Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
“I see my shellan,” he said roughly. “In my heart.”
“Do you.”
“Of course!” With the exclaimed words, he started coughing, the effort to clear his throat, or maybe it was lungs, such that the world swam around and he gripped the sides of the coffin to stay upright. “I want to be with her.”
“Very well then.”
That the female seemed saddened was just another part of so much that made no sense. What business was it of hers? He didn’t even know who or what she was—and he suspected it might well be a case of “what.”
Plus she most certainly was keeping things from him.
“Lie back,” she said. “It will be over soon.”
Another round of coughing fisted his ribs and revved his internal body temperature such that a roaring fire lit within him. Releasing his hold on the pine box, he put his destroyed hand over his chest, as if that would help. It didn’t. When he was finally able to catch a breath, the rattle in his lungs was such that he was reminded of the game he had played as a young, marbles in a leather bag, crackling aggies—
For no reason at all, his eyes went to where his hand had been on the side wall. His blood had seeped into the fresh, untreated pine, the print strawberry red and smudged.
He thought of when he had first woken up from the explosion. His mind had been fuzzy, but he had been able to remember being in the Hive, that communal cave, up on the platform where the prisoners were disciplined. With stinging clarity, he had recalled pulling his collar off, his body shaking from what he was doing, his hands nearly fumbling the thing as the little red light on the back clasp had started blinking. He had relived the way he’d looked at the Jackal and Nyx, both chained to the thick trunks, about to be tortured. Then he’d felt once again the brilliant blast and the furnace of heat.
He’d had no idea how he had survived, or who had gotten him out of the Hive—and in confusion, he had turned his head… and seen a fully robed figure whose face was obscured by a hood.
“Nadya,” he whispered as he came back to the present.
“You are a male who takes his duties very seriously.” The old female moved closer to him. “I have heard of the Fade, you know. We wolven have our own tradition for the afterlife, yet I have always believed it is congruent with what vampires believe. All of us go to the same place—and all of us take our burdens with us.”
As Kane felt another wave of coughing come on, he tried to sift through her words for the true meaning, for what she was hiding from him—and then it didn’t matter. The memory of Nadya sitting beside his bed, and singing softly to him, and then getting up to bring him food, bandage changes, water, whatever he needed, took over his consciousness such that it was all he could see.
Though he had tried not to stare at her infirmity, he had often speculated about the cause of her difficulties. She had never spoken about them, however, and he had never asked. Instead, their discourse had focused on what she could do to bring him comfort, and what his mumbled responses were.
He had never seen her face. But he knew her scent and her voice as if they had been familiars for centuries.
She was still back in that prison.
“My shellan,” he said. As if to remind himself where his priorities were and had to be.
With that, Kane lay back down. If there was any purpose to him, it had to be the reunion with his mate. He was a gentlemale who had been raised properly, after all. But more than that, if there was wrong to redress, it had to be his failure to protect Cordelhia.
“Our conscience is part of our eternity,” the old female said. “And burdens that cannot be shifted grow heavier. By the moment. By the hour. By the year, the decade… the century.”
“As if I do not know that,” he snapped back. “I have been under a pall since I found my mate bled-out on her bed. Do not speak to me of burdens—”
“Then why would you add to your suffering voluntarily.” The old female lifted her lined palms. “It is true there is much you have not chosen. But this weight is one you may choose.”
He closed his eyes. Eye. Whatever.
“How many minutes left,” he asked roughly.
“Two, now.”
“Will you tell Lucan that he must go back for the nurse.”
“If that is what you wish, to put in harm’s way a couple whose future together—”
“Will you please stop talking,” Kane groaned. “And what the hell can I do in this condition.”
Closing his eyes—eye—again, he told himself that as grateful as he was to Nadya, he was not responsible for her, not in the way he was to a mate. Cordelhia had to be first.