Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Was she somehow slipping back and forth between remembering who she was and not?
I managed to hold her still. “Who am I?”
Poppy thrashed wildly, refusing to answer.
“Look at me,” I demanded, feeling the air charge with eather. “Damn it, look at me, Poppy!”
Her eyes snapped open, revealing that dull crimson again. She started to turn her head.
Dropping her hand, I gripped her chin. “You know who I am. You just said so. And you know I love you. That you’re just as much my everything as I am to you.”
Poppy blinked several times, finally calming in my arms. The crimson streaks in her eyes faded away once more. “Cas…”
“That’s my Queen.” My smile was immediate, but I felt little relief. “Can you tell me what just happened?”
“I saw—” Poppy reared back, another scream leaving her before she clenched her jaw shut.
Cursing under my breath, I laid her out once more since that had seemed to help last time. Her jaw clenched as she twisted sideways, bringing her knees against my legs and trying to curl up. The raw anguish coming from her seared my soul like a branding iron.
A frantic sort of desperation fisted in my chest as I folded my hand around hers. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”
Sweat beaded on her forehead. “I…I hurt.”
An ache that was all mine gripped my chest. Taking a bone dagger there was less painful than the sight of Poppy in such pain. “I know, sweetheart.”
“Sweetheart?” she gasped. “You…you’ve never called me that before.”
“I know.” A shaky laugh left me. “It kind of just came out.”
“I…I like it.” She panted, lashes fluttering.
“Then I will make sure I say it again,” I promised, my breath ragged. “Can you tell me what hurts?”
“Everything,” she whispered.
“That kills me to hear. It really does.” I gently brushed my fingers over her shoulder as my mind raced for a way to help her. “We can get you something to take for the pain. Medicine.” I glanced back at Reaver. “Would that work on her?”
He stared at her, a curtain of hair shielding his profile. “I don’t know. The only time I’ve seen a Primal in such pain was due to a physical wound. And with that, it’s usually feeding or going into stasis.”
That wasn’t much, but it was something. “She didn’t get enough blood.” A smidgen of hope blossomed as I brushed several hair strands back from her face. “Poppy, you need to feed—”
“No.”
“It could take the pain away.” I bent over her, tucking some hair behind her ear once more. “It could help.”
“You…can’t allow that.”
“Poppy—”
Her eyes snapped open as she clutched my arm. “There’s something—” Her features contorted with agony, her nails digging into my skin. “There’s something wrong with me.”
My heart lurched at the tremor in her voice. “We’ll figure out whatever it is and fix it. Together.”
“It’s not…safe.” Her eyes opened to thin slits. “You need to stay away from me.”
“That, I cannot do.”
“I’m sorry,” Poppy whispered and then inhaled deeply. “I love you.”
A heartbeat later, the air crackled with essence. Without warning, she wrenched herself free, and my ass was skidding backward across the stone. So was Reaver.
“Fuck.” I grunted, popping to my feet the moment she let up. I’d ended up clear across the chamber.
Poppy was on her feet in an instant, and those blotches of silver churned around her pupils as the streaks of gold and thin bands of crimson brightened. Those weren’t the only changes, though.
Along the swells of her breasts, gold-and-silver shadows blossomed under her skin. I watched them spread across her shoulders and climb up her throat, just as I’d seen them move in my flesh earlier.
“I…I don’t want…to hurt you,” she rasped, the crimson streaks dulling and then brightening in her eyes.
I blinked. “I know.”
A wave of burning-cold power drenched the chamber as she twisted her neck to the side. The essence in my blood stirred frantically in response while Reaver let out a low, staggered growl.
The air charged and crackled. Lightning flashed outside, briefly turning the chamber silver. The shadows raced down her arms as the streaks of red brightened in her eyes. “I will…kill you.”
“No.” I shook my head, squaring my shoulders. “You won’t.”
She went utterly still. Not even her chest moved. Then, her lips curled into a thin smile. “You can’t stop me.”
My entire body recoiled at the sound of her voice. It was all kinds of wrong—thready and brittle like dried bones and as cold as the darkest cell.
That smile wasn’t hers.
The voice wasn’t hers.
But she was in there.
That much I knew.
Latching onto that knowledge, I stalked forward. “You won’t allow yourself to hurt me.”
Poppy’s laugh felt like ice against my skin, but I didn’t stop. Her head—her body—moved in an almost serpentine manner as she straightened. The essence in me pulsed more frantically—
Reaver crashed into me a second before the chamber flashed an intense gold and silver. We both hit the floor.