Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 67421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 337(@200wpm)___ 270(@250wpm)___ 225(@300wpm)
Blinking, Warrick glanced down. His archer was glowing. Though it hadn’t been alight even a minute before. Which meant a new ghost was nearby…likely because someone had just been killed.
Someone nearby.
His heart seized with fear. Elina! was his only thought. No memory did Warrick have of plowing through the crowd outside the inn or lunging up the stairs to their chamber. She had no jewels to save her from harm. Chardryn knew the route they would take west. Her uncle’s assassins were still seeking her—and she’d been pointed to and named the Queen of Aleron for everyone to hear.
Now she was alone. Unprotected.
Warrick crashed through the chamber door, scanning the floor, the bed, the privy corner.
Not there. She was not there.
Was she safe elsewhere? Had she remained down in the tavern? He knew not. He only knew that nothing would be right until she was in his arms again.
Heart pounding, he turned to find her, then pivoted sharply back toward the bed when a rivulet of crimson caught his eye.
That could not be— Elina would not have removed—
She had.
The red ribbon that she’d worn as a bracelet since their wedding lay on their bed. With trembling fingers, he picked up the discarded length of satin from sheets still mussed from their earlier lovemaking. His stomach heaved into his throat when he saw the cleanly sheared ends.
She’d cut the ribbon from her wrist.
Elina had unmarried him.
Suddenly disoriented, his every thought lost, Warrick cast his gaze about the chamber again, searching for her—his wife, the one person who could fix what had become so terribly, terribly wrong—yet he only noted what else was missing.
Her clothes. Her satchel. Her traveling cloak.
Agony rent his chest. Not just unmarried. Gone.
But she’d not been gone for long. Minutes, at most.
Clutching the ribbon, he charged down the stairs. Not in the tavern. The stables, then.
Relief almost staggered him to his knees. There. Leaving the stables, wearing his axe buckled against her back, leading her saddled horse.
“Elina!”
She didn’t turn. Or even pause. Not acknowledging him—no doubt furious with him. But did his wife truly think he would let her go? Without a word? Without a fight? Or ever? Well, she could not ignore what was right before her.
He passed her in a few long strides and pivoted, planting his massive body in front of hers. His arms crossed over his chest, a snarl already working up through his throat that would challenge her to try leaving him and to see how far she would get before Warrick tossed her over his shoulder and carried her back to their bed, where they could talk and fuck through her anger as any two people who loved each other ought to.
Yet every intention wheezed from him as the sight of her face drove a stony fist into his stomach. Elina was not furious. She was not wearing her mask. She was not anything. Simply staring ahead, seeing nothing, her silvery eyes not even an old woman’s, but simply…empty. Numb. As if too emotionally shattered to even cry.
And not registering his presence at all. She plodded forward, unseeing.
His shame and regret took a chokehold upon his throat. He raised shaking hands to catch her face, to bring her empty gaze up to meet his. “Please, Elina. Do not—”
She walked through him.
Through him. In a rush of warmth, gone as she moved on. Warrick stood unbreathing, his thoughts reeling. How—? He looked down at his empty hands. Caught sight of the glowing archer.
Because a ghost was near.
His chest emptied of air. Emptied of his heart. His vision blurred, and he would have fallen then, would have joined her where he fell, except for Elina herself and her dull, unseeing eyes.
She’d been alone. She’d been harmed. And Warrick had not saved her.
But he would help her now. What little he could do. Nothing could make this right.
“Elina.” He caught up to her again and the tears clogging his throat roughened his voice to a low, thick rasp. “What happened to you? Who hurt you?”
“Need any help, lass?” The query came from an old man leaning up against the paddock fence, smoking a long pipe. He eyed Warrick skeptically.
Elina roused the merest bit, as if lit by a faint spark. “Which way to the road north?”
The old man pointed with his pipe. “You’ll turn at the river. The wooden bridge will take you straight on to the northern way.”
“I thank you,” said Elina and plodded on.
Warrick stood rooted in place. Perhaps the old man could also speak to ghosts. But ghosts did not carry an axe. Or lead a horse. And her hair had not whitened.
Yet she had walked through him. He’d not dreamed that.
The old man snorted. With a lift of his chin, he gestured to Warrick’s hand. “Cut your ribbon, did she? Declared you dead to each other and took what was hers. A cold, cold bed you’ll have, barbarian.”