Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 101147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101147 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
I see Meg run to her husband. She leaps into his arms and wraps herself around him. The goblins are gone, taken deep into the ground. The vampires ran, and those who weren’t fast enough are puddles of blood. Cian kisses Meg. It’s a beautiful sight. The tiny pixies cling to Cian’s hair.
They went to find the Green Man. Clever pixies.
“Please, Dante,” Kaja begs. She puts her wrist to my mouth.
Oh, I want to, but I’m not sure I’m strong enough to stop. Instinct tells me Roan is right. Kaja’s blood can save me. Fuck. I can’t risk her. It’s better to die than to live without my Kaja.
I lean back against her. “No, baby. I could hurt you.”
Cian and Meg are suddenly in front of us.
Cian stares down at me, taking in my wounds. “You’re worse for the wear, cos.”
Ci’s good at stating the obvious. “Yep. You suck, man. Next time, give me the heads-up that you’re leaving.”
“Will do.” Cian’s gaze turns to Kaja. “I heard the asshole who I intend to kill say that you could save Dante.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
“Yes, but he needs to feed. He won’t feed.” Kaja’s voice holds all her fear.
Cian smiles. “I think I can fix that.”
“Don’t you fucking dare, Ci.” There’s a knife in Cian’s hand.
Cian Finn neatly slices a small hole in Kaja’s wrist. Not much, but enough to get the blood flowing, and my instinct takes over when she presses it to my mouth. Sweet, rich blood flows and I can’t help it. My fangs sink in, and I drink.
Velvety warmth flows into my mouth, and I can feel my body healing.
She invades my system. Her memories, her hopes, her dreams assail me. She’s so sweet, so strong. She’s been battered, but her heart is whole, and she offers it up.
“That’s unbelievable,” Cian breathes.
“It’s working,” Meg says, relief obvious in her voice.
But I’m concentrating on Kaja. My defenses are down, and I let her flood me. I’m battered with her emotions. She wanted to die when she saw me gutted. She wanted to lie down beside me and never get up. She wants to bear my child. She wants it so much.
She loves me.
I see myself as Kaja sees me.
I feel my skin knit together and force myself to stop.
Kaja slumps to the ground.
I touch her hair. She’s utterly exhausted, nothing more. I took a bit too much, but I can sense she’ll be all right with rest and care. I stand and haul my lovely, brave bride into my arms. She curls against me.
Cian looks at me, a brow rising in challenge. “Still thinking about setting her aside?”
“Never,” I say, and I walk from the forest with her in my arms.
I might not understand what happened, but I know one thing.
I will never let her go.
Chapter Twenty-One
Dante
I walk into my father’s office freshly showered, shaved, and utterly presentable.
So why does it feel like I don’t belong here? Everything about the office is perfectly normal. I know every nook and cranny of this space. I spent great portions of my childhood in this office. Now it feels foreign. Everything feels alien and odd, even the clothes on my back.
“Son, I will say, I never expected that you would find a consort so quickly,” my dad says, a smile on his face. He’s a familiar figure in an expensive suit and worn boots. “You always were the smartest kid I knew.”
I think about Kaja, asleep in my room. She’s cuddled up in my big bed where no woman ever slept before. I always take them to hotels or go to their places. My wife is asleep in my bed—our bed. And I want to be next to her, watching her breathe. She looks right in our bed.
I nearly killed her.
Damn. I know it’s a bit overdramatic. I know she’s going to be okay, but I didn’t really calm down until we made it to my cousins’ village and their old nanny, Flanna, pronounced Kaja perfectly fine, merely tired from blood loss. She’s slept for almost twenty-four hours, but she briefly opened her eyes and responded with the sweetest smile before sinking back into healing sleep. I carried her all day, placing her across my lap when I got my bike back, and took us home. She cuddled against me the whole way here.
“Dante? Have you heard a word I’ve said?”
I turn to my father. “Sorry, I was thinking about something else.”
Dad grins, a knowing look. “You were thinking about her, weren’t you?”
It seems foolish to try to hide it. “Yes.”
I’m always thinking about her these days. Kaja is becoming an obsession.
My father comes and stands beside me. We stare out over the city. From Don Dellacourt’s office, Dallas spreads out like a sea of buildings resting on clouds. From this far up, I can’t even see the ground. I rather think that’s the way my father likes it. Dad worked his way up from a ranch in West Texas, an impoverished royal, all the way to the heights of society. I didn’t see the ground as a small child unless I was being taken by hovercar to the door that led to the Seelie plane. That door is guarded now, and no one has been through it in years beyond the occasional political emissary.