Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 68195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68195 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 341(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
“I felt something today, when she was at the school, I felt like I could tear her apart with my bare hands, but I’m not a fighter so what’s that about?”
“Just your natural reaction to uh...another female being that close to me. I hate to tell you but it will only get worse.”
“Is that why you got so testy whenever Mark got too close?”
“Huh, you don’t need to be doing that again anytime soon, it might not turn out so great for him or anyone else next time.”
She got quiet as if taking it all in, so I let my mind drift again. She’d heard enough truths for today, I hated the thought of having to share even more, but there was still a lot I had to tell her.
“It was me on my own that had been able to find you. Your mother, without any skill, had kept you well hidden from those who sought you all those years.
Though sometimes I wonder if there wasn’t something else at play there. Like maybe your grandmother lending a helping hand.
It was only through our bond, one that contains some elements of which the society knows very little, that I was able to find you.
I kept that knowledge well hidden for quite some time, all these years in fact. To protect you, I lied to them by omission. Why should I trust you to their care after all? They knew nothing of who you really were, I did.
Now my hand is being forced. I hadn’t wanted to take you before your time.”
“What exactly does that mean, before my time?” She looked down at me with that light shining brighter in her eyes. Something was accelerating the change in her, which meant we were running out of time.
“Nothing sinister, just that you are still so young. I’d wanted to give you the last few weeks, until your eighteenth birthday at least.
So you could enjoy your life as it is now. Because after I take you, after we’re bonded completely, everything will change.
It was written in the annals long before either of us had been born into this world.
Forces beyond our control lead our lives. The path has been chosen for us and by our very nature we are bound to it.”
“All of this sounds so farfetched, like something out of a novel. If I have these powers as you say, why did I never experience anything other than those dreams?”
“I have no answer for that, maybe the trauma that you endured blocked it out or something. What I do know is that after I take you to my bed, your eyes will be opened.
I’ve had time to get use to my destiny, years of training to prepare me for the life ahead of me, of us.
You won’t have the same. If I had made them aware that I had found you all those years ago they would’ve taken you, hidden you away and trained you.
I did not want that for my beautiful little butterfly.” I traced my finger down her cheek and kissed her brow.
Outside the winds were howling and beating against the window. Soon I will have to go out there and take care of that, but for now it was more important that she was okay with the things that she’d learned.
“I felt that I could endure what they did to me, it was my duty. But I would spare you that, and give you the childhood of which you would be robbed if I didn’t keep my silence.
Granted the one you did have left much to be desired, at least you were free, and with me on your scent, I could keep you safe enough if it came to that.
Even with the power you will one day have, I will always be your strength and you, my nurture.
So I’d bide my time, and done everything I could to shield and protect, while I watched over you from a distance.
I watched you mature and become more beautiful, more irresistible ‘til I thought I would go mad. As you were growing, I was being taught how to use my strengths to serve my country.”
I hesitated at telling her this next part but I knew there could be no secrets between us, especially one of such magnitude.
“I’ve been used and in some cases abused by my government. I say abused because, in any other capacity, it would be illegal to train a preteen male in the ways of sexual gratification, both for oneself and for others.
By the time I was seventeen I knew how to please a number of women at once, or one woman for a prolonged period of time.
I was taught how to control my body so that it gave the greatest pleasure, or so that it gave none.
And while this was going on, Mina and her family were fighting hard for their place at the head table. They were fighting hard to refute the possibility of Ekaterina having had a child, or of that child having grown to be a man and producing the next heir to the family’s gifts.