Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 113319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113319 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
I let my hands hang limply at my sides as he hugged me close.
“I hate you,” I said with a pout.
“You hate losing arguments.”
“That’s what I said.”
He chuckled as a knock sounded at the door. Cyra poked her head in with a plastered-on smile that meant terrible things.
“Hey, Jessie, how are you?” she asked. A doll tottered in behind her with a glass of water. That usually only happened after Cyra had recently died. It took her a while to learn how to control her fire again, and in those weeks and months, she tended to shed lava in the house. Sebastian had created a brooch to magically control that, though. I wondered what was going on.
“Fine. Good,” I said. “Maybe borderline super angry, depending on why you’re here.”
She put out a finger. “Maybe. But hear me out. Edgar mentioned that you really wanted those gnomes gone, right? And I get it. Those little suckers somehow got a hold of a butcher knife and ambushed me the other day. It took three of them to wield the thing, and they hacked at my legs until I fell down.”
“Could you not shift and fly away?”
“That’s what those little bastards wanted. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. But unfortunately, they weren’t trying to sever my neck. They were trying to get my magical brooch, which I was wearing at the time. And…well…they did. They yanked it off and ran.”
“But…why were you wearing it? You haven’t died in…months and months.”
“I died during the battle at Kingsley’s.” She glanced at Austin. “Crap. I forgot I wasn’t supposed to say that. Or was I not supposed to say Aunt Florence nearly died? I forget which one.”
“What?” I asked, my heart lurching painfully again. Aunt Florence was Patty’s sister, Ulric’s aunt, one of the garhettes that helped in the battle.
“Both,” Austin said in a deep voice. “You weren’t supposed to tell her either of those things.”
I rounded on him. “You’re keeping things from me?”
“We all agreed to keep that from you because Cyra can come back from the dead and Aunt Florence didn’t actually die. Indigo left you to heal her, nearly losing you because of it. One of the many times.” His expression was stark, haunted. “It would’ve done no good to tell you, and I didn’t want the reminder. We nearly lost many of our people. That we didn’t lose them all is outstanding news. That you were nearly sacrificed time and again to save them is—”
“Shh,” I said, stepping closer and wrapping him into a hug. “I’m okay. I made it.”
His fingers dug into me for a moment, and the world stopped as he held me. He kept himself together almost all the time. That was part of alpha training, apparently. You learned not to lose control, including when people were killed in battle. You stayed strong for your pack. But it was different with a mate.
In these moments, I felt normal again. I felt like I wasn’t alone in processing the terror of life’s fragility, our loss, and how close I’d come to leaving my people and my family. But they always passed too quickly, putting me back on the unfocused, messy, emotional rollercoaster of grief. Still, I’d rather stay here than swing over to the opposite side and steep in cold, calculated vengeance. I felt it pulling at me. I felt the need to yank out Momar’s heart with my bare hands. I felt the violent darkness within me like never before, devoid of humanity. Devoid of emotion. Devoid of anything familiar.
For that reason, I wouldn’t hide from my grief. I wouldn’t try to escape it. I didn’t want to find out what I would become if I did.
When he’d regained his balance, Austin nodded and excused himself to the bathroom.
“I was a hero, by the way,” Cyra continued. “In case you didn’t assume.” She shrugged, and I couldn’t help a half-hysterical chuckle.
“How many did you save?” I asked her, trying to keep from tears.
“Ten. Maybe twelve? Well…” She adjusted her fake glasses. “Maybe I didn’t save them, per se. I took out half the mages who’d joined forces to send rapid-fire spells at our people. There were just four mages left after I got done with them, but Jessie…” She leveled me with a look, and I saw something spark in her eyes. Something that made me somewhat uncomfortable, although I couldn’t discern why. “They were more intense than you and Sebastian together. And they weren’t cowards.”
I reached out to grab the post of the bed, my eyebrows pinched together. “They were working together like Sebastian and me?”
“No. They were working together like one entity. Better than Sebastian and you.”
A flare of fire dripped from her and singed the rug. The doll threw water at it quickly, accidentally dropping the glass. It thudded against the floor, thankfully didn’t break, and rolled away a little.