Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
She had screamed until she had lost her voice, and for years afterward, she’d been woken up in the middle of the day by the image burned into her mind of Tohr’s dagger hand locked on the grip of George’s harness.
No one else had ever touched that except Wrath.
“There was never anyone else,” she said roughly. “You were never far from me, whether it was in my memory or because I was looking at our son… or because I was watching Rahvyn be you in front of all the civilians, keeping the ruse up so that we could hold on to power until L.W. was old enough to rule. And then on top of that I had our son to raise on my own—and he was a handful, trust me. Plus I was ultimately responsible for the species. They all deferred to me—the Brotherhood, the fighters, Rahvyn. The last thing on my mind was sex, especially because it couldn’t possibly compare to—”
A masculine chuckle came from deep in her mate’s throat. “You say the sweetest things.”
“Well, you are very good… at what you do,” she said with a smile.
But then she thought back to the special kind of hell it had been to watch a three-dimensional, totally corporeal image of her hellren take those audiences with the civilians, speaking, blinking, breathing. The decisions had all been hers, whether it was making laws or ruling on cases or setting up precedents, but the mouthpiece had been Rahvyn’s.
Or the image Rahvyn had projected.
The two of them had held the throne together, canceling the democratically elected provision for royal appointment that Wrath had put in place, making sure that the birthright was protected as L.W. had matured and gone through his transition.
Except the son hadn’t wanted his sire’s job.
“I never should have left you that night.” Wrath drew his dagger hand down his face. “I shouldn’t have gone out.”
“Like I said, you saved Fritz’s life.”
“And ruined yours. L.W.’s.”
She shrugged. “Our lives were gone anyway. The instant Lash set that explosive charge on the Audience House’s back door, everything changed. If Fritz had died when he’d opened it? What if it had been Tohr? V? Any one of the Brotherhood? You never would have gotten over that. You would have been a different male for the rest of your nights and that would have affected me and L.W. One way or the other, someone’s life would have been lost and none of us would have come out unclaimed by grief.”
Abruptly, she pictured the Omega’s son, the leader of the Lessening Society. Blond-haired, blue-eyed, skin the color of a porcelain sink. She was not one to hate easily, but after what he’d done to her? To all of them?
“Lash is fucking evil,” she said. “He was the one who took you from us, who cheated you out of seeing your son grow up—”
As her voice cut out, the shift in Wrath’s mood was obvious, even as his expression didn’t change: The temperature in the bedroom dropped fifteen or twenty degrees, her body shivering as her breath came out in a cloud.
He hadn’t considered that loss yet, she thought. Of L.W.’s childhood. Of the years with her, with his Brothers. He’d been so focused on the impact of it all on her and his son, that he hadn’t done the math on everything that had been stolen from him.
And she knew her mate, knew him like the back of her hand.
“No,” she started. “Please do not try to settle that score.”
“It’s all right—”
“Don’t lie to me now.” A claw of pure terror sliced through her heart. “Wrath, I have just gone through three decades of torture. Do not make me dread another time lapse like that. I don’t have it in me. Especially now that L.W. doesn’t need me anymore.”
Her hellren put his palm out, patting at the air until he connected with her shoulder. Following the line of her neck up, he cupped her face.
“Don’t say it,” she begged. “Don’t… do it.”
“I cannot let this go. I am the King, and the species is my responsibility. How can I look anyone in the eye if I run from our enemy?”
Breaking away from him, she got up and paced around, noticing for the first time that the white walls were all blank, and there were no knickknacks or personal anything, anywhere. There was only a bureau, a bedside table with her contraband iPad on it, and a set of louver doors into her tiny closet. There wasn’t even a dog bed for George, because he always slept with her.
When a light switch and the moldings around doorways were the extent of your decorative art, you knew you didn’t care about where you stayed. This suite was like a dorm room before the student moved in. Or right after they moved out.