Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Calm down. I needed to calm down. I’m not there. I’m being foolish. I’m not there.
Managing to take a deep enough breath, I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. “I’m okay.” I was. “I’m fine.”
Ash didn’t respond, and the silence drove my eyes open.
He was on the edge of the couch, frozen as if he had been in the process of standing. His right hand was on the arm, his knuckles bleached white.
My chest rose and fell with a ragged breath, and I could’ve sworn his chest did the same.
“You’re okay?” he said, the skin of his chest thinning.
I nodded, pressing my shaking hands to my hips.
His throat worked on a swallow. “What just happened?”
“Nothing.” I took another step back and turned halfway to the table, staring at the overturned glass. “You didn’t hurt me or anything—”
“I know I didn’t hurt you.” Ash had gone completely still. “I also know that wasn’t nothing.”
I stared harder at the glass.
“You smelled lilacs. Stale lilacs,” he continued, his voice low. “That is what death—true death—smells like.”
The temperature around me plummeted, and I swung my head back to him.
“That is what Kolis smells like.”
A shudder went through me, and I forced myself to move. I started toward the table. “Yeah, he does.”
His body trembled, too. “Sera…”
My skin stretched tight as I reached for the fallen glass. “What?”
“Talk to me,” he said. “Please.”
I swallowed, my heart squeezing. My hand was still shaking as I righted the glass. “About what?”
“About what you’re feeling right now.”
“I’m feeling kind of tired right now,” I answered, forcing a yawn. “Shouldn’t we be sleeping?”
“Sera.”
Feeling backed into a corner, I reacted like any caged animal. “What?” I snapped. “What do you want me to say? I freaked out for a minute. It’s no big deal.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“You’re acting as if it is!” The wall sconces flickered as essence rose, but I wasn’t sure if he or I did it.
“I don’t mean to,” he said, his voice softer. Calmer. “I’m sorry if I did.”
Gods, my heart hurt as if his apology had been a dagger plunged straight into it. “You have nothing to apologize for.” I moved away from the table and bent to pick up my robe. Once it was in my hands, I had no idea what to do with it, so I simply held it. “I’m just tired, Ash. That is all.”
There was a stretch of silence and then he said, “Do you remember the cavern I took you to so you could clean up?”
His question caught me off guard enough that I turned to him. He’d let go of the arm of the couch. “Yes.”
His skin had stopped thinning. “I told you then that I know it’s still you.”
I froze.
“You didn’t need to remind me that it was still you,” he said, his body still on the edge of the couch. “I know it’s still you, no matter what has happened.”
Pressure descended onto my chest, and all I could hear for a moment was the pounding of my heart. “Nothing happened, though.”
His eyes slammed shut as he twisted his head to the side.
“I told you that before.” My grip tightened on the robe. “Kolis didn’t—”
“And I told you before that I know better.” His head whipped to the front, and his flesh thinned once more. Shadows began blossoming on his chest, spinning at a rapid, dizzying speed. “I felt your anger. Every time I was conscious, I felt your pain. I felt your—” He inhaled sharply. “I felt your desperation.”
The floor felt like it was moving beneath my feet. I hadn’t forgotten any of that. I’d just refused to allow myself to think about how he had clawed at his flesh to get to me. That he knew, even though I pretended he didn’t.
“He took from you,” Ash seethed, and those four words fell like frozen rain against my skin. A sheen of white frost appeared at the corners of the walls. “He took your blood.”
“I told you I stopped him.”
“You stopped him that time.” His head twisted again, the tendons in his neck standing out. “Please do not lie to me, Sera. You don’t need to.”
I shook.
“Don’t you understand that?” His gaze swung back to mine. Eather crackled from his irises. “I know.”
I jerked. “Know what?”
Frost spread over the wall, crackling. “I know how he is. I know exactly what he is capable of. And I know what he did to others he put in those cages.”
I stiffened as my mind flashed from the things in the chest to how Kolis’s throne was set so he had a perfect view of the bed. I thought about the chains. The chair by the bathing tub. How he’d displayed me. How he’d offered me to Kyn. How he’d found release as he held me to him, feeding from me. The stitches of the robe loosened beneath my fingers as I took another step back. Gods, I could feel the…the dampness even now.