Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 27900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 140(@200wpm)___ 112(@250wpm)___ 93(@300wpm)
The two plummet as my stomach sinks and then they crash hard into the water, making a giant splash as they disappear down below.
It feels like an eternity goes by as I wait there with my chest burning for him to come up.
“Oh thank God!” I whisper when I see his human head emerge from the water. But my spirits get kicked back down when Aylwin’s human head emerges as well.
Ethan’s protective eyes search me out and then lock onto me when he sees me standing on the balcony in front of his burning house. He starts swimming in a full sprint toward me as Aylwin follows close behind.
I run down to the water to meet him, but he’s shaking his head in a panic as he runs up onto the shore, waving me away. “No! Run, Chloe! Run!”
He’s naked in the waist-deep water and there are long claw marks along his chest that are seeping out blood. I don’t want to leave him. If he dies then I want to die too. I don’t want to be on this planet without him.
“I’m not leaving you,” I tell him and the look on his face is half love, half disappointment. Love that I’m staying with him until the end no matter what and disappointment that the end for both of us might be soon.
The look doesn’t last long because he turns around just as Aylwin leaps onto him. Ethan catches him in the air, turns, and slams him into the water. I wince as Ethan throws devastating punches that land with hard thuds.
Aylwin wraps his arm around Ethan’s leg and pulls him down and I scream as he disappears underwater. I grab a baseball-sized rock from the shore and throw it at Aylwin with all my might. It hits him in the head and he turns to me with a vicious sneer.
“You’re hardly worth all of this trouble,” he hisses at me. “Once I kill your mate in front of you, I’ll bend you over to see what’s got this bear all worked up. I hardly doubt even that will be worth any of this.”
Ethan leaps out of the water, grabs Aylwin by the neck, and snarls in his face. “That’s the last time you talk to my mate!”
Aylwin’s eyes go wide as Ethan chokes the air out of him. His hands start clawing at Ethan’s wrist in desperation as my protective mate starts to punch him in the face with his free hand.
The sound of a firetruck siren fills the air and gets louder by the second. I turn to run back and meet them, but my body freezes when I see the house engulfed in flames.
It doesn’t matter, I tell myself as my hands begin to shake. All that matters is we survive and end up together.
I grit my teeth and start sprinting to meet the truck. The heat from the flames is so intense that some of the trees around the house have caught on fire as well.
“What happened?” the fire chief asks as he jumps down from the rolling truck. “Where’s Ethan?”
“Come!” I shout in a desperate tone as I run back to the lake. The four of them run after me.
“Is this chick a pyromaniac or something?” I hear one of them ask another as we run.
I guess that’s fair. Every time they see me, I am surrounded by fire.
“Oh shit,” one of them says as we run past the house. “Is that a dragon shifter I smell.”
“In the lake,” I shout as I point to where Ethan and Aylwin are exchanging devastating blows. Aylwin is free from Ethan’s chokehold and is getting the upper hand. I hate that I’m the cause of all this.
The four firefighters run into the water and jump on top of my old boss. Violent waves ripple out from the brawl as the four guys each grab a limb and hold Aylwin down.
Ethan steps up to him, breathing hard and looking mean as hell. His flexed shoulders are hunched up and his arms look impossibly jacked as he bears down on the man who dared to touch his mate.
“You never touch a mated girl,” Ethan hisses as he stands over him. “Especially mine.”
I turn away with a wince as my protector grabs a hold of his head and breaks his neck.
Aylwin slumps down into the water dead.
It’s over. Almost.
There’s still a fire to put out.
The boys run back to the truck to take care of Ethan’s house as he comes up to me looking bloody and bruised and sexier than ever.
“You nearly died for me,” I tell him as he comes up to me, towering over my body. “You killed for me.”
“I’d do anything for you,” he says in a voice that’s full of love and tenderness. “You’re my girl, peaches. Nothing else matters but you.”