cock plunges into me hard again, and the slick wood at my back pulls my skin. “I never wanted you!”
“I don’t care.” I kiss his neck, hold onto his hair.
He pounds into me, digs the fingers of one hand into my thigh as he braces himself over me. “I was better off before I found you.” But his hurtful words are less forceful now, and the sorrow in his voice is unmistakable. “I don’t want you.”