Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 642(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Dad continues, and I rack my brain to remember what we were talking about. The curse. The Kings lying asleep on the ground. Right. “Well, the last one to wake is usually the one who is infected. We don’t know what they see or what they’re told, but all we know is when they do wake, little by little they’ll become something much worse than what they currently are. It eats away at their soul like rot. This skipped our generation, because we weren’t in Riverside, but—”
“Why?” I turn to Dad, tracing the lines of wrinkles around his eyes. Although age has been good to him, I’ve seen how much older he is now that I’m home. How much older they all are. My stomach twists into knots if I think about it too much, the guilt almost unbearable. I spent so many years away from them.
“I can’t imagine any of them being worse than they are now.” My eyes roll on their way back to the stage, where Halen is stirring awake.
Dad snickers. “Touché.”
Fog forms around us, obscuring my vision and filling the earthy scent with jasmine and something spicy. It distracts me a moment because my eyes land on him.
Shit.
Hidden in the shadows of a dark cloak, his broad shoulders separate him from the others. Either Vaden or War are on either side, one of them is slightly shorter than the other, and I’m guessing that’s War, since he was always a little off the mark in height.
Long fingers curl around the edge of the hood as he slowly lowers it to the back of his neck. We’re not seated far, so it’s easy to make out the finer details.
He tilts his head sideways, as if hearing someone talk, and the tiny hairs on my neck swell. Panic clenches its fist around my airways, but before it takes hold, I notice the faint tattoo on the surface of his neck. It’s so delicate that I can’t distinguish what it is.
Stalked by the persistent thud in my head, my legs turn to jelly. Great. I’m about to drop. No doubt people will notice.
An arm catches my fall. “You’re okay.” Mom smiles, twisting the strands of my hair around her finger before tucking them behind my ears. “If you’re obvious with how much he affects you, all that time was for nothing.”
My breath hikes. I’d never spoken with Mom about Priest. “What?”
Her lip twitches. “You think I don’t know the kind of love that rests in those eyes, baby girl?”
I blink, unable to give her anything else.
She shuffles into me further, probably noticing I won’t let her out of it. “I know. I smelled him on you the second you stepped through the door.”
Okay, it’s official. My mother is creepy. As if I needed more evidence to prove that fact. I’ve heard the stories about her when she was my age…
“Well it’s not love,” I murmur beneath my breath, turning to the stage.
“Oh, not yet.” She pats my thigh. “For right now, it’s obsession.”
I don’t know how much time passes until the ceremony is finally over. All I know is my skin burns, and the desperation to run is unbearable. Dad said it happened in three stages, the final one being the most important. Whatever that meant. I didn’t care and didn’t need to because it had nothing to do with me.
Every time I blink, my lids get heavier. Blood courses through my eardrums, and when I reach up to swipe the sweat off my forehead, everything around me dissolves into darkness for a moment.
I find the carvings again, focusing on little weird babies joined at the umbilical cord, but when the air around me thickens and the warning bells inside my head sound like the scream that tore out of me that night, I already know it’s because he found me.
Tracing my way over his leather boots, up the sway of his robe, and to the border of his hoodie, everything around him fades into the background until it’s only him and I. His soft lips and strong jawline cut through the shadows from his hoodie.
Moments pass, the air growing tighter.
He moves forward, and my body uncoils. Until Vaden brushes past.
I distract myself by landing on Halen.
She skims the hood away from her head. “Luna?” I don’t ask why I never saw her in all the years Priest had me locked away in his haunted mansion. Not that Halen and I were friends because we weren’t. I’d go as far as to say that she hated me at times. The older we got and the more time she spent with me, she slowly warmed, but there was always a twinkling of hatred in her eyes whenever she looked at me.
“Halen.” I follow the line behind her. “Stella and…River.”
“You’re back?” Halen whispers, shifting her hood back on. The weight of my guilt is crushing when I realize I’d spent a good chunk of my time thinking she knew about me being under the thumb of this royal asshole.