Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
And the moment I think this, we’re in a bed. And his arms are still around me, and he’s kissing me, and holding me, and I realize he’s a very good abusive partner because… I like this. And it’s crazy. Because he took me to the pit of Hell, and carved up my body with his claws, and put evil symbols all over me, and then turned me with a long drink, and then used me to poison the halfbreeds.
They tore me to shreds. I remember it. I remember every moment of it.
And still, his attention is enough.
This little bit of kindness—which isn’t kindness at all, I understand this—it’s enough. I won’t forget, but I will forgive.
Because I’m not about to give this up.
I will never love him, and I might throw up just thinking about what’s growing inside me, but if he will hold me, and feed me, and fuck me like this? Whether his love is real or not, it’s more than I ever had as a human.
It’s more than I ever thought I deserved.
I roll over in the bed, looking straight into his purple eyes as I climb on top of him and straddle his hips. I place my hands flat on his chest and lower myself down until we’re so close, we could kiss. Then I reach down, grab his hard cock, and gently slip it inside me as I lift my hips.
He almost closes his eyes, which I interpret as pleasure. And then we smile, and kiss, and fuck. And after the fucking… we feed.
Much later, though I am not paying attention to the ticking of time so I have no idea how much later, Lucia shows up in my head.
Josep and I are cuddled up together under the luxurious comforter, his arms around me and his leg hiked over my hip in a possessive embrace.
“I want to say this is brilliant,” she says. “But I’m concerned, Echo, that you might be buying into his lie.”
I mentally swat her away. Not because she’s wrong. She’s not wrong.
I am buying into this lie.
But if I’m buying into it, is it a lie?
“You need to find the Black blood, Echo. He’s got a vial of it hidden in that cave. That’s how you kill him. You feed him that and—”
But I’m not listening. In fact, I banish her from my thoughts. And then I turn, press my face into Josep’s muscled chest, and let him hug me harder.
It’s not a lie.
I like this.
And if this is as good as it gets, I’ll take it.
12 - Ryet
This is the Kingdom of Darkness
I never knew that scions had a stench to them.
They reek like… rot. Like something two days dead that’s been left out in the hot sun. The scent of one was bad enough, but there are at least a dozen staring at me from the opposite end of the pool, looking like backlit shadows.
The silence lingers because the scion who appeared first, the one who was talking to me, didn’t finish his introduction when his buddies came up behind him.
“Get out of my house.” My voice is nearly unrecognizable. It’s the demon voice. Which matches my new demon body.
The leader, if that’s what he is, bows, falling to his knees and prostrating himself. “My lord—”
“I’m not your lord.”
He looks up at me, but doesn’t lift his head, only his eyes. “OK. Ryet. That’s who you are, right?” I don’t nod or agree, so he just assumes his guess is correct and keeps going. “There are scions underground. They got to feed off you and they’re transforming as we speak.”
“Get to the point.”
“The point is,” he says, getting to his feet and staring me in the eyes. It comes off as a challenge and even though I’m not his lord, I feel slighted at his overt gesture of disrespect. “The point is that we haven’t fed, Ryet.”
“Am I supposed to care?”
The man sighs and there is some murmuring from the others standing behind him. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I just know I’m starving.”
I think back on my own experience as a scion, trying to remember a time when I was starving, but can’t. I mean, the lust was always there. If Paul bled, I wanted it. But I don’t recall a single time when I ever had to go begging for it. Especially from someone I didn’t even know. “Where is Paul?” I ask him.
“He left. He took Kael and left.”
“To go where?” I notice that my voice is starting to normalize. It’s no longer demonic-sounding, but not quite back to my regular voice, either. My skin is changing too. Instead of the bruised blue and purple color, it’s going pale. And the bite marks that were all over me just minutes ago are starting to heal and disappear.