Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
“What? I don’t remember that.” The last thing I recall is Thorin telling me I was safe, and then…nothing.
“Well, you wouldn’t, would you? You were unconscious.”
“Who did all of this?” I ask, gesturing to my bandages and clothing. My skin looks and feels clean, too, like I’d been bathed. I even have a vague memory of one of them brushing my teeth and washing my hair.
It’s a kindness that, when coming from them, just feels like more of a violation.
“Thorin patched you up. He has some medical training from his time in the Marines. Not much, but enough.”
“Well, it wasn’t necessary. I wasn’t injured.” God knows what they must have done to me after I was out. My body hurt all over like someone took a bat to it.
Or dropped a plane on it.
“Yes, you were, Aurelia. Extensively. You were hypothermic, frostbitten, and severely dehydrated, among other things.
“I…I didn’t know. I felt a little sore, but that’s it.”
Khalil shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “What the cold didn’t numb, the adrenaline suppressed until it finally wore off. I guess your body couldn’t handle the stress of your injuries, and it shut down your brain so you could heal.”
Or my mind just didn’t want to deal with what they did to me.
Thorin’s voice enters my mind. “You’re safe here.”
“How long have I been out?” I finally allow myself to ask.
“You’ve been in and out for four days.”
My food threatens to come back up.
Four more days have passed, and no one’s found me yet.
Is anyone even still looking, or have they called off the search already?
I try to imagine the headlines. Immediately, I hate myself for it.
How empty must my life be that it’s my first thought? There’s no mother, father, or boyfriend who might care if I’m found. I don’t even have a dog or cat to worry about starving to death in my absence—only millions of adoring fans and critics who probably think I got what I deserved.
“You should have died,” Khalil announces without care. “You shouldn’t have been able to find us. We went through a lot of trouble to ensure that.”
“Your point?”
“Now that I know you, my guess is you were too stubborn to die.”
“You don’t know me,” I whisper, my voice thick with some unnamed emotion.
“Baby, I doubt you even know you.”
My grip tightens around my fork. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it doesn’t take an expert in Aurelia George to see that you’re spiraling.”
The food in my mouth suddenly turns to ash. Across the kitchen, Khalil goes still. The hand he was using to reach for the coffee pot is suspended in the air, and then, as if the slip hadn’t occurred, his fingers wrap around the handle. Blink, and you’d miss it.
Fortunately, my eyes are wide open.
I don’t set down my fork when I turn in my chair to face him. Instead, I hold it like a weapon. “How did you know my last name?”
A soft curse spills from his lips a moment before he calmly lies. “You told us.”
I so did fucking not. I shake my head as Khalil pours the black liquid into a tin cup. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yes. You did. You reminded us who you were like a thousand fucking times.” My lips part to argue when he cuts me off. “Eat, Aurelia.”
Khalil’s tone is cold and stern, but what little appetite I had is ash in the wind, so I push the awful food away and say, “No thanks.”
“Suit yourself, but it’s the last free meal you’re getting from us,” he says calmly.
It hits its mark and pisses me off. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you’ve used up a lot of resources and racked up quite a tab while you were getting your beauty sleep, Aurelia. It means that you owe us, and healed or not, we plan to collect.”
Lightning flashes down my spine, settling in my lower belly and heating my pussy at the promise of further degradation. But on its heels, racing down that same channel, is the ire that’s been hanging over our heads like a dark cloud, and I explode. My voice is a sharp, thunderous clap as I yell, “Are you fucking kidding me?” Spitefully, I spit out the food he laid for me like a trap and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “You won’t let me leave, and then you tell me I owe you for staying? Just let me go!”
His jaw tightens at that, and then he snatches up the coffee cup and comes at me. I brace myself for his wrath, his fury, but all he does is grab the back of my chair with one hand. The wood underneath his palm groans as he sets the cup down on the table hard enough to make me jump. “No.”