Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
He stilled, fingers at his buttons, but they were now down about his stomach.
“Though I would have liked to say farewell to her,” I muttered.
“Ah.” He turned away. “The Nadirii caveat.”
“I’m sorry?”
He continued unbuttoning, repeating, “The Nadirii caveat.”
“What do you mean by that?”
He again shifted to face me, doing this shrugging his shirt off his broad shoulders and exposing his wide chest with its fascinating adornments of ink on one side, a vision that was beyond titillating. Something I now allowed myself to admit fully. Something, now that I’d allowed myself to admit it fully, was frustrating as, before our estrangement, I could have done something about it, and now, I could not.
“I am right,” he said, taking my attention from his chest and tattoos in order to look at his face. “Though,” he stressed that word. “You should not have said or done something…but. Though. But. The Nadirii caveat. I cannot just be right, and you cannot simply be wrong. There seems always to be a caveat that makes you right and me the one who has done wrong.”
I realized that it would not be beneficial in this situation to lose my temper.
But sadly, I was losing my temper.
I mean truly?
The Nadirii caveat?
“I’m being honest,” I said tightly.
“This is regrettably the truth,” he muttered, moving his hands to his pants.
That didn’t make me angry.
That stung.
“Ow,” I whispered.
His eyes caught mine.
When they did, if it could be credited (which I was in no place to credit it in that moment), I would have sworn I saw a minuscule flinch.
I took a step back, saying, “Jasmine will likely still be awake. She’ll visit the pixies with me.”
“Elena—”
I was moving to the tent opening but looked to him as I did and assured in a flat voice, “We won’t be long.”
“I’ve been unkind and spoke insensitively,” he admitted. “Please stay. We need to talk.”
I stopped at the flaps and queried, “It doesn’t feel good, does it?”
“Pardon?”
“Speaking insensitively and having the person you did it to not allowing you to make up for it. And more, even if you aren’t very good at that, they don’t give you credit for trying.”
His hard, handsome face grew soft.
“Elena,” he said gently.
It must be noted, Cassius speaking thus with his expression gentling was a beautiful thing. Of a man who was beauty head to foot, that might be the most beautiful thing I’d experienced from him.
“Goodnight,” I bid and moved through the flaps.
I did not want to be the kind of female who made a dramatic statement by swanning away from an unpleasant discussion in the hopes that the male who had caught her eye came chasing after her.
But I could not lie and say it didn’t hurt worse that not only did I arrive at Jasmine’s tent without Cassius even calling out to me to return, he did not waylay us at any time after I discovered she was awake and happy to visit the pixies with me.
So this we did.
“Suck his cock,” Jasmine advised as we sat atop a bed of fallen leaves by the creek bed.
The two female pixies, Twig and Mossy, who were fluttering before us, sparkling dust drifting down from their doubled quadruple (four on each side) gossamer wings (Twig’s sparkles were a gingery color mingled with a pearlescent shade, Mossy’s were a buttery color with more that were the hue of a fern), burst into such gales of laughter, they wafted back several inches.
And Twig actually did an uncontrolled backflip.
In them doing so, for once, I was not captivated by their lean, pale bodies tinted much like their sparkles (in Twig’s case, her skin was gingery pearl, in Mossy’s case, her skin was a buttery green).
I was also not enchanted by their large, but broadly slanted eyes that had no pupil and were also colored with their magic (Twig’s, a gleaming porcelain, Mossy’s, a shining pear). Nor their pointed, distended ears or their thick, long, swept-back hair (Twig’s, a white blonde with gold highlights, Mossy’s, a shimmering chestnut, also with gold highlights)
I further was not charmed by their scant outfits that appeared to be naught but a long diaphanous strip of material expertly twisted and draped about their bodies to cover the pubis with a short skirt-like swathe with free-flowing bits. This enveloped them also at their breasts, with coils crisscrossing at their midriffs and circling their shoulders.
Nor their calf and forearm shields that looked like they were made with bits of leaves.
Nor their pixie marks of ink down the sides of their thighs, up their breastbones and the sides of their necks, and down from their hairline in the middle of their foreheads. Twig’s, a contrasting shade of honey. Mossy’s were marmalade.
Then again, telling them all what was happening between Cassius and I, nothing would charm me.
Not even a pixie.