Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
My screen lit up again.
Tristan: I know it sucks that he took her memory, but do you really have to do his bidding to get it back? You should get out of here, Charlie. Take your sister and run so far from hell, you reach heaven. Anything she needs to know about her life, you can tell her. But relying on Lucifer...?
Tristan: The king of pride never reneges on a deal. But he also never makes a wager he isn’t sure to win. The minute you sign the contract, you’ve already lost.
I sighed, casting a look at a sleeping Dora. Slowly, I typed my reply.
Me: I can’t take Dora and leave. It’s like you said. Lucifer doesn’t make a wager unless he’s already won, and he’s won this one too.
Me: The bastard has completely hollowed my sister out. The reason she keeps changing my name is because she can’t remember it. It’s like he gave her Fifty First Dates disease. Who I am, where we are, what we’re doing here. None of it sticks in her head for longer than an hour.
Me: How am I supposed to take her back home like this? What kind of life am I returning her to? Dora’s dream is to become a doctor. She fought her way back to life and worked her butt off for four years to make it happen, but who’s going to hire a surgeon who stops in the middle of surgery and goes, “who dis?”
Me: But that’s only if the world has evolved enough since we’ve been away to hire a demon surgeon, and I can make a wager that I’m sure to win too: it hasn’t.
Me: My sister’s the only one who’ll end up on a surgeon’s table—having every part of her undead body dissected.
Me: I just can’t do it, Tristan. Lucifer’s giving me a chance to give Dora her life back. Literally, academically, occupationally, emotionally, and all the other allys. I’ll never be able to look her in the eye again if I only save her body, and leave everything else behind.
Speech bubbles appeared on the screen, heralding Tristan’s reply.
Knock. Knock.
I stilled, my phone nearly slipping through frozen fingers. Who is that? It’s the middle of the night, why would someone be outside my room—?
The knob turned and the door swung open.
Heart leaping into my throat, I snatched up the side table lamp and—
“Argh!”
Ronin stepped inside and raised an eyebrow at my lamp-over-head charge.
I skidded to a stop, nearly colliding into his chest. “What is the matter with you?” I whisper-screamed, shoving away. “Why in the hell are you breaking into my room? Again!”
“What do you mean why?” Ronin was, as always, sinfully gorgeous in a tight blue knit sweater and loose, ripped black jeans. His long hair was wet and curling from a shower. A shower so recent, there were still water droplets clinging to his horns.
Just thinking of him in the tub, soaking himself from head to toe, brought back incredibly unwelcome visions of him in the bath with my hand around his business.
“I’m here because we have unfinished business.”
“We do?”
“We do.” Ronin’s gaze flicked over his shoulder. “I’ve been waiting for your call, but you sure like to draw out a moment, don’t you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your answer is yes.” Ronin closed and locked the door with a snap of his fingers. “You’re accepting my offer and my protection, so let’s get on with the bonding and be done with it.”
I stood there for an entire thirty seconds. I understood everything he just said. Lucifer’s translation magic put it in plain English for me, but somehow, it was still a load of gibberish.
“Dude, what?” I goggled at him. “My answer is not yes. My answer is no. I am not doing that sub bond thing, it’s insane that you’d even ask.”
Part of me expected a bigger reaction to my rejection, but he just cocked a brow.
“Why do you refuse me?” Ronin sounded genuinely curious. “I literally saved your life this morning, and I was the only one to attempt to do so. You would have died if not for my intervention. Do you truly not see you need me?”
His simple statements were daggers through my skin. “I... can’t disagree with you. Connard was going to do something very unpleasant to me, and you stopped him. I’m thankful for that, Belphe, but”—my face changed—“saving someone’s life doesn’t give you the right to turn them into your slave.
“If no one’s told you that before, I’m glad I was the first.”
He hummed, cocking his head. Ronin was looking at me like I was some strange, new thing laid out under a microscope. He was curious, and a bit annoyed, that he hadn’t figured me out already. “It was the wolf, yes? He filled your head with fears and lies, and now you’re denying the most complete protection you’ll ever receive so that you’ll have to continue relying solely on him.” Ronin laughed, shaking his head. “Sly little wolf. He didn’t beat out all the other alphas in his pack for first mating rights for nothing.”