Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
“Aurelia…” There it is again. Her soft lips flatten, and that look like I’m breaking her heart by simply saying her name returns. I push past it again and focus on the reason I’m even in this room, ignoring the need to run away from her. “Do you need help?”
She sits up straight, bringing her hands into her lap before dropping them back to her sides to curl around the sheets like she doesn’t quite know what to do with them. “Help?” she echoes quietly.
Thorin and Khalil are no longer pounding on the locked door. I hear them pacing outside though, and the words get stuck in my throat. The part of me that leans on them doesn’t want to know the answer. I don’t want to know if my best friends betrayed what I went through by holding someone else against their will. I feel like shit for even suggesting they’re capable of doing that, but I can’t ignore the way Aurelia’s suddenly looking around the room like a cornered animal.
“Did my brothers hurt you?”
Aurelia’s gaze snaps to mine, and she searches for something before quickly replying, “No.”
Knowing Isaac would often trick me with kindness in order to break me down further, I don’t let it go. “It’s not a trick, Aurelia. Did they hurt you? You can tell me.”
She blinks, seemingly regaining her composure and shedding some of her unease before she cocks her head and tightens the sash on her robe. “And then what?”
I’m stumped by her question for a moment, feeling my brows pulling down. “And then I get you out. I…I’ll help you get home. I’ll keep you safe from them. I promise you.”
“Even if that means you all go to prison?”
My eyes fall shut.
I knew those pricks were lying to me.
I knew it the moment I tasted her lips, heard her speak, walked into this room and saw her body, and caught her scent.
She’s ambrosia.
And we’ve been dying without her.
No way Thorin, Khalil, and fucking Seth would just let her go. They found her and they made her theirs like some twisted version of finders keepers.
“Zeke?” Aurelia calls softly when I don’t speak for a long while.
I scrub a hand down my face—a hand that helped to shackle her and may have even harmed her—and then I force myself to open my eyes and face this beautiful girl who confuses and scares the shit out of me. “I have a better question for you, Aurelia. Why do you care what happens to us?”
“I don’t,” she says unevenly. She’s all bluster. I caught her off her guard, and now she’s trying to regain some control. “I just don’t believe you.”
Shame courses through me as I wonder again what we did to her. “You think this is a test?”
I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut when she gives the smallest nod without quite meeting my eyes. If I blinked, I would have missed it.
And suddenly, I realize how disorienting it must have been when I barged in here and flipped the script. Isaac did it often. He feigned mercy only to extinguish my hope in the most brutal way the moment it appeared.
All I’ve accomplished is convincing Aurelia that I’m just another monster.
Fuck.
“It’s not a test,” I assure her. “And as much as I wish I could convince you, I won’t push for now, but this isn’t over.” I say it almost like an apology because I can’t let it go—no matter how much she or my brothers might want me to.
“They’re not so bad,” she confesses with a small smile that I don’t understand.
It eases some of the worry that my brothers did unspeakable things to her, but that smile only replaces those worries with new ones.
“You sure it’s not the Stockholm talking?” I blurt. When the hearts in her eyes turn into sharp daggers, I feel like I’m finally getting a glimpse of the real her. “Right. Okay. Suit yourself. I’ll leave you now. Good night.”
Yanking the door open and barreling past Thorin and Khalil, I don’t realize it’s the middle of the day until I’m standing outside the cabin, bent over, hands braced on my knees, trying to convince myself of two things.
She’s not Tatum.
And I’m not prey.
When I finally step back into the cabin thirty minutes later, Aurelia is stepping out of Thorin’s room fully dressed. Our eyes meet briefly before she looks away and announces to no one in particular, “I’ll get started on lunch.”
AURELIA
The guys have gotten into the habit of hanging around the kitchen. They lend me a hand while I make us food or clean, but not today. Today, Khalil and Thorin sit around the kitchen table, discussing in low tones what to do about the dead bodies we left behind once the snow melts.
Ezekiel is nowhere to be found.