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)
And guilt. There was so much guilt.
But that all changed when Alek called me into his study last night and asked me if I would do this for him. I’d thought he’d called me in there to finally kill me for one grievance or another, the least of which being the spawn of a traitorous family. One that I now had to reintegrate myself into as if I’d never left.
The trembling increased so much that my hands shook, and I had to ring them together to make it stop. I may be an immortal vampire who looked like a perfectly carved statue on the outside, but I was capable of fear. And the fear of facing my mother was unmatched.
Everyone here always spoke about my brothers, or my father, but if anyone cared to look past my mother's elegance and charm, they would know where the true evil lay.
A lifetime of memories swirled like a churning storm in my mind, and I had to sit down on the bed, the motion causing my suitcase to tip over just slightly.
Shadow shifted from her resting spot on the bed, moving to place her heavy head in my lap. I stroked her silken fur, silently thanking her for the comfort.
My entire body shook as memories combated with the very real present. I was no longer a youngling being held at the mercy of my parents. I was a grown female, with strength and status of my own. She could not starve me into submission if I misbehaved. She could not throw me in that godsforsaken closet of hers if I showed anything other than the excellence the Zorin name demanded.
My stomach churned at the memory of that closet—the one coated in Night Thistle-laced paint. The cramped room sucked the life and power from any vampire locked inside. I remembered more details about that closet than my bedroom in my familial home.
And now I was going back.
I swore I’d never sleep under that roof again. Swore I’d never allow myself to be locked inside the mansion that held so many terrors for me. So many demands, so many agendas. Ideologies that were forced down my throat until I numbly echoed the same sentiment, lest I be punished in unspeakable ways.
But for my brother, for Warrick, the one I knew without a doubt was good at heart, I would do anything.
And yes, part of me was doing this to win favor back with the king—not from any ridiculous notions of affection, but to pay for the sins I’d committed.
I stopped petting Shadow, my shaky fingers absently tracing the marred skin where I’d burned off Alek’s mating mark. The mark my father had inked on my skin while my mother held me down. I’d screamed and fought every second.
“He already has affections for you,” my father had said. “He'll see this mark, and everything will fall into place. It will give him the last shove he needs to know that you're the one. And after you are married, the real mating mark will show up or it won't. Either way, you’ll be a queen, and our family will finally be where we deserve.”
I clenched my eyes shut at the sound of my father's voice ringing in my head. He was in there so often it made me sick. But it wasn’t half as frequent as my mother's. Even years of separation hadn’t erased the decades of torture I received from their hands.
Warrick and I had somehow managed to snap out of the rigid upbringing that they’d put us through. But Edward? I feared there’d be no saving him. He’d always clung to my father's harsh ways, never once showing an ounce of compassion like Warrick had whenever things got particularly rough for me. And they were often particularly rough, being the lone Zorin female who gave my parents a chance at the throne they so thirsted for.
I'd often thought about doing something drastic to ensure they never got what they wanted, just to spite them—if I didn’t exist, then neither did their shot at an alliance with the king or royal court. But even in my darkest moments, I’d never had the courage to actually step into the sunlight.
Going home somehow seemed more dangerous than that.
And yet here I was, packing my bags and trying to reinforce my mental shields in order to get through what would surely be the death of me. If not by my mother's hands, then that of the hunter who’d been assigned to accompany me. Posing as my darling Shadow, no less.
I pet her again, relishing the soft vibrations of her deep sleep at the foot of the bed. Shadow had been my only companion beyond Warrick for the last three years. I'd saved her as a cub on the black market from some heinous noble who was going to raise her just to feed from her, buying into some ridiculous myth that doing so would increase his stamina and power.