Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Kierse exited the study. Coming back into the light of the party was like entering a different world. Everyone was sweating from dancing, so her heat didn’t even look out of place. She staggered like the rest of the partygoers. Her heels barely held her up. She should have left them behind. They were just a hindrance.
A man stepped up to her. “You want to have a little fun?”
She blinked at him, finding him fuzzy around the edges. “Graves,” she gasped out.
“Call me whatever you like, sweetheart.”
“No,” she said, pushing him away.
But her strength was gone. It was an illusion. All of her many ways of taking down a grown man had evaporated. She was nothing but a small, pathetic, human girl. And this man wouldn’t listen to her. He kept pushing her backward. It made no sense. Everyone else in the party was a willing participant. They wanted this. Why her?
Her brain shut down. Retreated to that horrible little place she had made for herself. The place where she could go and live alone and away. Compartmentalize her pain until she didn’t feel it . . . didn’t remember its brutality.
Then a hand clamped down on the man’s shoulder. “She said no.” The voice was brutal and ancient. “You should learn to respect a woman’s answer.”
“Ah, we were just having fun. And dressed like that . . .”
“If you say that she was asking for it,” Graves said, low and gravelly, “I will rip out your throat with my bare hands.”
The guy backed away and held his hands up. “Sure. Sure, dude. No problem. I didn’t mean any harm.”
“This is in clear violation of the rules of the party. This will get back to the goddess.”
The man paled. “I didn’t mean . . .”
Graves was already turning away from him, his focus on Kierse. The man glanced between them and then scampered away.
“Wren?” Graves said. That voice was different somehow. Softer. Concerned, even. “My wren, are you okay? What happened?”
“Hot,” she whispered. “I just wanted to be hot, and now . . . I am.”
“Fuck,” he spat.
Then, without a thought, Graves lifted Kierse into his arms. His heat mingled with her own. Called to it.
Her mind drifted now that she was safe. Drifted far, far away. She saw a winged lion roaring from a dais made of stone. A crowned dragon breathing fire in answer to the lion. A group of sheep for the slaughter. Everything erupted into death, and she closed her eyes against the hallucination.
Then she saw black.
And then she saw nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A loud whirring sound filled Kierse’s head. It drowned out everything except how awful she felt. She was going to throw up. Puke her entire guts up. She groaned as she shifted and suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder. She tried to block it but found she hardly had the strength. Instead, she leaned over the side of wherever she was lying and vomited onto the floor.
Cursing followed, but she couldn’t find the will to care. Not as she puked until she had nothing left in her stomach and then dry heaved for a solid minute after that.
“Ugh,” she groaned as she rolled back over.
“I am regretting my decision not to bring on staff,” Graves said distantly.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to be sick again. “What . . . happened?”
Graves said nothing for a few minutes as he cleaned. A fact in which she would surely find mortification later. Once he was done, she felt his weight rest on the cushion next to her. “You must have ingested a lot of wish powder.”
“Right,” she said, her memories coming back to her in a rush. Or at least some of them. Vague outlines of memories. It all felt very disjointed, as if she was looking at something that happened a few years ago rather than a few hours. “Where are we?”
“In the airplane.”
“Good.”
“Drink this,” Graves said.
She slowly opened her eyes to find him holding a glass of cloudy water over her face. Just the thought made her want to vomit again.
“What is it?”
“An antidote. It will help,” he told her.
Kierse rose to an elbow, fighting nausea, and took the drink in her shaking left hand. She forced herself to drink the whole thing. She didn’t even ask why it tasted disgustingly like sulfur. Then she collapsed back onto the plane cushion.
She felt less like she might die from vomiting, but still she ached everywhere. Her eyes burned. Sweat clung to her skin. Fire coursed through her veins, though its heat was thankfully fading.
For another moment, Graves was silent. His eyes focused solely on her face. If she didn’t feel so addled, she might say there was concern there.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“That helped.” She closed her eyes. “Thank you.”
“When you were incapacitated . . .” He trailed off and cleared his throat. “That should never have occurred.”