Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
I glare at it. “I am not granting you my dagger. Use your sword.”
“How am I supposed to draw that given our current predicament? Besides, it’s dull.” He waits, his gaze boring into mine. “I’m giving you a choice to be amiable, Annika. You don’t think I could strip you of it if I wanted to?”
“Not if I know you are going to try—”
With a lightning-quick move, Tyree clamps his fist around my wrist.
“No!” I try to wrestle it away, the move bringing him farther on top of me.
“Would you let go so I can—”
I do as asked and the blade falls.
The mortals waiting below jump back with shouts, several uttering words in that foreign tongue as my dagger lands in the grass with a thud. A man rushes forward to collect it.
I assume it’s as good as gone forever.
“Now look what you’ve done,” I complain, acutely aware of Tyree’s weight on me and where my thigh presses between his legs.
“What I’ve done. If you had just—” His jaw clenches. “You are the most obstinate person I have ever had the displeasure of knowing in all my—oof!” His words cut off with a groan of agony as I swiftly lift my knee.
“I’m sorry, what were you saying?” I smile up at him.
He breathes through the pain. “I was trying to see if I could free us. Traps like these are not set for welcomed visitors, and those caught in them aren’t treated well.”
When he says it like that … I study where the net is affixed to the tree above us. “Can you not break that branch with your affinity?” Based on what he displayed earlier, his connection to Aminadav is powerful. Far more so than mine.
He peers over his shoulder to where I’m focused. “Not a bad idea. In this position, you would bear the brunt of the fall.”
“You say that and yet earlier, you dove to protect me from that beam. Do not think I didn’t notice.” I raise my eyebrow in challenge.
“I also conspired to kill your entire family. Did you not notice that?”
That reminder stays my tongue.
Tyree sighs. “On second thought, there is nothing to say breaking that branch will untangle us from this netting before those people attack.”
I angle my head to get a better look below. “That’s a lot of pitchforks,” I agree.
“Even simple farmers can do serious damage under threat. And do you smell that stench in the air?”
“Besides you?” I throw back without thinking, earning his scowl. In truth, Tyree doesn’t smell unpleasant at all—like orange blossoms mixed with clean sweat and seawater. I may not crave his blood anymore, but it still appeals to me. “Yes. What is it?” Besides something foul.
“Burning flesh.”
I shudder. “It has lingered all night.” The crackling flames of the pyres have played as background music.
“It can’t be anything good. And that language they speak—I have never heard it before. Have you?”
I shake my head.
“Perhaps it is a Seacadorian dialect—”
“That is not any dialect of Seacadore. We have enough of them living in our city that I would know.”
“In any case, I prefer our odds up here rather than down there. I think our best plan is to hang until we come up with a better plan.” His gaze drifts over my face, stalling on my mouth.
“Anytime you’d like to move …”
He rolls onto his back, fitting beside me. “Better?”
“Not much.”
He shuts his eyes.
“What are you doing? Sleeping?”
“May as well. Nothing else to do.” He pauses. “Unless you’d like to go back to humping my leg. Our spectators seemed entertained.”
“More like horrified on my behalf.”
“Suit yourself, but I will be well rested.”
My stomach chooses that moment to growl.
“What Princess Annika would do for one of those dreadful sea biscuits now, I imagine,” Tyree muses. “Here, will this help?” He stretches the collar of his tunic to expose the hard lines of his collarbones and the pad of muscle peeking beneath. “You’re welcome to it.” A playful grin touches his lips as he tips his head to the side, his eyes still closed.
Such a thick, columnar neck for a treacherous villain. It’s one of my favorite parts of a male, and it has nothing to do with the pulsing vein that runs through it. Though, that always helped …
Zander chastised me for indulging in blood daily rather than building up a tolerance, and I laughed at him. I’m a royal princess. Why would I deprive myself of such a need, as well as a pleasure?
Since the poison took hold, I saw merit in his scolding. But now, it no longer matters.
It’s not the first time Tyree has taunted me like this, but it’s the boldest. If my thirst for blood hadn’t mysteriously vanished, if I truly were suffering right now, this proximity—an attractive male neck, offered—would be torture after this many days, poison or not.