Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
He bent forward, clutching at his bleeding leg, his bound hands quickly becoming a massacre. “What the fuck, you stupid cunt! Fuck!”
Neri hadn’t even jumped.
Hadn’t looked away.
Didn’t react like she normally would.
And that broke yet another piece of me because the innocent girl, with her heart full of purity and goodness, had been shattered. She clutched her knife as if she was moments away from driving it into her rapist’s heart.
Dropping the speargun, I stepped into her and wrapped my hand around her much smaller one.
Ethan continued to howl and curse.
I tuned him out.
My entire attention locked on the girl I loved more than anything.
She flinched at the contact.
Her eyes met mine.
And a crack appeared. A single crack in her façade as tears welled. Tumbling into my arms, she let me catch her, cradle her. Her spine rippled with sobs, and I hugged her hard enough to suffocate all the bad things inside her.
Pressing kisses to her wind-whipped hair, I murmured, “I’ve got you, canım. I’ll always have you. Forever. What happened is done. But I vow on my life, it will never happen again. By anyone. You have my absolute vow.”
Her arms slinked around my waist.
I buried my face into the delicious curve of her shoulder and neck. My back bowed, my knees had to duck, and I inhaled her scent of salt and ocean, desperately trying to stay human, all while my vision coated everything red and my tongue watered for blood. “Sen benimsin, Nerida Taylor. That means you’re mine. To protect. To avenge. To love. To worship. Sen benimsin.”
Pulling away, I thumbed away her tears and stared into the soul of the girl who’d captured me when she was just twelve years old. I’d wanted her to stay that innocent. That happy. But shadows existed in her now. Shadows that answered my own and I stared at my equal in every way.
I was no longer afraid that my darkness would destroy her. She carried her own darkness and survived.
Letting her go, I palmed the knife she’d been holding and twisted it until the blade caught moonlight. “How do you want me to do it, hayatım? Give me any command and it’ll be done.”
“Listen, you cunt! Let me the fuck go. Whatever you think happened didn’t—”
“Quiet.” A snowy cloud of control cloaked over me. Fisting the blade, I turned to face him. Neri slipped by my side, her hands balled and jaw clenched.
“You raped her,” I hissed.
“What?” His eyebrows shot up his pain-sweating face. His blood dripped on the deck from the harpoon in his leg. “I didn’t touch her—”
“You tied her up, you fuck.” I growled. “You—”
“Drugged me,” Neri said coldly. “You drugged me and bound me and took me against my will.”
“You liked it!” Ethan snarled. “You moaned as I slid right in—”
I kicked him right in the balls.
I stomped right on his dick.
He jack-knifed into a trembling huddle and collapsed to his side, gasping. The string in his leg from the harpoon jerked against the gun, making him howl all over again.
Panting hard, he shook his head, choking on pain. “I let you go after. I told you I would, didn’t I? I didn’t hurt you—”
My fist collided with his jaw, pummelling his cheekbone against the deck. “What do you call the bruises and blood on her wrists and ankles?” I punched him in the temple. “What do you call the bruise on her forehead?” I kicked him right in the nose. “What do you call the fucking trauma you’ve caused her?” I kicked him in the kidneys, my toes bellowing with agony. “You trapped her. You hurt her. You raped her—”
“It was her fault!” Ethan gasped, spitting out a mouthful of frothy blood.
A black nightmare rolled through me.
Stepping off him, I embraced the icy power. “What did you say?” My voice was a sword, glinting and sharp, singing with thirst to slice.
“She flirted with me!” he shouted. “She went to that party dressed to fuck. She knew what she was doing.”
I could barely talk.
My jaw cracked.
My knuckles popped.
“And what was she doing?” I murmured with sleeting snow.
“She was trawling for a fuck. Even her friend called her a whore!”
And that was it.
That was the moment I became an animal.
With a roar, I threw myself on him. I kicked and punched. Kicked and punched. I wanted to break every fucking bone in his body. I wanted to drain every drop of blood from his veins.
My elbows smashed against his face. My knees buried into his gut.
He howled and cried, begged and gasped.
I lost who I was.
I embraced the breeding I’d always run from.
I brought up the knife.
I grabbed his bound hands.
And I hacked off one of his disgusting fingers.
A finger that had dared to touch what wasn’t his to fucking touch.
His howl tore through the night.