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)
Hot, blistering tears scalded my eyes.
I couldn’t look away.
Couldn’t breathe.
My own veins sliced with memories of what that felt like.
I rolled into myself as phantom pains rippled down my body.
Henri touched my shoulder. “It’s okay, little nightmare.”
The first willing pet from him. The first kind word in so long.
I couldn’t look at him.
Across the room, Peter vibrated with uncontrollable rage. Every jewel present at dinner pulsed with violent energy. Waves of it wafted from the floor where we kneeled. Our matching hate and hopelessness itched in my teeth and pressed against my skull.
The surge of despair and revulsion coming from all my fellow prisoners cut through every illusion of training and obedience.
There was still life in us.
Still courage in us.
Still fight in us.
We have to get the fuck out of here.
Peter raised his eyes and met mine.
In a terribly bold move, he raised his bandaged fist and thumped it over his heart.
A single tear swelled and spilled down my cheek.
I raised my hand and thumped my heart too.
Henri’s chair fell back as he shot to his feet.
His suddenness cut Victor’s punishment short.
The new girls gasped and cried as their bodies jerked with exhaustion.
Bowing his head in respect at Victor, Henri grabbed me around the bicep and dragged me toward the doors leading to the deck outside. Smashing one open, he yanked me over the threshold, then broke into a run, dragging me beside him.
Chapter Twenty
………………………….
Henri
WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?
Code?
Commiseration?
Peter couldn’t hide his rebellion even while wearing bandages, and Ily…
Fuck.
Blackness poured over my mind as I glanced at her jog-tripping beside me.
What was she trying to do? Get herself killed?
Her arm was so slight and cool in my pinching fingers. Her body exquisitely beautiful beneath the beige jumper she’d slipped into. The same jumper where the Diamond Kiss chit had waited. The hem kissed her upper thighs as I pulled her faster, the flash of a white G-string visible as I hauled her over the grass.
The minute she’d spoken back after a month of pandering to me.
The second she told me to fuck myself, my entire body roared to life.
The desperation to throw her on the table again and repeat what’d happened the night of the treasure hunt splintered my bones.
It’d been too long. Far, far too long since I’d been inside her.
Despite the misery of the new jewels and the horror that I couldn’t do a damn thing to save them, all I could think about was kissing her. The moment our eyes met, and all her fire tangled with mine—the second her slur burned my blood…all my self-control sizzled into rusty dust.
Only her.
Just her.
No one else had the power to invoke such heat inside me. Such an uncontrollable combustion that seared around my despair, set alight all my blackness, and gave me a reprieve…just for a moment.
And that tear?
Are you fucking kidding me?
I went past blazing and straight to conflagration.
I didn’t stop jogging until we reached the castle’s east corner. Ily slowed beside me as I eyed up the large portico with potted manicured trees flanking yet another door. Unlike the modern sliding doors leading from the ballroom and dining hall, this one looked ancient. The heavy wood pockmarked and chipped as if some long-ago invader tried to hack at it with an axe.
I had no idea where it led, but I wanted privacy.
I needed Ily alone.
Now.
She didn’t say a word as I yanked open the door, and we stumbled into a room.
Vaulted ceilings, swept-back bronze curtains, metallic threaded tapestries, and a giant amethyst geode all glittered in the soft glow of two huge chandeliers.
And the best part…it was empty.
Pulling Ily deeper into the room, the outside door banged shut, wrapping us up in the silence of stone, plush tan leather couches, a huge fireplace with stone foxes, and rugs thick enough to sleep on.
Guiding her to one of the couches, I pushed her down and sat close enough for our knees to touch.
I went to speak, but she tipped up her chin, and her eyes flashed with gold. “Do you know this is the first time you’ve sat me on a chair like a normal person instead of making me sit by your feet like a dog?”
I frowned, ready to argue.
I needed to argue.
Arguing could be the lifeline to pull myself out of the swamp I’d fallen into.
I choked on all the things I wanted to say, but the shackles of shadow slowly came back, trickling through my mind, gifting me yet more memories that I’d blocked out.
I’d accepted her kneeling by my feet—not because Victor expected his jewels to assume such a subservient position but because…I’d been raised that way.
I’d watched my father snap his fingers and witnessed how our mothers would crawl for him. I’d often filled up a dog bowl at his command, cutting up pieces of decadent food that they had to eat face first and ass up.