Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Her response was muffled, somewhere between crying and laughing. “You’re so bad.”
“I just never developed the kind of compassion Ink has. I want it, but don’t seem to find it in those situations. His mother is in on this scheme, whatever it is. She’s as rotten as her husband. Why they’re targeting Reese, I have no idea, but he can’t seem to let his fairy tale go. He’s got a wife and child, Ambrielle. Why the hell doesn’t he see he shouldn’t be considering exchanging what’s right in front of him for some vague, pretend relationship that never happened? He’s like a little kid that never grew up. I find it sickening.”
“Some people need to feel their parents loved them.”
“Well, some people ought to grow the hell up and accept what life gives them.” He snapped it, and then realized how it could sound when she’d just had both parents murdered in front of her. “I didn’t mean that the way it came out. See what I mean about talking to anyone? I’m not so good with words, and I know it. I’m trying to say, I think a person needs to understand they’re responsible for their own shit and just deal.” He tried to clarify but thought he’d made it worse.
Ambrielle was silent for a long time, but she moved her body even closer to his, pressing back against him instead of moving away from him.
“I think you say what you think just fine for me. You said you didn’t tell me the truth about Sorbacov taking you. When we were together in the woods, you were really upset and deliberately tried to push me away. You said it then, but he did take you from your parents. Did he kill them, Master? Or did he just take you?”
He knew it had been coming. He had known ever since he’d made the blunder and opened his big fucking mouth, but she deserved the truth. He tightened his arm around her because for right now, he had her. His princess.
“Just so you know, you might be my fairy-tale princess, and you are, but the world really isn’t a fucking fairyland.”
To his consternation, she rolled over and framed his face with both hands. “I see you, Kir. The real you. Not just the one you hide behind to protect the real you. I see all of you. Every part of you that makes up the man.”
She leaned in and brushed her lips over his. His heart nearly stopped beating. She was so gentle. Tender, even. Everything he wasn’t. Everything he didn’t know how to be but wanted to learn to be for her.
“No, the world isn’t a fairyland, and I know more than most people it isn’t. But when we’re together, I’m always going to be your fairy princess if you want me to be because I like being yours.” She laid her head on his chest and wrapped her arm around his waist. Waiting.
“I don’t know the first thing about mothers, Ambrielle. Not the kind of mother you seem to have had.” He slid his fingers in her hair, deep, all that silk, massaging her scalp. He meant to soothe her through his explanation, but found he was soothing himself. “My mother was more the kind Reese has. That’s probably why I recognized right away she’s one hundred percent a part of whatever the scheme is against him.”
Master let his fingers move through the soft silk of her hair. So much of it. She had her own scent. A subtle fragrance he’d know anywhere that clung to her skin and hair. That would be home to him. Strange that she found her way in so fast. He didn’t understand how or why, only that she was already there.
“My parents didn’t want children. My father despised having a kid around, and when he was home, my mother would lock me away from them in another part of the house. I wasn’t to make any noise. If I did, there were beatings. I didn’t understand why, because I was too young, and I’d be hungry or need to be changed. I’d be afraid by myself in the dark. She would come in and be furious, slapping and hitting. She would tell me how much she hated me and wished she could get rid of me.”
“Oh my God, why didn’t they just give you to people who wanted children? There’re so many who can’t have them.”
“I don’t know if that would have been some black mark on their reputation. Who knows? In any case, she had a lot of men around when he wasn’t home. One of them was on Sorbacov’s private security force. Later, I found out he told her Sorbacov was always looking for little kids for his schools. He wanted assets to be trained for the country. Some of them were turned into toys to entertain his friends, and they were purchased at premium prices. Not to mention, if you got in Sorbacov’s good graces, you were in with the society’s elite, their inner circle.”