Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 18893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 94(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 63(@300wpm)
The strange man is gone. There’s nobody behind me. Nobody at all. The bustling sidewalks and streets are completely empty.
Where did they go? They were all just there.
Before I can scream, a hand comes from behind me and wraps around my throat.
I try to run, twisting away from his hand, but it doesn’t work. I only make it a few steps before his hand is around my throat again, and his other hand is on my shoulder. The world becomes gray, all shades of it blurred.
He crowds me against a wall. Cold bricks press roughly into my back. My bag from the shop falls to the sidewalk. I hear it land with a crumpling sound, but I barely hear or see anything. All I can do is feel. He leans down over me, his body blocks the view of the empty street, and the darkness in his eyes terrifies me.
His hand comes back to my jaw, and I can’t look away. Caught in his stare.
“You will come to me,” he says. His voice is deep and almost seductive. So much different from what I imagined.
“No,” I gasp, although it’s so hard to breathe and even more difficult to stand. What happened to me? Tears prick as I murmur, “What have you done?”
His breath warms my neck and makes me shiver more deeply than the chills that have followed me for months in Edinburgh.
My body falls heavy, as do my eyelids. I attempt to question, to accuse, but everything is weak.
“You aren’t supposed to be here.” After the words have warmed my skin, he presses his lips to the same spot. The kiss is soft but almost familiar. I tip my head against the bricks, sensation lighting me up all down my body.
The next gasp that escapes my lips is almost a moan. Confusion fills me, but it can’t push out the tingling in my skin and the heat between my legs. I should be frozen with fear, but my body wants to arch into this demon’s touch to get more of it. I’m shocked at myself. I’m shocked that this is how my body is reacting when my worst fears are coming true.
It must be a nightmare. None of this is real.
It doesn’t feel real.
“Leave me alone.” I barely manage, my words coming out as if slurred.
His eyes widen slightly, but then they narrow again, his dark gaze searing into mine.
“You will come with me,” he repeats, slowly and clearly, stressing every word. My heart races even faster. “It is too dangerous for you here.”
“No.” I grit my teeth, refusing to let any tears escape though my eyes burn with more.
He looks into my eyes, then takes my wrist in his other hand. He lifts it into the light, turning it at different angles until the scar shows clearly and neither of us can ignore it.
“And what is this?” the demon asks, as if we’re in a debate that he intends to win.
I jerk my wrist out of his grasp and press it tight to my chest, angling myself away from him.
“No.” I back up a few steps. “That’s none of your business, and I’m—”
“You already belong to me.”
I open my mouth to say no, and my back hits a wall.
The wall shouldn’t be there. Nothing comes from my lips but a gasp, and then I’m falling into the dark.
CARLISLE
Nightshade kept her sleeping. Her falling prey to its venom was tortuous, and I don’t care to think about what she's said nor what she’s done without me beside her in this realm.
Holding her close to me is a balm to my pain.
I wonder if she sees terrors in her sleep that would compete with the nightmares that linger in the underworld. Her cream silk nightgown would cover her body in modesty, but I’ve draped a throw blanket from her sofa around her frame as one would a babe. Both to keep her warm in the depths of the underworld we must venture, and also to disguise her and keep what has happened from prying eyes as best I can.
A coil and a single strand of hair were required from each of us. I give them willingly as I’ve done so many times before. Past lifetimes and each time, I waited for her to meet Hermes and bring her to the river Styx. The memories flick through my mind as I hold her soft curves close, and Charon, the ferryman, takes us from the land of the dead to the river’s bank.
The lights of the underworld, all the hells and heavens.
With Hades’ guard on my left and Asphodel Fields in front of me, I head toward the guard located just before the three judges, bypassing the field that makes you forget.
It was part of my punishment. I’ve done this so many times. But never with her in my arms.