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)
Not only because I both feared and loathed her, but because of her archaic practices.
We'd gone two weeks with no information, almost hitting the three-month mark of enduring this mission and I wasn't sure how much longer I could go on.
“No, you're absolutely right,” Mother said, putting down her crystal goblet and rising from the table. “The heart truly never does forget, does it?”
I did my best to watch her with a casual sense of boredom as she rounded the table to come to stand and look down at me. I wanted to tell her that no, the heart never ever forgets, especially when it came to betrayals and grievances delivered at the hand of parents. I wanted to tell her that she may have broken my body over and over again, may have raised me to be a vessel to further the bloodline, but she’d never broken my heart. She had never been a part of it, never had any power over it no matter what mask I may have presented to survive. She’d never been able to break that.
My heart had always belonged to me and no, it’d never ever forgotten anything her or my family had done to me.
And one day she would understand the severity of that.
“I want you to know that I have genuinely been surprised at how much I've enjoyed your company these past few months,” she said, and a sense of foreboding bloomed in my chest.
My instincts prickled, and I did a casual scan of the room, wondering if Talon was back from his check-in call in the jungle yet.
He wasn't.
I forced the sensation down, chalking it up to my mother always eliciting this panic and fear in me.
“Which,” she continued, “is going to make this all the much harder. Quite honestly, I never thought you and I would be able to reconnect on common ground, but these last few months you have truly proven yourself to be every inch the daughter your father and I hoped you would be. But you allowed your panther to commit a heinous crime within this household, and the Wrights have demanded retribution.”
Icy terror sluiced through my veins, freezing me from the inside out.
“Oh, darling, don't look so scared. It makes you look weak,” my mother said, flashing me a pitiful look as she snapped her fingers. Joffrey appeared right behind me, throwing a thin chain of iron around my chest and hauling me against him.
I hissed, the sensation of fire and sickness wrapping around my body from the effects of the iron. My fangs punched out, and I reached up to try to rid myself of the wretched material, but her talem held strong. He wore thick black leather gloves, covering his hands and protecting himself as he tightened the chain and dragged me out of my chair.
I fought, my body remembering every single thing Talon had taught me, and I dropped my entire body weight to the floor, slipping out of the chain as I gripped Joffrey’s leg and yanked, sending him flying to the floor.
I tried to use my vampiric speed, but the iron had dulled it—my senses, my body, my muscles. Everything felt sluggish and weak.
“Now who taught you that little trick, darling?” my mother asked with a level of calm that was borderline eerie. She snapped her fingers again, and Joffrey was on me, doubling the chain around my neck and hauling me hard to the ground.
Every second the iron touched my skin, the strength drained out of me. My stomach rolled, threatening to spill everything I’d consumed before. Tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, my heart slowing to a dull thud the longer he held me there. I felt the blackness tickle the edge of my consciousness, the effects almost a welcome retreat from the pain.
My mother bent over me, clucking her tongue at me as she shook her head. “Now, now, darling,” she said. “You will take your punishment with honor, like any Zorin would. Be grateful that I talked the Wrights down from demanding your heart on a silver platter. They were agreeable to you spending an evening in my special little closet I had made for you.”
More tears streamed down my cheeks, and I tried to shake my head but the iron chain around my throat was too tight.
“Mother,” I managed to say. “Please.” I tried to appeal to whatever connection she thought we’d formed in the last three months. “Help me.”
“Help you? What do you think I'm doing? That family wanted to murder you and your panther, but this was the negotiation. Honestly, you act as if I'm about to drive a stake through your heart.” She rolled her eyes and waved at Joffrey. I could barely even kick my legs in an attempt to fight as he dragged me by my neck, that chain searing my skin and melting my flesh through the dining room, down the hallway, right to the double-door closet that in a human estate might be used for linen storage or extra kitchen appliances.