Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Guilt crashed over me in a suffocating wave.
I moved before I could stop myself.
Touching his chest, I cursed the hole in his clothing and him. The hole I’d caused.
“You’re bleeding so much.” My voice cracked. “How are you even standing?” My fingers became coated in his blood, trying to reverse the damage by touch alone. “You need to sit down. You—”
“I’m fine,” he said automatically, clamping his hand over mine and stilling my frantic pawing.
“You are absolutely not fine.” Panic punched through the pill’s false calm. “You were stabbed. I stabbed you.” The truth tasted horrific. “I didn’t mean to...I shouldn’t have...God, what was I thinking?”
He went rigid, stunned.
He stared at me like he hadn’t expected me to care. Like he’d completely skipped over the part where I would hate myself—knowing his pain was entirely my fault.
Ripping my hand from beneath his, I pressed both of them over his seeping wound. I pressed hard, my red-covered fingers clumsy and unsure, trying to stop any more blood from leaking. “You can’t die. I don’t care how you’re standing or how long that pill will give you energy for but...it’s fake. It’s not real. You’re dying and the longer you pretend you’re not, the worse—”
“You have a talent,” he said under his breath, never looking away from me. “At confusing me.” His heart pounded beneath my palms as he tipped a little closer. “I can’t figure you out. Whenever I think I have, you go and mess me up all over again.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t reply. Every inch of me tripped and burned.
“You’re the reason I’ve gotten this far, and you’ve made it impossible for me not to want you but...everything about you triggers my nervous system into thinking you’re the worst kind of threat.” He chuckled, shaking his head, causing droplets to scatter from his thick hair. “Honestly? You’re kind of exhausting.”
“I’m the exhausting one?” I fought the urge to punch him right where I’d stabbed him. “It’s a constant battle not to pass out in your company.”
“Yes well, you do that often enough, so you’d think you’d be well caught up on sleep by now.”
“I changed my mind. You can die if you want.”
He laughed out loud.
“How are you laughing?” I glowered at him, tears stinging. “Is this what doctors talk about? That thing where people suddenly seem fine right before they die?” Terror choked me. “Are you feeling woozy? Tell me. Are you saying these things because you are dying? Oh God, you can’t.” I mopped up his blood with my bare hands, trying to stuff the cooling liquid back into his body. “Forget what I said. You can’t die. I’m so sorry. I—”
“Rook.”
“Lie down. I’ll go get help. I’ll—”
“Rook.”
“Just let me—”
“Rook!” Something unreadable flickered across his face—shock and stubbornness and something dangerously soft. “Stop it.”
I froze in his stare, ensnared and lost and—
He kissed me.
He ducked his head, slammed his mouth to mine, and delivered the swiftest, hardest kiss before pulling back just as quickly. “I promise you, I won’t die.” Tugging me toward the bike, he added, “And I asked you to stab me, remember? I almost got on my knees and begged. So...you have nothing to be sorry for.”
Before I could respond, he slung his leg over the machine and patted the back. “Get on.”
“What?” My mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m deadly fucking serious. And I don’t have the patience or life expectancy to argue with you.” He turned the key, fisting the handlebars as it snarled to life. “We’re getting out. Right now.”
I eyed up the space behind him, regretting my choice not to drive.
Thank God the pill protected me from the wobbles of anxiety because if not, I’d probably pass out at the thought of being on the back of a bike with a beginner. A dying beginner. “Please tell me you’ve driven one of these before.”
“Nope. But once again, we’re running out of time. So...get on.”
Whisper snapped his jaws at the roaring machine.
“Move,” Lucien commanded the panther. “I don’t want to run you over by accident.”
Oh God.
The giant black cat slinked sideways, hissing with flared whiskers.
“Get on the bike, Rook,” he barked, his voice swallowed by the engine’s growl.
I hesitated, not because I didn’t trust him but because I’d once again let him down.
I should be the one driving.
I’d stabbed him for goodness’ sake.
“I’m literally aching with the need to get the fuck out of here.” His eyes flicked to the open gates as raw desperation bled through his temper. “I can’t wait any longer. Are you coming or not?” His gaze snapped back to mine and the murderous glint he wore like chainmail turned into yearning so deep, so tragic, it cut through my artificial coldness.
My heart skipped a painful beat.
“I can’t go without you.” His face softened as he held out his hand like a hero offering me a lifeline, instead of a broken villain who’d left the lawn littered with corpses. The fact that no girls had come out. That Laura and the rest remained dry in their pavilions.