Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
His hand squeezed her nape. “Keep that promise.” And then he was devouring her mouth again.
Soon, they were both naked and he was pinning her to the bed as he fucked her into the mattress. He took her hard and fast, pleasuring her soul and her body at the same time.
Afterwards, he drew her close. They talked a little about mundane things before finally drifting off.
A whispered voice came to her while she slept, coaxing her to follow. Wynter refused, burrowing deeper into the warm arms that held her. But the voice kept on whispering, kept insisting that she follow. She frowned, intent on ignoring it. Cold fingers ghosted over her face, demanding her attention but patient for a response.
More whispers, more coaxing, more cold fingers.
She clung to Cain, wanting to stay exactly where she was.
“Wynter!”
Again, she frowned. That was not a whisper, nor was it spoken by the same voice.
“Wynter, stop!”
Why were they yelling? Why was Cain yelling?
Fingers snapped around her upper arm, and she flipped her eyes open. Her breath caught. The fuck? She wasn’t in bed anymore. She wasn’t even in his chamber.
She knew that statue. Knew that bog-like pond. Knew the twisting path she stood on.
She was in Cain’s garden, and the man in question was staring down at her.
“Wynter, what in the fuck are you doing out here?”
She blinked hard, shivering at the cool air. “I-I don’t know.” Licking her lips, she glanced around, her stomach twisting when she caught sight of lots of narrow, wriggly dudes on the ground.
He dragged in a ragged breath. “Listen to me, Wynter. You cannot come out here alone. Ever. It isn’t safe.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.” She rubbed at her brow. “I must have been sleepwalking.”
He heaved a sigh and curled an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s get back inside.”
She caught a glimpse of something just before she turned. A small temple of some sort. Maybe. She really didn’t care because, hello, wriggly dudes with fangs.
She let Cain lead her back to the Keep, wishing the stone floor wasn’t so damn cold beneath her bare feet. And then she remembered the voice that had come to her in her sleep. Remembered that it had wanted to show her something but hadn’t been clear on what.
No, it had only been a dream. She’d been sleepwalking. She’d definitely been sleepwalking.
As he, Seth, and Azazel waited in Inanna’s drawing room the next afternoon for the other Ancients—including Inanna herself, who’d been woken by both Lilith and Ishtar—to arrive, Cain told the two males of the incident last night.
Azazel leaned forward in his seat. “She what?”
Cain lifted his brows. “I really need to repeat myself?”
“Yeah. Yeah, you do. Because she should be dead.”
Cain flexed his fingers before splaying his hand on the sofa’s armrest. “I’m aware of that.” It was his creature, having woken from a light doze, who’d alerted him that she was gone. “When I realized she was in the garden, I expected to find her swarmed by so many snakes I’d barely see her.” And he’d felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time—panic.
“None of them harmed her?”
“No, not one of them even so much as touched her. Nor did they hiss in warning or get in her way. They just slithered along the path either side of her. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought they were following her to protect her.”
At the other end of the sofa, Seth shrugged. “Maybe they somehow sensed she was yours. They wouldn’t harm anything that belongs to you. They might even go so far as to protect it.”
Azazel’s eyes narrowed. “You’re sure she was sleepwalking?”
Cain felt his brow furrow. “What else would she have been doing out there?”
“I don’t know,” replied Azazel. “But you’ve got to admit it’s weird that she’d go to the one place she’d find uncomfortable truths if she knew where to look. So I’m asking, are you certain she was sleepwalking?”
Cain thought back to last night. “She was moving like someone in a daze. Slow and awkward, not with purposeful strides. She only snapped out of it when I touched her, and then she looked freaked out. Wynter’s got an amazing poker-face, but I don’t think she was faking. She went pale. Started trembling. She seemed disoriented and confused.”
Seth scratched at the side of his neck. “You don’t think … No, there was no way he would have called out to a random witch even if he was awake.”
“He isn’t awake. I’d sense it if he was.” Cain ran his tongue over the front of his teeth. “She’s been to the garden before. She likes it. She isn’t fussed by the snakes. It’s not strange that she’d go sleepwalking to a place she likes. But you know what is strange?”
Azazel gave him a pointed look. “A lot of things are strange lately.”