Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
I start to back away from him. After the night I’ve had, this is too much. Too much! Too much, too much, too much.
Averting my eyes from Layden’s bright, simmering-with-life gray ones, I murmur, “I’ve got to go wash my hands,” and leave the room.
But Layden has never met a boundary in his life, or if he has, he was asleep too long in the forest to remember them, so he follows me to the little bathroom off the living room.
I start to close the door, and he says, “I thought you said you just needed to wash your hands.”
“Goddammit, Layden, it’s like you’re a needy little puppy that’s not housebroken yet! Just give me some fucking space!” I slam the door in his face. And then immediately feel like a piece of shit.
I look at myself in the mirror.
You are a piece of shit. You killed a man tonight.
The reflection shows what Lucian saw. Pretty, petite. Long black hair. Pointed chin. Big, full cheeks. Full lips.
Tonight was supposed to be just a routine visit with a statesman. I’ve met with him before. There’s new legislation that’s come up, and Vlad needed votes to go a certain way.
But as soon as I got in the room with the man, he started trying to maul me, telling me how much he loved me, how devoted to me he was, and how I was all he could think about. He wanted to leave his wife and kids for me. I shoved him away, but he wouldn’t stop. He’d do anything I wanted, he said.
Which is when I should have mentioned the voting Vlad wanted from him.
Instead, I screamed at him that I wanted him as far away from me as possible. I can’t stand them when they get like that, all but suffocating me.
I turn on the tap, bending over to splash my face with water a few times before standing back up and looking into my eyes again. Water drips down my face and the front of my hair. I get these frightening flashes as if the liquid were blood. The blood I longed for so long in the dark.
“You sure got what you wished for,” I whisper.
“Phoenix?” Layden knocks on the door.
I close my eyes, except when I do, all I can see is the statesman saying, “Of course, Mistress!” and spinning exactly where he was standing in his third-story office building where we were alone after hours. And then he sprinted full speed toward the window of his office, splitting his head open on the glass and plummeting to his death three stories below.
Chapter Twenty-One
LAYDEN
Present Day
Oh shit. For the past half hour, I’ve completely forgotten about the world outside. Ammit. Right. We’re supposed to go confront Ammit now. That’s the point of all this. We weren’t just finally giving into our desires or consummating our marriage, or as close to it as I was likely ever going to get.
I take a deep breath and try to focus, but my mind feels completely blank. Like I just blasted every thought I had out from my balls through my shaft and down her throat. For once in my goddamn life, I don’t feel an ounce of hunger.
I just feel… happy.
Phoenix licks her lips as she reaches for her jeans and shimmies back into them.
“Layden,” she snaps, looking at her phone. “Hurry. We could already be too late. I texted John Paul that there was a threat and he needed to stay in his office, but I’m not sure if he got it or not. He hasn’t responded.”
I nod, grabbing my own jeans as Phoenix finishes tugging her shirt over her head and reaches for the door.
“Wait,” I say, but she’s already out. I grab my shirt and follow her, zipping up my jeans and pulling my shirt on as I run after her. Shit. Get your head back in the game.
She’s moving far faster than normal—she’s usually careful not to show any of her superhuman characteristics when we’re around anyone else who might be able to see. Now that she’s finally told me everything, I wonder what else she might have hidden from me. I’m able to keep up with her only because I never claimed to be human myself. I might not have my wings anymore, but I can still run far faster than anyone from this realm has a right to.
No one’s watching us, though. The limo double parked in an alley close to the building housing the Ancient Religions department so we don’t have to cross much of campus before we’re there.
“Something’s wrong,” I state the obvious as we see students spilling out of the building, some of them screaming. It snaps me back into the present, at least.
Especially when Phoenix starts to cry, “No, no, no!” She tries to shove past the people exiting to get to the double doors, but it’s a mob.