Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
I love you. I tipped my chin at Ily. So much.
She sucked in a breath, hearing me, thanks to the magic of our silent connection.
I know. She hugged her pillow as if it were me she embraced. Don’t fall over.
I chuckled under my breath, reached for Peter’s outstretched fingers, and stepped behind the wall as carefully as I could.
Chapter Four
………………………….
Ily
“WAKEY, WAKEY, PRECIOUS ILY…”
Panic cut through me like a dagger.
I shot upright. My hand flew to my chest, stopping my pounding heart from escaping.
Just a dream…
The sick chuckle had just been a—
“Finally, one of you open your eyes,” Victor murmured. “I was beginning to think all of you were dead.”
Throwing myself onto my knees, I looked to my left.
And there he was.
After a month of nothing.
A month of fearing when he’d come.
He’s here.
My heart switched from pounding to galloping. “You.”
“Of course, it’s me. Who did you think it would be?” Victor chuckled. “Your father?”
Huddling into a tight little ball on my hard wooden bed, I couldn’t stop pure hate flowing through me. I’d never truly known the weight of such an emotion. The word was thrown around so frivolously. ‘I hate winter. I hate sand in my shoes. I hate pollen.’
But true hate…real, violent, gut-ripping hate.
It was as potent as poison, and I did my best to get it out of me. Not because Victor didn’t deserve it but because I was only killing myself faster by feeling it.
Forcing my hands to unfurl and my pulse to stop racing, I glowered at him. “You didn’t forget about us, then.”
Victor lounged on a comfy blue suede chair that’d been brought into our dungeon and placed just out of reach of our chains. The bars behind him were closed, the keys swinging around his forefinger with a gentle jingle. “Of course not. It’s been a test of patience to leave you this long.” His gaze flickered to Henri.
God, Henri.
For thirty-three days, I’d had to watch him exist on the line of surviving and dying. Sometimes, I’d physically feel his soul’s attachment to his body growing weaker. I’d scream at him, hoping my voice punctured his dreams, ordering him to stay alive…just for a little longer.
Each time I begged him to stay, he’d suck in a rattling breath across the dungeon and groan in agony as he clung to his broken body.
Whenever he stayed for me, I cried myself to sleep for being so cruel.
I shouldn’t beg him to stay.
I should tell him it was okay to go.
But even with Peter cuddling me in those awful moments and all the terror of what our future held, I just couldn’t say the words for Henri to leave.
Because I knew. I knew as surely as I knew Krish would feel I wasn’t alright that Henri hung on just for me.
He’d clung to life through his beating.
He’d clung to it while Dr Belford spent hours tending to his broken bones and injecting him with God knew what.
And he’d clung to it even as his words grew scrambled with his concussion and he screamed in his sleep.
If I’d given him permission to fade, he would’ve. If I’d made him believe—while he existed in a half-coma, half-stupor for those first couple of weeks—that I was safe and he didn’t have to worry, he would’ve taken one last breath and gone.
And now I wished I’d been strong enough to set him free because Victor stood from his chair, tossed the keys onto the blue velvet, and prowled toward Henri sleeping on his cot.
Unfortunately for Henri, he was now too healed to die on a whim. Too strong to just float away in his sleep.
I’ve condemned him to a fate far, far worse than death.
“Don’t touch him.” I lurched off my bed and ran to the length of my chain. Clutching my collar, cushioning the many lacerations and bruises on my neck from trying to get free, I bared my teeth. “Don’t go near him, you sick bastard.”
Henri’s dirty, healing form went from slack with sleep to stiff with awareness.
Before Victor took another step, he rolled onto his side and sat up with as much power and decorum as he had when he’d been healthy and uncollared.
Victor didn’t see the bone-deep agony inside him or the way his eyes pinched with exhaustion. He merely saw an ex-Master covered in dirt.
I didn’t know how much it cost Henri to give off the vibe of a man not on the brink of breaking—to stand on braced legs and stare down our enemy—but he did.
Victor stopped with a smirk. “Well, it’s nice to see you’re in one piece, mon ami. After Belford’s reports of your injuries, I will admit, I had my doubts.”
Peter roused beside me, his sleep heavier the past few days thanks to our daily meal halving in size.
Our bodies were shutting down. Our skin turning sallow. Our stomachs hollow.