Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 653(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
We start walking. “How old are you?”
“Fifteen. Over halfway to Seer maturity.”
“What is Seer maturity?”
“When our aging process slows and our assets are in their prime.”
When the aging process slows, I think incredulously. I’m still trying to remember that this is not a Harry Potter novel. This is my life. I file the age issue away for later retrieval. “Have you lived under Micah’s rule your entire life?”
“Yes. I was born under his rule.”
“And he’s a good leader? He’s hard to read.”
She snorts. “Micah? He trusts you, you live. Otherwise, you’re dead. We all love that about him.”
“You love that about him?”
“Of course we do. It keeps us all alive. He keeps us all alive.” She glances over at me. “Now you will, too.”
I stifle an image of the old woman and her predictions for fear Ariella will somehow feel that in me. Somehow read my thoughts, though she hasn’t proclaimed that to be her skill. She simply feels me and then reads me, not my thoughts. Whatever the case, that woman has no place in my present company.
For now, I focus on trying to memorize a complex maze of hallways that finally ends at a crimson door. The blood door, I think, even before Ariella announces, “The blood door.”
It’s almost as if I’ve plucked the name from her mind, which is ridiculous. I can do no such thing. She fingers a buzzer. The door jerks open and reveals Micah standing on the other side, big, broad, and powerful in this moment in a way that literally steals the breath of those around him.
His eyes find mine, and the hum of his magic is mesmerizing and addictive. It’s the only way to describe the pull I feel toward him. “Thank you, Ariella,” he says without looking at her. “You can go now.”
“Yes, Overseer.” Her footsteps patter away, obedience in her departure.
I tug away from the hold he has on me, wondering if he expects the same from me. “Never,” he says, clearly reading my mind.
My attention rockets back to him, crystal fire in the depths of his stare, anger between us that is inescapable, unexplainable. Well, aside from the fact that he keeps jumping in my head. “How do you know what I was thinking?”
He backs up, inviting me to join him in the next room—a message in the actions. My answers lie beyond the blood door. I don’t hesitate. I step forward, uncertain of what awaits me or what he has planned for me next, but ready to find out. Nonetheless, I’m relieved at what I find.
The room is no dungeon or torture chamber but rather a giant gym of some sort with mats spread across the majority of the floor. The door slams behind me, locks bolting into place—magic, I think—but I do not jump or turn.
“They worship you,” I say, certain he understands I mean Ariella and his people.
“They respect me,” he corrects.
“And yet, you allow a teenager to fight demons and protect me?”
“She’s had a lifetime of training. You’ve had no training.” Suddenly, his hands press to my shoulders, when a moment before, he wasn’t this near. I’m shoved backward, he’s shoving me, and then I hit the wall so hard my bones rattle and the air gushes from my lungs. I recover with a rush of adrenaline to realize my hands are over my head, shackled by his bigger, stronger ones. “What are you doing?” I demand.
“What do you want?”
“To hit you,” I say.
“Do it,” he orders, his crystal eyes cutting through me.
“Let me go, and I will.”
“Make me,” he challenges.
“Is a knee your preference?”
“Make me,” he repeats. “Or maybe you’re too afraid or too weak. Maybe you’re too human and too selfish to be a Seer. Maybe you are the enemy.” He leans in closer, his body molded to mine. His hand slides over my backside, branding me, claiming me when I am not his to claim.
Something sparks in the air. Magic. My magic, I think, but it does nothing against his or against him. “Stop.”
But he isn’t done. “I could take you, just like Ryker would have taken you if I hadn’t saved you for me. You’re so weak that I could do anything to you, and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.”
I have no idea what happens, but there is this strange shadow in my mind, and then I snap. Panic merges with white-hot fury, and in my mind’s eye, there is a cobra, a snake, that strikes, and then it’s like it crawls inside me and takes over. I shove Micah away and keep shoving. A blur of spots fills my vision until I’m slamming him against the opposite wall several feet away.
“You will never take anything from me I do not want to give,” I hiss. “Do you understand?”
He smiles—actually smiles—his approval. “As it should be, Ember,” he says. “As I expect it to be, but I had to make you find that part of you. You’re strong. You’ll get stronger.”