Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
ANSIN
Ding-dong, people. The wicked king is dead. And, yes, I take full credit. King had it coming.
So now that I’m the most ancient, deadly badass on the planet, I can finally get on with my plan. Step one: resurrecting my bloodline.
But to do it, I must win over Jeni, the one woman who can give me powerful children. If only she’d stop holding a grudge. So what if I killed the father of her baby?
Sooner or later she’ll have to forgive me because there are bad, bad things coming her way, and I’m the only one who can protect her.
But will she come around before it’s too late?
JENI
My love for King never made sense, but now that he’s gone, I’m holding it together (barely) for our newborn son. I must be vigilant because my enemies think he belongs to them.
Unfortunately, the only one who can help is dangerous, evil, and a constant reminder of what I’ve lost. Then my worst nightmare happens, and he steps in. No demands. No bartering. Just help.
Has he finally changed his evil ways, or is this a trick to get what he wants? Because without Ansin, my baby
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE
Jeni
A chill crawled up my spine as I hovered over the crib and stared down at my sleeping baby’s thick black hair. He just turned four months—the exact amount of time King had been dead. Though it felt like longer. A lifetime ago.
“God, I miss him, Draco.” I reached down and gently brushed a lock of soft hair from his forehead. “I’m so sorry this is happening to us.” This was not the life I imagined for us. Alone. Danger lurking. No real protection.
King was supposed to be here, watching over us, but no. One minute, he was with me in the delivery room, and the next he was lying in a pool of blood. Dead.
I winced as images of the horrific moment bombarded my mind. I still couldn’t accept he was gone. I mean, really? Just like that? A man who’d defied death for thousands of years had been snuffed out with a simple dagger?
Fine. Not so simple.
Ansin, the man who did the deed just a few feet from my newborn baby, once told me that the dagger had been gifted directly from God to a druid man around the first century. It could cut through any spell, magic, curses—whateverthehell you called the sort of crap that kept people like King from dying for thousands of years. Anyway, the dagger released King and his soul from the world of the living. “Permanently,” Ansin had said.
Bullshit. I wasn’t buying it. Of course, I was struggling to believe a lot of things lately.
“Eh-hem,” said a low deep voice behind me.
With a gasp, I swiveled on my heel. “Ansin, you can’t just come barging in like this.”
With an amused smirk, he leaned his tall, sturdy body against the doorframe. From the look of his windblown dark hair, he’d ridden a motorcycle here. Note how I said a motorcycle. That’s because when Ansin wanted to ride one, he just walked up to whoever and said: “Give me your bike.” They handed it over, and Ansin used it until he was done. He gave zero fucks about returning it, just like he gave no fucks about what anyone thought.
Stone cold to the core.
But Ansin’s off-putting traits didn’t end there, with his scarred-up face and intense dark eyes. Yet I wouldn’t call him ugly. There was definitely something about Ansin that made it difficult to look away, like some exotic creature from another time, marred by years of violence. For the record, Ansin usually carried out the violence—thus the reason he was the last living member of Ten Club, the most depraved group of elitists to ever roam the earth.
“It is my house,” he said, pushing his jaw-length hair from his eyes. “I’ll enter when I choose.”
Not wanting to wake Draco, I slid past Ansin, my shoulder brushing his chest. Prickly goosebumps rolled down my arm. His powers were no joke, which was why I had to be careful around him.
The sounds of heavy biker boots followed me to the kitchen.
I grabbed two white mugs from the cupboard beside the professional-grade stainless steel refrigerator. Ansin had all the money in the world but owned very little aside from this house and the fancy things in it. Which he’d bought for me. Personally, he saw no value in owning material items. Things came; they went. So did people. Power was the only currency he cared for.
“Coffee?” I grabbed a bag of grounds.
“Sure.”
I set up the fancy Italian drip machine and then turned to face him. Under the bright kitchen lights, the golden rings around his dark irises gave off an otherworldly vibe. Even his deep olive skin looked more…not completely human. Yes, to my knowledge, he was a man, but not like any I’d ever met. Not even King could match his mind-control tricks.
I exhaled slowly, determined not to let my fear of Ansin bubble to the surface. “Ansin, we had a deal. I said I would live here, but not with you.”
“I don’t live here.”
“Coming and going as you please is the behavior of a person who does. That’s the problem.”
He flashed a stiff smile. I never knew if he was amused, insulted, or pissed off when he smiled that way.
“I suggest you be more specific with your terms the next time we strike a deal,” he said.
“No,” I protested. “We’re not playing the fine-print game, Ansin. I’m not one of your degenerate Ten Club buddies.” They’d always looked for creative ways to fuck each other over.
“No one’s perfect.”
I offered a disapproving look. “I’m serious, Ansin. I’m not going to write up a two-hundred-page contract for every agreement we make. So you either act honorably, or there will be no more agreements.”
“Funny you should mention that…” He rubbed his scruffy chin, where hairless lines crisscrossed through the stubble. Scars. And they didn’t end there. His entire body, though muscled and dripping with intense power, was a record of his sordid past.