Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Then I went somewhere dark. I didn’t know where, but I grew scared. It wasn’t where I wanted my prince to be, and I tried to go back. I couldn’t. Something had taken hold of me. It clamped a hand on my ankle and drew me close. I tried to scream, but no sound came out. Then it pulled me tighter and looked into me. Red eyes pierced through me, and I felt something behind it. I tried to peek around him, but he wouldn’t let me go. He didn’t want me to see, so all I could do was whimper in his hold. Tears ran down my cheeks, I felt them on my skin, and knew I was crying in my own home.
“Dad, let her go,” a little voice spoke up.
I prayed he’d listen to him.
He did; he let me go. I flew back home, and when I slammed into my body, I ran to my bed and curled in a ball. I remembered closing my eyes and wishing that I would never remember that again—I never wanted to feel that terror again. I only wanted to be a little girl.
“Oh my God!” I curled my fingers into his arms. “That’s when it happened, when I didn’t want to be what I was. I wanted to be normal. That’s when I…”
Kellan kissed my forehead. “It’s when you created this.” His hand lifted up my sleeve and touched my tattoo. “This banded her inside of you, but she broke free tonight. That’s why the binding has changed. She’s separated herself from you, from your hold.”
My eyes bulged out when I saw the one silver line. It was at the bottom, separate from the rest that were now jumbled together. “I don’t understand any of this. This is all too much.”
Kellan lifted me and went to his bed. He lay down and pulled me back into his arms, then he rolled and propped himself above me, looking down. His finger traced the side of my face and trailed down my jaw, back up to the other side before his palm spread wide and he cupped my cheek, cradling my face in his hand. “That’s what I mean when I said that I came here for you. I’ve always been here for you. You made that spell that night, and you couldn’t see your parents any longer. You couldn’t even see your mother, even though she’s human. She frightened you too much because you always saw the demon that she loves. You saw that in her.”
“Gus and Vespar’s dad.”
He nodded. His eyes looked haunted. “For a while, you wouldn’t let yourself even see them. There was too much demon in them, but then I came. Your mother let me in. She knew why I had come. She knew what you had done that day and she blamed herself. She said she shouldn’t have read you that book, but she didn’t know it would bring you to me. Ever since then, I’ve been in charge of you. You’re mine, Shay.”
I drew in a shuddering breath, hearing his last words. “I am bonded to her.”
When I woke, I was in Kellan’s bed, in his arms. He had curled them around me and held me against his chest. The sheets had been pushed off to the floor, and our legs were entangled together, poking just over the end of the bed.
“I am bonded to her.”
I shivered as those words came back to me. He had looked at me, looking straight through me, claiming me when he said, “You’re mine, Shay.”
He seemed so angelic when he slept. His eyelashes were long, the tips resting on the skin underneath his eyes. Delicate. Then his cheekbones angled outward, drawing the eye to his lips.
I touched his lips and wondered what they would feel like.
Then I realized what I was doing—I was checking out my brother, no—he wasn’t. Clasping my eyes shut, I buried my head underneath the pillow and let out a silent groan. Too much had changed, and I no longer knew how I felt about anything, even Kellan who wasn’t really my brother, but something else entirely. It was too much, at least that early in the morning. Figuring I could sort through everything later, I knew a trip to the bathroom was more pertinent, so I slipped out from underneath his arm.
I took a moment to breathe once I had closed his bathroom door. So much had happened, too much. Looking up, I gasped when I saw my reflection. My hair had been black before, but it was a light-colored brown now. Streaks of blonde had appeared, and my mouth fell open when I fingered through the strands. Then I felt my cheeks. A blush seemed to have permanently appeared on my face. My skin tone had been pale before, and it was now a golden tan with a slight pink color over my cheekbones.