Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 53656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53656 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 268(@200wpm)___ 215(@250wpm)___ 179(@300wpm)
“You have to get Mom off the island,” she said again. “They've already taken Warrick.”
“Not until you assure me without a doubt where your allegiance lies.”
“I told you I was compelled,” she said, but her brother wasn't having any of it. She rolled her eyes, looking completely annoyed and irritated. “Fine,” she said. “You know the king's little human recently turned vampire mate?”
No. No she wouldn't—
“Her blood is rare,” she continued, and I swear my heart broke into a million painful shards. “One so rare it's invaluable. It offers a weapon against what you and your new allies have been working on. She can heal almost anything. Including Night Thistle poisoning and more.”
“She's a remedial?” he asked, shock rippling down his body.
“Yes,” she confirmed.
I felt like I was dying. Not because of the iron, but because of how easily I’d been fooled by her. How much it hurt for my heart to break.
A heart that I had entrusted to her without even me realizing I’d done it.
She may as well have driven a dagger straight through my heart.
I was such a fucking idiot.
“We'll have to eradicate her,” Edward said, looking like he was talking more to himself than anyone else.
“If you're not going to leave, you should at least get Mom somewhere safe. I told you I was sent here as a distraction—”
Edward backhanded her so hard her head snapped to the left, and even though my heart was broken, I hissed and growled like the animal I was. Even though she'd betrayed me and hurt me, some ridiculous primal instinct inside me couldn't stand seeing her hurt.
“That's for being weak enough to allow yourself to be compelled by the king.” He grabbed her shoulders and forced her into the nearest chair. “You sit the fuck there and don't move until I come back. I'll deal with you once I secure this piece of hunter trash.”
He stomped over to me, gripping the iron chains with his leather gloves, dragging me down the hallway like I really was nothing but a piece of garbage.
I couldn't even fight.
There was so much iron covering my body.
“Don't look so sad, hunter,” he snapped at me. “I'm keeping you alive, for now. Just in case I need to use you as leverage.”
He dragged me down a set of stairs, my head hitting against the hard wooden steps with each descent. The concrete was cold and damp on my back, and the creak of iron bars groaned open before he shoved me into a cell and locked the bars behind me.
There were no less than six of his vampire guards down here, all armed to the teeth, but with the force in which he had thrown me into the cell, at least some of the iron had fallen off. I quickly moved as far away from it as possible, only to run into another set of iron bars.
I hissed, but tried to hold on to my bearings.
“If he so much as tries to escape,” Edward commanded his guards. “Put a Night Thistle bullet through his heart. He’s important, but not enough that I want him kept alive if he gets out of that cage.”
The guard's nodded, and Edward disappeared up the stairs again.
My entire body shook, and I heaved up what little blood I'd been able to eat earlier. My magic felt like it'd been locked away in an iron box that I couldn’t access, but I tried anyway. Tried hard as hell to shift into something small that could slip through these bars and get back to where I was needed.
But I couldn’t reach it. The connection was dead.
And I felt like I wasn’t far behind.
CHAPTER 16
Cassandra
My heart raced in my chest, panic bleeding into every single thought racing through my mind.
I'd had to think quickly. Even though it’d nearly killed me to do so, I’d had to play the role I'd been raised to play. The emotionless, royal-ladder-climbing daughter of Zorin.
Talon’s look of utter betrayal and hurt had nearly brought me to my knees, that connection between us throbbing and burning with the way he’d believed my lies so easily. I felt it down that mating bond that he didn't even know existed yet, but when it came to saving him? I wasn't ashamed to say that I would give up anything. Including that secret about Lyric. The one I knew would ensure Edward trusted me.
I would have to pay for that sin later.
“I’ve secured the hunter in the dungeons,” Edward said as he returned to where I hadn't moved from my chair. “He’ll be a fine tool for questioning,” he continued, a sense of accomplishment radiating through his cold eyes. He slid his hands into the jacket pockets of his suit, and looked down at me curiously. “I can't imagine being compelled by the king,” he said, though there was no sympathy in his eyes. “Lucky for you, I returned home.”