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)
My heart fucking ached.
Silence stretched for a moment before Marcus sucked in a furious breath. “Fine. What do you want? Money? Your freedom? Let him go and I’ll let you go. How about that?”
Her arm trembled and the blade stung as she cut me by accident. With a soft groan, she shut everything down. “Allow those two doctors to help him.”
“Done.”
“I wasn’t finished.” Her heart pounded against my back as she scrambled for a way out of this mess.
Her shaking increased and I wondered how much longer she could withstand the stress before her little habit of passing out appeared.
“You and your guards are going to let us leave. Whisper, me, and Lucien are going in one of those G-wagons with the two doctors. They can work on him while I drive us to the nearest hospital.”
“Ah, see that’s going to be a problem,” Marcus muttered. “No hospitals.” Pointing at the doctors who acted as if they wished they were invisible, he added, “They’re fully qualified to operate and save his life. They don’t need a hospital.”
“Fine.” Rook moaned a little, fighting her own misery. “We’ll go to the nearest hotel then. Somewhere public.”
“Fine,” Marcus echoed, his grimace turning into a sneer. “Anything else?”
“Yes.” Her chin tipped up. “You’ll stay the hell away from him. You’ll let him go and—”
“I’ve agreed to your little demands about leaving the property. I’ll even secure the hotel so his whiskered beast can go with you. I’ll even agree to stay out of the doctors’ way until he’s stable, but that’s as far as my leniency goes.” He smiled thinly. “The moment he’s no longer on death’s door, he’s coming home.”
The feel of Rook’s arms around me, the sound of her voice breaking as she bargained for my life...it hollowed me out and left me in ashes.
I wanted to look at her, kiss her, thank her but...
Death opened its arms and snatched me—
Chapter Eleven
I PRESSED AGAINST THE CHEAP WOODEN door as the doctors turned calm into chaos. In the time it took to cross the threshold into the honeymoon suite in the nearest accommodation, they’d already placed Lucien on the king-sized bed—leaving him splayed out like a corpse ready for burial—and tore around in unison, preparing for surgery.
Whisper pressed against me, equally horrified as the older doctor—a man with silver-brown hair and black-framed glasses—swept the phone, complimentary notebook, pen, and handy guide of what to do around town straight off the desk with a single swipe.
“Help me drag it under the main chandelier,” he barked at his colleague. “It’s the brightest light in this gloomy place.”
The other doctor—a slightly younger man with dark blond hair that’d been cropped close to his skull—dumped his heavy medical bag and went to help.
Together, they dragged the large oak desk into the middle of the room, shoving aside the cream linen couch and glass-topped coffee table.
“I’ll grab the towels,” the blond doctor said, vanishing into the bathroom.
The other doctor completely ignored me and Whisper, busily dragging the coffee table to the head of the desk and dumping both bags onto it. Without a word, he pulled out a green surgical sheet, flattened it out, then started layering it with wickedly sharp implements.
I staggered against the door as my headache pressed from all directions.
Whisper nudged me, his golden eyes brimming with fear. I reached to pet him—and stopped breathing. Red. Everywhere. Lucien’s blood on my fingers, beneath my nails, up my wrists.
The image slingshotted me back to the awful drive here—
My bloody hands gripped the steering wheel as I drove through countryside hell. Blood covered every inch of my fingers. His blood. Blood from stabbing him, threatening him, hurting him to save his life.
He’s alive.
He won’t die.
Drive faster.
Gritting my teeth against the ice-picks in my skull, I made the mistake of looking in the rearview mirror.
Marcus and his guards followed not far behind.
He’d allowed the doctors to gather Lucien from the driveway, carry him to one of the G-wagons, and hadn’t said a word as they’d clambered into the backseat. He’d even waved politely as I’d begged a very reluctant Whisper to jump into the front seat and pleaded with my broken system to stay awake long enough to drive us the hell away from here.
My gaze shifted from being hunted by Marcus to the two doctors who sat on either side of Lucien. He’d been propped up, head lolling, entire body slack and lifeless. Neither doctor asked what was going on, why Lucien was so hurt, or why there was a jungle cat in the front seat.
They just took turns holding cotton pads to Lucien’s bleeding chest, all while arranging an IV line and snarling at me to drive smoothly so they could get it in his vein—
The memory shattered, dumping me back into the honeymoon suite as the two doctors placed a very dead-looking Lucien onto the towel-draped desk.