Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84072 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Good idea.” The male attendant beamed like it wasn’t kidnapping. “Let’s go dump the other body in the water. She’s hateful today, which means she’s hungry.”
“When is she not hungry?”
They both laughed at their shared joke and flipped off the light, leaving the room even darker than before.
“D-did they just say… she’s hungry? As in, there’s something in the water that eats people?”
Dread trickled down my spine. “That’s how he’s doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Jasper,” I said through clenched teeth. “He’s feeding the bodies to the Sea Witch.”
“Whoa, back up. We have a Sea Witch?”
“I tell you that you’re Fae and dream walk with you, and you’re weirded out by the Sea Witch?”
“Ursula, or whatever she’s called, literally lives in the cove. How is that not creepier than your blue flame?”
“Valid point, brother,” Aengus’s hushed voice sounded. “Also, you’re not going to believe what I found after some recon in Jasper’s room.”
I opened the door, letting Luna out first. I was almost ashamed that I had to hold my breath when she walked by so I didn’t press her against the wall and take what I yearned for so badly.
“Well, if it’s as creepy as what we found down here…” Luna moved past the staircase and started unstrapping the girl from the table.
“Luna, what are you doing?” I hissed.
“Saving her life, you asshole, now help me.”
With a sigh, I undid the ankle straps and picked the small, frail body in my arms, smelling the life pounding through her body. Her heart had a heavy cadence that screamed alive.
“Aengus, grab the serum.” I jerked my head back.
Aengus grabbed what he could and then helped Luna up the stairs while I followed. My own heart continued breaking in my chest.
I’d been back at the cove for hundreds of years.
I’d owned that orphanage for almost as long.
Had Jasper been using these children the whole time?
Or just recently?
Guilt ate away until it felt like my heart was missing. I’d helped the children because I knew what it was like to be alone—but through my helping, I hadn’t saved anyone.
I’d damned them to an even worse fate.
And the person I trusted most in the world—had done it.
I laid the girl down on the couch in front of the fire in the library and pulled a blanket over her. She didn’t stir, though her chest continued to rise and fall with her breaths. “They must have given her a sedative.”
Luna grabbed her hand and sat next to her. “It’s going to be okay.”
She would have been an incredible mother.
Will be.
Damn it.
I looked away. It was too painful to see what I thought would be my future, knowing that our baby was dead and that I had killed them both.
“Did you know Jasper has a daughter?” Aengus put his feet back up on my coffee table like an absolute savage.
My head jerked up. “A daughter? Are you sure? He’s never mentioned her before.”
“Oh yeah, found her picture. Her age was written on the back. And then I found several more hidden pictures with them together smiling.”
I shook my head. “Why keep that from me? We’re practically family.”
“Why indeed?” Aengus shrugged. “If you have a daughter, why would you take children? Why would you test on them?”
Luna gasped. “I saw him in the forest last week, he was acting… strange, but he was clearly going somewhere. Are there any houses on the other side of the cove?”
“No.” I frowned. “Well, unless you count the old doctor’s office, but that was turned into a long-term care hospital years ago—”
“Shit.” Aengus got there at about the time we did. “His daughter’s sick, I guarantee it.”
“He’s trying to find a cure.” Luna’s voice shook. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. And he’s using the orphanage as his own little science experiment.”
A sudden pain hit me in the chest as the ring in my pocket seemed to burn through the fabric of my jeans.
I clenched my teeth. “No.”
“Benjamin?” Luna jumped to her feet. “Are you okay?”
Aengus held out his hand to keep her from moving toward me. Shaking, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ring. It had finally turned red.
I was too late.
I’d been around her too much.
Or maybe I’d just been shit at controlling myself.
“Oh hell, horrible timing, I mean really… horrible,” Aengus muttered just as Luna locked onto the red ruby in my hands.
Her ruby.
The one that held all her power, all her memories—all her pain.
The final part of our curse—she would feel it all, and then she would die.
She could no sooner refuse the ring than I could refuse the orcas as they watched me dig it up.
I was compelled to find the ring.
She was compelled to wear it.
We were compelled to die knowing nothing but the sheer pain of never getting a happy ending, never having a family, knowing true love for days, and getting it ripped away.