Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
“Okay now.” Hadriel tore me out of my focus. “Let’s go over how we keep you on this horse, shall we? You’re going to hold me around the middle, but don’t hold too tightly or the alpha will freak out. Definitely don’t grab my cock. I wouldn’t really mind, but the alpha would. Tweaking my nipple a little would be great, but only when he’s not looking.”
I spit out an unexpected laugh.
“Oh good, you have a sense of humor. This will go swimmingly.”
I did hold him too tightly. I clutched onto him like I would fall to my death at any moment. We were just so high up and it all felt so unsteady. At one point, the animal stubbed its toe or something. It had jolted forward, as though ready to tumble or buck or roll over. I didn’t know which, all I knew was that I was halfway off its back and ready to dive to my safety before being crushed under its dancing hooves.
Hadriel had been able to steady the animal and grab me simultaneously, hauling me back up. I’d nearly crawled across his back when I’d been righted, only then noticing Weston not far away, his eyes filled with murder.
“I’ve got her, sir,” Hadriel had said jovially. “Just a little slip is all. We’re all fine here. She’ll get the hang of it.”
He didn’t say a word, just about-faced and headed back to his horse. He must’ve hopped off and run back when I was struggling to jump or climb back on or just throw up the white flag in defeat.
Before he’d re-mounted, he bent to pick something up. A brief flash of what it was had my blood boiling.
One of my journals. My private thoughts, ransacked from my home.
Taking me was one thing, but that sort of flagrant violation of privacy was another completely. Worse, in the hour or so we’d been traveling, he had hardly come up for air. He’d looked up once, to spy something in the trees, and then went right back to reading all of my most intimate thoughts as though hating to tear his focus away.
My insides shriveled in embarrassment. In rage.
There had to be a way to find out where he stashed those things and burn them all. Maybe I could arrange to do it when he was knocked out cold in the same vicinity. I had a product that would put him into a deep sleep, I just had to get to it.
Chapter 13
Weston
“It should be you who is riding with her,” my animal accused, my heart still racing as I swung my foot up and over the saddle. “It should be you she is clinging onto. You who teaches her to ride. It’s your duty.”
“This is my duty,” I said, getting underway and flipping open the third journal so far. I was flying through them, finding most of the entries about her life, her day, the people around her.
“Trespassing in her thoughts?”
“Skimming these pages and finding out what she knows.”
“Skimming.” His laugh held no humor. “Is that what it’s called when you go back and read a passage for the third time?”
I flexed and unflexed my fingers before opening to the page I’d left off on. Instead of reading right away, though, I looked out to the side. He was right, of course. I wasn’t skimming, not even hardly. I’d meant to, I’d tried to . . . but I just couldn’t stop myself from reading every single word, sometimes two and three times, feeling the moment through her thoughts, feeling rage well up at each slight she’d endured. If I’d known how her co-worker had treated her, I would’ve killed him when I’d had the chance. Alexander was a fucking dead man. I’d make it slow, too. He’d feel every ounce of fear he’d caused her. He’d feel more pain than he could believe was possible. And then I’d throw him to the dragons to drop his broken carcass from a great height, filling his final moments with terror. That childhood sweetheart turned almost-friend would’ve been chased away easily, Aurelia clearly too naive to realize he was looking for the courage to make her his sidepiece. And Granny . . .
Rage tinted the edges of my vision red. There were no words.
It was clear Aurelia had held her up on some sort of pedestal. Granny had taken her in at the tender age of twelve and apparently saved her life. Aurelia had been on the run. From what, I didn’t know. She’d been starved, though, that much I’d gathered. Scared, near death. No one would open their home to a dirty, magic-less shifter, not even a child. Or so Aurelia had thought. I couldn’t believe that was the case, but that was the reality as she’d known it. It was the reality Granny had certainly allowed the girl to believe. Manipulating her must’ve been a cinch, especially with the way the village of small-minded people stuck in their ways treated her.