Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
She finished her glass and set it on the bench. “I told you what my father planned. I wanted to escape that fate.”
“You told me a story.” He kept his tone even. “The more I see your courage, the less that story fits. Why not resist in Bloodreach? Why not rally others to your side?”
Questions that could be hurled at him about Yrsa. That same heat bit him.
Emilia dropped her head in her hands. “There was no support. Never would be.” He scarcely heard her over the crackling flames.
“I don’t believe you had no one. Not a friend. Not a noble. Not a sibling ally.”
From behind the delicate veil of her fingers, she said, “No one but Nadje.” Emilia raised her head with a swallow. “We don’t have to do this. You’ll never believe me, and I don’t blame you.”
Frustration burgeoned. “You can’t get out of this so easily! I know you keep secrets. Reveal them. After tonight, I’ve earned some trust from you!” He’d nearly gone over the falls for a fucking vampire. Maybe he was as crazy as this one! Anger toward her flared. And anger toward his queen for keeping him mortal. “Make me believe you!”
Pink tears brightened her eyes. “I can’t!”
“Anything, Emilia. Anything.”
When she noticed his clenched fists, she warily stood, tottering on her feet. Her pupils were huge from the vodka and the events of the night.
He forced his fists to uncurl. “Why not stay in Bloodreach and fight?”
“There was no time! I was days away from the crypt and would’ve died down there.”
“Your parents consider you a treasure. A day walker. They didn’t decree your death.” He grated, “Try again.”
“They didn’t but another did,” she finally said. “He told me the crypt could fail. That it had weaknesses.”
“Who?”
She didn’t seem to hear him, lost in memory. “I told you that the sun first hit me after a storm. This was true. I can’t lie.” Her throat worked. “But I did leave out something.”
Arctos hardened himself against some new disclosure.
“I ran for the sun,” she said, voice gone thread thin. “Headlong. Because I believed it would kill me.”
Chapter 35
Lia
“What would make you do that?” Arctos asked evenly—as if they hadn’t just cheated death, as if they weren’t divided by animosities and secrets. “Explain why you would choose to end your life.”
Lia almost retreated from the confession. Would he look down on her for the actions of another? Creepy. Wrong. Family.
Then she caught the flash of turmoil in his eyes and forced herself forward.
“Because I was prey,” she said softly. “And prey runs where the hunter can’t follow. I was so tired, and that ray of light promised many things in my mind.”
“Who was hunting you?”
“Coștin.” His name came foul from her tongue. “He’d chased me before, but that day—I could feel it. More malice. More intent. He told me if he pierced my jugular, my blood might restart his heart. And would probably have killed me.”
Arctos went still. “Your brother, Prince Coștin.”
“Yes.” She swallowed. “He thinks I’m his mate.”
“But he’s been the walking dead since he became immortal in his thirties. That was centuries ago.” Arctos’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t blood him.”
“No. Thank gods. His heart and lungs and other…systems remain as dormant as ever.” When a Bride blooded a male, every part of him resurrected from the deathlike state of his unique vampire immortality. The lust he’d forfeited would surge back all at once—overwhelming and demanding release. The prospect had terrified her. “Coștin believes I’m too young to blood him.”
“That can happen, but it’s rare,” Arctos said, frowning. “Usually only across species.”
“Yes. Even if I had blooded him, that would only mean I’m his fated ideal, not that I’d ever feel the same. He repels me.” She lifted her chin. “I could not despise him more.”
“What happened after?”
“When my father discovered my gift, he valued me enough to forbid Coștin from physically harming me.” A brittle laugh escaped her. “Yet my brother’s gaze followed me. For years I hid in the library or my room. He waited. Then Father conceived of the crypt scheme, and Coștin assumed he would be sealed in with me. When he learned Father intended to sell the spaces instead, he raged. Said the crypt wasn’t invulnerable and that if he couldn’t have me, no one would.” She met Arctos’s gaze. “My choices became clear: leave Bloodreach or die there.”
“Did you tell anyone about the threat?”
“Yes.” The word scraped. “My parents dismissed it. Guards did nothing. Siblings didn’t care or wouldn’t cross the future king.”
Arctos cursed low.
“In the moments when you’ve been decent to me,” she whispered, “guilt strangled me. He will come for me. It’s one reason I left tonight. Because when he does, he’ll kill you because of this ‘marriage.’”
“The fuck he will.” Arctos began to pace, the firelight casting his shadow across the den. “How would he reach you here? You now know what those ravines are like. Enemies have never overcome them.”