Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
I watched as Shera started to stand, trying to back away.
A large demon shoved her back to her knees.
That hadn’t happened either.
He was playing with me, but I wasn’t going to lie to him. Once he was in his father’s realm, he would understand. “No, I’m taking you to your true father, and he will be able to fix the problem. I’ve done nothing but help and all I get for my trouble is you invading my mind and playing with my memories.”
“I am not the one who’s played with your memories, Olivia,” he said quietly.
“Are you trying to tell me this is the reality of that moment? I remember differently. I certainly didn’t do that.”
In the scene in front of me, I was fighting. I was being held down, and that delicious drug was being forced into my veins.
The world tilted because for a moment I could feel it. I could feel how hard I had fought. I could feel the tears running down my face. I could feel the need inside me, and it wasn’t for the drug. Inside I had called out for Casey. I wanted to see Casey coming through those doors. Or Kelsey. I prayed she would bust through with Gladys in her hand, and she would kick all their asses and save me, and I never had to think about what he’d said to me.
I chose you, Olivia, because you’ll be easy to manipulate. You folded the first time something bad happened to you. Also because it will hurt so many people on the other side when they see what you’re about to become.
I shook my head. “He didn’t say that to me. He welcomed me to his family.”
“He doesn’t have family. He has minions. You see the way Nimue is standing? Like she sees nothing and hears nothing. She’s under his thrall. You’re lucky he didn’t have a couple more thrall stones on him.” Dean winced as he watched them force the blood in my veins and I screamed like I was dying.
A chill went through me. This wasn’t right.
Except there were parts of me that remembered how it felt. How my skin crawled and organs ached as they were flooded with that blood. “You’re doing this to me. I guess you’re not as squeaky clean as they seem to think you are. This is torture. What do you want to make you stop?”
“I’m not doing a thing,” Dean protested. “I can’t and you know it. I’m able to project, but the Uro spell stops all other magic. I’m disconnected from everything but my ability to astral project myself into other realms, in this case your dreams and memories. Apparently that isn’t magic, or isn’t something the spell recognizes as magic. Guess I’m talented in more ways than one. This is all you. This is your brain and memories beginning to rebuild after what he did to you. This is part of getting off the demon blood.”
He was wrong about that. I was still on the blood. Evan had come through. So he didn’t know what he was talking about.
I shook my head, wanting the wailing to stop. We were all doing it now—Shera and Calliope screaming, too, like banshees warning the world—and there were far more demons in the room than I remembered. They watched us as we were held down and our bodies convulsed with the first fire of that blood.
“Tell me something. What did Evan give you in exchange for saving me?”
I wasn’t about to tell him. He looked entirely too smug. Or rather there was a sympathy in his eyes I couldn’t abide. “It’s not your business. I want to wake up now.”
“I’m not holding you back. I want to wake up, too, but I can’t. Olivia, I am not the one who brought you here. I get the feeling you’re unconscious in a way that’s not from sleep. I can help you if you let me.”
I couldn’t trust him. He’d been far too influenced by the royals. “And why would you do that?”
“Because I wasn’t raised by the man who is violating you right now,” he began, a grim expression on his face. “Because I was raised by a billionaire cowboy who tries to help everyone he can. My real father taught me not to measure myself by how others treat me, but rather how I treat them. Even when it’s hard. And I take back what I said about the thrall stone. It would have been easier on you. He wouldn’t have been forced to suppress your memories and implant new ones. You would have complied with everything he asked. He wouldn’t have needed the demon blood if he’d had a thrall stone.”
“Needed the demon blood?” The demon blood made me strong. I was the one who needed it, not Myrddin.