Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
When Bram speaks, I already know the words before they reach the air between us. “Barbara was the name of the human who killed my family.”
23
BRAM
I don’t shove Grace away from me, even though every instinct I have is demanding I put space between us. Instead, I gently nudge her aside and climb out of the bed. It’s still not enough distance between us.
I should’ve put the pieces together earlier. I knew Grace said she saved people, but so many times saving oneperson means killing another. That’s the truth lay in the margins of her silence. Which means her mother did the same thing; her mother, who made a demon bargain some time ago and was never seen again. How likely would it be that her missing mother and the human who killed my family weren’t connected? The odds that they were are astronomical. And yet I never questioned it.
Maybe because I didn’t want to.
“I need to go. I need to think.”
“Bram, wait!” To her credit, she doesn’t leave the bed or try to approach me. She also doesn’t clutch the sheet to her naked chest or pretend to be anything other than what she is. A predator. The way she watches me . . . if I attacked her now, she would meet me, violence for violence. She wouldn’t hesitate. Grace swallows visibly. I can barely think clearly enough to process the riot of color in her energy. “Can we please just talk about this?”
Her mother is responsible for the death of everyone I’ve ever loved. Even knowing that Grace didn’t come here for the same purpose, how does someone move past a hurt like this? Some mountains are too high to fly over. “What is there to say?” I laugh, the sound harsh in my throat. “Maybe my people are right. Maybe my family is cursed. I can think of no other explanation for me finding the person my soul connects to most, only to discover the body of violence that means we can never be together.”
“Bram.” Grace still hasn’t moved. It’s like she thinks that if she shifts too quickly, she’ll drive me from the room. I’m not sure she’s wrong. “This is a shock for me, too. I don’t . . .” She shakes her head and lifts her chin. “Please don’t say anything that you can’t take back. I’ve meant every single word I’ve said to you. I care about you. Hell, I’m falling for you. I have set aside my entire purpose for being here in order to spend more time with you. I know this is fucked up—”
“Fucked up,” I echo. “Fucked up doesn’t begin to cover it. I just summoned the nobles to this castle. What do you think they will do when they find out I have the daughter of the monster who killed my family, in my bed, willingly? They won’t follow me. I can’t even blame them for that.”
Grace’s eyes seem too large in her face, her pale skin blanched. “That’s what you’re concerned about?”
I don’t know what I’m concerned about. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I should’ve seen this coming, and the humiliation that I didn’t is almost too much to bear. Azazel knew. Ramanu too. Were they laughing at me behind my back? Poor, foolish Bram, too shortsighted to realize he had an enemy in his midst. And “fool” doesn’t begin to cover the fact that I have fallen in love with this woman.
I don’t know how to reconcile how I feel about her against everything that now stands between us. “I need time.”
“I don’t know a single person who said they need time who has ever come back.”
I don’t either. It’s usually the beginning of the end. “I need time,” I repeat. “You wanted answers from Azazel. I’ll send you back to the bargainer demon territory to get them. After I meet with the nobles here, we’ll talk.”
“Sure we will. Whatever you say.” The fire inside Grace is dampened. She’s being bathed in the pale blue of sorrow threaded with the violet of resolve. I watch in silence as she stands and pulls on her clothes. This feels like the worst goodbye I’ve ever had to say, and I don’t know how to stop it. I do need time. But I don’t know if it will result in me talking myself into being with her . . . or out of being with her.
Grace stops in front of me, and for one breathless moment, I think that she’s going to tell me she loves me. I saw that color in her energy earlier. I know I did. Instead she stares at the center of my chest. “I would like to leave the room.”
And I’m standing in her way.
I step to the side, and she walks past me without another word. I tell myself to go after her, to tell her that it doesn’t matter what the past holds because we choose the future. I don’t move an inch. Not until I’m sure she’s gone back to her room. Only then do I fly to my study and pen a summons to Ramanu. I’m not ready to face Azazel yet. Maybe I never will be.