Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Alone to pick up my pieces.
Alone to realise those pieces were nothing more than ash and blood.
I stood transfixed as she sank into a deep sleep.
My mouth watered as salty droplets glistened on her cheeks. My torn-out heart pounded with so much goddamn pain.
Her name?
A curse.
The nickname she’d given me?
The antidote.
How could both cripple me so?
Why the fuck did a stupid nickname do such agonising things to me?
Hen?
It made me weak-kneed. Rock-hard. Trembling with the savage need to fall on her and kiss her stupid.
All over a ridiculous pet name.
I’d never had one of those.
No one had ever gotten close enough to shorten my already short name.
Her nickname would’ve shaken my world…if she hadn’t told me the origin of hers.
That knowledge tore into my chest with a thousand knives.
I honestly couldn’t function.
I had no idea how to survive knowing I said ‘I love you’ each time I called her Ily.
How did she keep doing this to me?
Rearranging the ground I stood on.
Tipping me over edge after edge until I lost sight of the sky and gave up fighting the fall.
I stood over her, waiting for her to snap out of her coma and start laughing at my expense again.
But she didn’t.
It seemed whatever adrenaline she’d burned through had gone.
I couldn’t help myself.
I hated that I couldn’t help myself.
Sitting back on the bed beside her, I tucked loose sapphire-black hair behind her ear and fought every urge.
Lines bracketed her mouth even in sleep.
Stress etched her forehead as if she couldn’t forget where she was and who was responsible even in her dreams.
She hates me enough to kill herself if I ever got her pregnant…
Fuck, that shouldn’t hurt so much.
I hadn’t even thought of children, yet…just knowing she’d rather die—
My eyes stung.
The urge to retch returned.
Rubbing my thumb through the tracks of salt glimmering on her cheek, I willed myself not to do it.
I begged myself not to do it.
And I cursed myself to a thousand realms of hell as I sucked that droplet off my thumb and shivered at the taste.
I lost all control as I bent over and kissed her exquisitely softly on the cheek. I didn’t care if the cameras watched me. I didn’t care that Victor might have questions. The moment my lips pressed to her tear-damp cheek and her sweet flavour soaked onto my tongue, I shuddered with an agony I’d never felt before.
I couldn’t pinpoint the origin of that despair.
Was it in my heart? My bones? My soul?
Wherever it was, it pushed me further to burn out.
The blackness inside me celebrated, sucking me deeper, deeper.
I reared back and shook my head.
Not yet.
I could succumb to my nightmares soon.
I could sleep…soon.
But first, I needed to erase her bruises.
I couldn’t look at them anymore.
Couldn’t have the reminder that I’d caused this.
Just like I’d caused them on my mother.
I only ever caused pain to those I loved and—
Loved?
I froze.
I don’t love her—
A surge of possession.
A cascade of emotion that siphoned hotly through my veins.
Love…
No.
I couldn’t.
I can’t—
Licking my lips from her salty, sad taste, I gritted my teeth and shoved away every thought.
The bandage around my arm grew wet with fresh blood as I forced shaking hands to finish the job of coating her in the entire tub of arnica.
Her breasts and belly had little circles bleeding outward. Spreading flowers of black, blue, and purple.
She was stunning.
Ruined.
Ily—
I choked on those three little letters, gagging on the three words they represented.
Another trembling panic attack turned my insides into a maelstrom.
Yanking the towel out from under her so she wouldn’t sleep on something damp, I tossed it into the corner before working the bedding down and tucking her in.
I shook as I gathered her wet hair and draped it over the pillow.
I trembled as I stood over her, trying to find other ways to fix what I’d broken.
With a heavy sigh, I moved away and swallowed a groan.
Everything hurt.
Everything throbbed.
Yet nothing could touch the pain she’d caused.
Biting my lip, I glanced at my left side.
The colours had only gotten deeper. The sharp pain she’d mentioned whenever she breathed affected me too. I’d managed to ignore it while killing Kyle. I didn’t have time to focus on it while carrying Peter, but now…all alone, my legs chose that exact moment to buckle.
The dizziness.
The faintness.
I crashed to the floor, bracing myself on my hands and knees as my heart flurried and the sick sensation of not being able to get enough oxygen made the room turn black.
Darkness pounced, not done with me.
I pressed my forehead to the floor as every sin throttled me with violence.
Sickness gushed, but I swallowed it down.
Sweat ran over my skin, soaking into my blood-soaked bandage.
I couldn’t stop the crash.
Couldn’t catch a breath or stop hearing Ily calling me Hen or me telling her I loved her every time I said her damn name.