Night’s Fall (The Four Realms #1) Read Online Kristen Ashley

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Fantasy/Sci-fi, Paranormal Tags Authors: Series: The Four Realms Series by Kristen Ashley
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Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
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“It was all you knew,” I stated. “It was all I knew. They were never affectionate. They mostly were so wrapped up in their…whatever was wrong with them, they spent a lot of time stoking it, encouraging it to sour, fester, infect them deeper. The physical abuse didn’t last long,” I told him hurriedly when it appeared he was getting annoyed I was blowing all of this off. “They took me to an uncredited clinic for my wrist. The ones people go to so records won’t be filed. I think they did that because Mom was embarrassed. When the ribs things happened, they took me to a hospital. It was flagged. They got a visit from the RVPB. It was then, that part ended.”

“The Royal Vulnerable Persons Bureau visited them?”

I nodded.

“And left you?”

I nodded again.

His mouth got tight.

Okay.

Finish it.

Fast.

“It started when she appeared.”

His expression cleared, almost as if he was excited, no, eager to learn more about her.

“Your creature,” he said quietly.

I turned to him. “I think she’s beautiful.”

“I’m sure she is,” he murmured.

“She’s just not…normal.”

He tipped his head to the side with open curiosity. “Do you have a pic of her?”

I swallowed but didn’t answer him.

Because I did. Several.

But I’d buried them in a folder in my Palm, thinking one day I’d be glad I hadn’t deleted them, but not about to run across one so soon after I thought I’d lost her.

“Did they ever talk to you, at all, about what makes mates, mates?” he asked.

“No. But I’ve read about it.”

“So you know it’s you and me. But just as importantly, it’s them.”

Gods.

This was huge.

Gods.

The fact she was there, asleep, instead of gone, like I thought, made me have to think about it.

I’d seen his creature. His beast.

His dragon.

He was massive, mighty, fierce, terrifying.

And so, so handsome.

But she…

“He is just as clicked into her as I am to you, Laura,” Aleksei said. “I’ll find her beautiful, because she’s his mate.”

I knew that.

I knew it.

But…

I fiddled with my roll.

“Show me, bissi,” he urged.

Ugh!

Okay, he’d see eventually.

And anyway, my father was wrong. My mother was ignorant.

She was beautiful.

I slid off my stool, went to my bag and got my Palm.

Head bent to it, heart hammering, I dug out the pic folder and found a pic of her.

Seeing it, my stomach rolled over, because…yes.

She was beautiful, I missed her so dang bad, and I couldn’t wait to have her back.

I slid back on my stool and handed him my Palm.

He took it, his gorgeous eyes already cast down, like he couldn’t wait to see.

I watched.

His eyes widened.

I braced.

“Fucking hell,” he said gruffly.

Gods!

“I’ve never seen the likes of her. She’s very unique,” I said primly.

And she was.

Gayle said she could be in commercials.

Cat said she knew artists who would wish to paint her, and sculptors who would wish to mold her.

Mr. Truelock said he was glad she surfaced in our time, for if she’d been born years ago, wars would be fought over her.

I just loved her.

I sawed off a piece of meat that was so tender, it needed no sawing (I did that anyway) and shoved it in my mouth.

“Laura,” Aleksei called.

“She’s small,” I said, aiming the words across the room, my mouth still full. I snatched up my wine and took a sip, struggling to swallow because my meat needed more chewing, but by damn, I managed it. “Not dainty or anything. She’s like the size difference from me to you in terms of her and your creature.”

“Laura.”

“And yes, she’s shy. She was terrified of my father.” I continued talking to the lift. “She came out once when he was…” I shook my head. “Anyway. He shifted and beat the crap out of her too.”

“Darling, look at me.”

I turned to him.

He had her pic on my Palm aimed my way.

“She has your eyes.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“They look like aquamarines.”

My throat suddenly felt very scratchy.

“She’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen,” he whispered.

Uh-oh.

“Aleksei,” I said soothingly.

“Someone tried to cut her out of you. A creature can’t survive an excision.”

His eyes had shifted straight from a starry night and were glowing, and the veins were standing out in his neck.

And his forehead.

“Honey,” I whispered.

“Your father made her hide. Made her shy. Made her scared.”

I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and reached my other hand for my Palm.

“You need to chill, baby,” I said carefully, slipping my Palm from his fingers since he didn’t give it to me.

“Someone tried to cut her out of you.”

Truth?

I’d wanted to get through this whole family dynamics chat so we could move on to any news he had about all that had been going down. And he had to have news. Every agency in the realm it seemed had a hand in investigating it, and all of them paraded through his penthouse last night, reporting directly to him.


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