Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103712 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
The slice of sharp shells and barnacles abraded her skin. The pillar came out of nowhere, but as she squinted, she could see that the rotting wood once belonged to a dock that had nearly washed completely away.
A dock meant people. It meant land.
Rejuvenated by hope, she swam as hard as she could toward the battered wood. Another pair of pillars jutted from the surface, which meant the sea was retreating and the ground was rising. Her frozen toes kicked into cross beams below the surface, and she was soon leaping off the muddy sea floor and hurling herself onto wet, withered wood.
“Thank you,” she wept, pressing her chest and cheek to the icy plank as broken sobs bellowed out of her.
Relief swamped her in heavy victory. She could have died then—in peace—simply knowing she made it. But she was a fighter, and fighters didn’t give up.
Violently shaking, frozen to the point of dysfunction, she growled and forced her body upward. “Get up!” she yelled when her legs wouldn’t cooperate.
Unsure where she was, but content she wasn’t drowning in the miserable sea, she used the last of her strength to haul her lower limbs out of the water and fell to her back, panting as the stars came into view through the blurry wash of her tears and the salt of the ocean.
She wanted to lie there forever and never move again, but there wasn’t much time. She wasn’t out of danger yet. If she didn’t find shelter and warmth soon, she was going to die.
Her legs trembled as she abandoned the dock’s dubious safety for solid ground that proved anything but. The earth beneath her feet was more ice than soil, treacherous and unforgiving as the family she’d fled. But it was her lack of balance that threw her more than anything else.
Each weak step forward became a battle against the wind, determined to fling her back toward the water, back toward the boat that had been her only escape from hell. The light she’d spotted had been smudged out by the storm and bare trees.
Bent forward against the cutting gale, she lurched and shivered, the fog of her breath so thick in the wind she could only squint and blindly hope she was heading in the right direction.
One foot before the other. The mantra her mother had whispered during those long-ago panic attacks, before everything crumbled to ash. Before she learned that monsters wore Savile Row suits and carried ancient names.
The climb from the harbor transformed into an odyssey of endurance. Her numb, stockinged feet caught in patches of frozen mud and brittle undergrowth, forcing her to claw at bare branches that scraped her palms raw.
The metallic taste of blood flooded her mouth. From where, she didn’t know. Didn’t have time to check her injuries or time to waste breath on screams, and she had no misconceptions that she might be entitled to something better than this.
Crying was surrender, and surrender meant dying in this godforsaken wilderness. She would not die. She would live.
She was Mary Fucking Langford.
When she finally saw the light again, she nearly burst into tears. As she struggled up the steep incline of snow-covered rock, the light expanded into something impossible. Shelter!
Or was she dreaming?
The structure belonged in fairy tales, not reality. Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe this was heaven.
She’d grown up in the shadows of mansions and estates, but never witnessed anything quite so cavernous and…gothic.
Was it a castle? Where the hell was she?
More importantly, was anyone home?
Something created that light inside. And light meant warmth.
Survival instincts drove her harder than logic ever could. The stone structure loomed against the storm-darkened sky like a sleeping dragon, its windows blazing like molten amber eyes watching her approach.
Gothic spires vanished into low-hanging clouds while iron fixtures gleamed dully in the intermittent lightning. Not merely large, this was architecture on a scale that dwarfed human ambition, all dark stone and soaring peaks that pierced the grey heavens above. Annexed wings sprawled across the landscape with the casual arrogance of absolute power. Its very presence was a challenge to the elements that dared to assault it.
What manner of god lived in a place like this?
Her teeth chattered so violently, the sound echoed in her skull like castanets. The cold had evolved beyond discomfort into something alive and predatory, prowling through her bones with glacial fingers. Hypothermia wasn’t a possibility anymore. It was an inevitable certainty counting down with each labored heartbeat. She would likely die tonight, so her only hope was to minimize the suffering and die somewhere comfortable.
As she approached the looming castle, the high walls protected her from the spewing ice and frozen rain falling from the sky. It blocked the wind, convincing her this sanctuary was a gift, not a curse.
Before the massive entrance, she paused. The doors were carved from what appeared to be a single piece of midnight-dark wood, adorned with iron hinges that belonged in medieval fortresses. An enormous brass knocker shaped like a snarling bear’s head watched her with metallic eyes that reflected her desperation.