Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
And tears were falling down her cheeks to see it, the beauty of the man distorted just enough to confuse.
Jacques followed where Jules led her, pressing to the bars and glass so his Omega could see him. “Brenya, let me touch you. Tell him you need me now. We have an agreement, he and I. All you have to do is ask for me. Just ask.” Said with a growing, desperate smile, the Alpha trying so hard to fit his fingers through the too-small holes to reach out for her. To make contact.
An impossible feat.
Jules ushered her to the table—one set with crystal goblets, with golden silverware, with china. A smaller table set up in Jacques’s cell, butted up together. A setup that gave the appearance of one long family table. The glass and the bars bisecting the white tablecloths.
A mirror.
Though Jacques had no crystal, no golden cutlery. He had no food. He had no cup.
No utensils.
Strange.
The lack of symmetry was very disturbing.
And it made her feet catch as Brenya was shuffled into a comfortable chair, one leg tripping over the other. But Jules was careful, guiding the staggered female anyway, Jacques scrambling, lightly limping to the vacant chair in his cell, so they could be seated together as if this were some state dinner.
He didn’t even growl, snarl, or take his eyes off of her for a moment when Jules took the seat across from him.
If it were not for the glass, Jacques would be able to hold her hand, to feed her. They were that close.
And the Alpha stared at Brenya like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. Stared. “I ordered this particular breakfast for you. Dishes I know you enjoy. Please, please eat the food, mon chou. I need to see you eat it.”
But one chair was empty. The seat across from her.
The tables were set for four.
That was Lucia’s seat.
It had to be. The Omega noticeably absent.
But Brenya couldn’t find it in herself to have an opinion on the missing female. How could she when the symmetry of the glass iris crammed in Jacques’s head was wrong? The eye was wrong. It was not blue enough. It did not move as it should.
Her mind dissecting every detail in a way that made the Alpha self-conscious.
Yet he smiled at her with such tenderness. “Brenya, you need some water. I know you like me to hold the cup to your lips, but I can’t reach you. Lift up your glass and take a sip. Go on. You’ll feel better with a drink.”
She obeyed mechanically, suddenly very aware of just how thirsty she really was. Large gulps as she fought the ice, satisfied, the Omega draining the glass as she stared at the Alpha over the rim of her goblet.
“I would reach forward and take your hand if I could. I would warm your fingers. But I can’t. Feel me anyway. I’m with you. I’m right here. You don’t need to be scared anymore.”
What? What was he talking about? Her thoughts couldn’t move from a single concept. Mind throbbing, she muttered, “He cut out your eye.”
Softly, Jacques offered, “It doesn’t hurt.”
“He’s taken your depth perception…” At long last, a quick blink. Only one. Her attention darting to his right hand. “And your trigger finger.” Cutting a glance to the left hand. “And your…?”
Why take that finger? What purpose did it serve? And what was hidden under those loose-hanging, opulent clothes?
He’d limped.
“Brenya.” It was Jules now, Jules leaning toward her, warming her ear with his breath. “How many spoons are on the table?”
An automatic, easy answer that did not require her to look away from the Alpha. “Three. You did not give him a spoon. And technically, his table is separate.”
Jules again. “How many tiles in the ceiling?”
Another thing she knew. She just knew. No need to look, the answer was just built into her brain. “Twenty-seven and one vent. The standard layout for a room of this size in this building.”
“Is the cell sound?”
“Today.” Because everything in the Dome required constant maintenance. And given time, maybe even centuries, the amorphous metal, the glass, would run and wobble. Though those bars were going nowhere.
Lifting the cover away from Brenya’s meal, Jules made conversation with his prisoner. “When I was your guest, my sweet wife here broke into my cell and tried to set me free. Didn’t you, Brenya? Poured herself into the room through an air vent like that one. But your cell, she cannot get into it. Not that way. There are no vents on your side of the room.”
Anger washed over that almost-perfect face of an Alpha, darkening the one living eye as Jacques lowered his chin to his chest and glared at his mate as if she’d committed a great crime. “You did what?”
And that’s all it took to snap her out of the fixation, to make her cheeks heat with shame… as if she’d been caught doing something naughty. As if she was to be written up for a reprimand.