Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Hang on a minute.
“You’re scheduling an…appointment to speak with me?” I forced out.
“Yes,” he replied.
This was not good.
I grabbed his arm. “Tanyn—”
He pulled free and stated formally, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
With that, he turned from me, and I watched his proud frame walk from the room.
Proud frame.
Proud frame.
Heaven and hellfire, with my idiot comment about sleeping in his bed, I’d not only been thoughtless after an emotional day for Tanyn, I’d crossed the pride of a demon.
In other words, I’d not only screwed up big.
I’d screwed up huge.
This was confirmed when my eyes moved through the room and I saw everyone studiously avoiding my gaze.
Except Nayden, who had dropped the mask of affable buddy and was scowling at me with open distaste.
Definitely screwed up huge.
Crap.
“Catla,” Dad said.
I jumped because he was right at my side.
I looked up at him.
“What’s going on with you and Tanyn?” he asked, his tone gentle, concerned, his expression the same.
And honestly.
I’d had enough.
“When he approached you, did you think, even once, what you’d be asking of me when you signed my life away to a male I barely knew who lived in a realm not my own and came with responsibilities I might not want?” I demanded to know.
“Sweetheart, I understand you’re dealing with many things, but you wound me by asking something like that.”
“In other words, as a male, not only can you not comprehend what you were expecting, you refuse to try.”
He winced.
Maybe that got in there, maybe it didn’t.
It didn’t matter.
I was not finished.
“All right then, I’ll ask, did you think, even once, what you’d be asking of Tanyn in knowing how opposed to this match I’d be?”
“You two have not given it much time.”
“If you’d encouraged him to court me, instead of simply handing me over, we would have had that time without this weight hanging over us.”
“You were very aware this was a possibility,” he reminded me. “This didn’t come out of the blue.”
It did not.
He’d been threatening me with it for ages.
“And yes, Dad, it’s been oh so fun living under that weight too,” I snapped.
And to say I was done was laughable.
I was absolutely and completely done.
So much so, like Tanyn, quite rudely, I marched right out of the room without a word to anybody.
I heard Laura calling me in the hall, but I didn’t even hesitate.
No, in fact, I started moving faster.
I had to, because I was going to lose it. I could feel it. And I didn’t know, when that happened, if the demon would rise up and I’d tear something apart, or the human would come out and I’d sob for hours.
This decision was made for me when I hit the queen’s chambers, which, not incidentally, were attached to the king’s chambers by a narrow sitting room.
This space was decorated in lilac and gray, it was very feminine (whereas the king’s chamber, even decorated in glimmer and light blue, somehow managed to be quite masculine), but I didn’t even look at it.
I strode right through it to the closet.
“Lights, one hundred percent,” I ordered.
The lights came on and I stood in that cavernous area which had not been divided into two, and my things were there, taking up a paltry amount of space, looking forlorn and lost.
Or maybe it was me who was forlorn and lost.
“Cat,” Laura said from behind me.
I turned, took in her beautiful, beloved, worried face, and that was when the decision hit me.
I moved to her, collapsed in her arms and started weeping.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered, holding me close. “I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know you’ve been going through so much.”
“He-he moved me out of his room be-because I’m a moron,” I sobbed into her neck.
She held on tighter. “It’s going to be okay.”
Maybe it was.
Maybe it wasn’t.
But at that moment, all I could think about was everything.
My gallery. My flat. The coffee spot on the corner that had the fabulous chocolate pistachio croissants I loved to eat with a latte and a book, my Sunday morning ritual that was just for me.
Laura. Gayle. Mon. Mom and Dad.
Chelta’s Boutique, where I always found something perfect to buy.
Bash being a dick. Me probably sabotaging every relationship I’d ever had.
Sigil. Zyra. Mangold. Hurley (where was Hurley, anyway?). Avie. The lynx kits. Darynda. The cove. The window seat in Tanyn’s room there. The view. The tester bed I wanted to buy for Tanyn.
This castle. His perfect bedchamber. Not to mention closet. Hells, this perfect bedchamber.
The queen’s study, my study (also perfect). Sitting at the foot of the table to his head.
His mom. His dad.
Trolls.
Murder.
Traitorous plots.
And Tanyn.
All things Tanyn.
While I cried, Laura helped me out of my clothes and boots, into a nightgown, onward to the bathroom where she shoved the Denti-Clean in my mouth, and when that was done, the spa-visor on my face.