Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 126570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Nikolaos’s hand tightens around my throat, pulling my attention back to him. “If you try to run from me, I’ll kill her. Do you understand?”
Eyes stinging, I drop my chin a fraction to show him I understand.
Lips stretching into a grin, he purrs, “Good girl.”
Stomach roiling with fear and heart heavy with despair, I have no choice but to follow him when he releases my throat and grabs my hand.
I failed.
The thought, the heaviness of it, weighs on me with every step.
God gave me the chance I prayed for, and I messed it up.
Now Charity will probably suffer the consequences.
No doubt I’ll suffer, too.
I’ve always been doomed, though. I’ve been fighting this destiny for years, but deep inside I’ve always known my life would probably end like this.
At a vampire’s mercy.
But Charity, she’s not cursed…
If I had been smarter, if I had succeeded, she’d have an entire normal life ahead of her.
Not now.
Now, because of my failure, she’s doomed to suffer the same fate as me.
“Get in the car, sit down, and be quiet, Charity,” Nikolaos commands when Knox opens the back door of a black limousine idling on the street.
Still moving stiffly, Charity climbs into the limo without complaint.
Knox glances back in my direction, his eyes meeting mine for a fraction of a second, before he ducks down and enters the car.
Hand squeezing mine tighter, Nikolaos tugs me over to the door and nudges me inside with a firm palm to my spine.
Sliding in right behind me as I scoot across the seat, Nikolaos forces me up against the other door then shuts the door behind him.
The instant the door shuts, the limo pulls away from the curb.
It takes a second for the full gravity of my new situation to settle over me, but once it does, my heart races out of control. My pulse trying to reach warp speed.
The seats in the back of the limo are shaped like an L. The two seats Nikolaos and I sit on face the front, and the other seats, the ones Charity and Knox are sitting on, face the right side. With Nikolaos to my right and Knox seated sideways at my left, I’m literally trapped between two vampires.
They’re so close, I can smell the competing scents of their different colognes and aftershaves.
Compared to standard cars, the limo’s interior is probably considered spacious and luxurious. There’s more than enough room for a man to stretch his legs out while he has a drink from the minibar or watches the small flat-screen TV.
The leather seats themselves are wider than standard seats, almost twice as wide, leaving plenty of space for each passenger to relax comfortably.
But to me, it’s suffocatingly claustrophobic.
The curved walls are closing in on me, leaving no space to breathe. Pushing the vampires closer and closer…
I can feel their presence, their auras, scratching at my skin.
“Can you calm her down?” Knox asks, shifting uneasily in his seat. “Her heartbeat is driving me fucking crazy.”
“Perhaps.” Nikolaos frowns then turns toward me. “Calm down, Chloe.”
Again, at first, I want to resist the command. To fight it.
But I’m so desperate for relief, to be free of the crushing anxiety, just so I can think clearly for a minute, I allow myself to give in.
Like a wave of warm water washing over me, a strange sense of calm spreads through my body. My heartbeat slows and my limbs feel so heavy I start to sink into the seat until I’m nearly reclining.
I’m so relaxed now, so at ease, it doesn’t even disturb me that both vampires are staring hard at me. Their eyes gleaming, reflecting the dim interior lights, as they watch my every little movement.
Snakes… they’re both like snakes… I think to myself. Snakes watching the prey they’re about to swallow whole.
“Interesting,” Nikolaos says, his frown deepening.
Knox shakes his head slowly in disbelief. “If she was marked that wouldn’t have worked…”
“I know.”
“Then what the fuck? Is she a decoy? A fucking Trojan Horse? Did the Order find some way to confuse us? This doesn’t make any sense. Whenever we try to command the other she tells us to go fuck ourselves.”
Moving closer to me, Nikolaos reaches out and grabs a thick chunk of my hair as if he expects me to flinch or jerk away from him. When I don’t react, he pauses, becoming so still it’s as if he’s frozen in time.
I’m very aware that I should be freaked out. I’m also very aware that it might have been stupid of me to embrace his command. But it felt like I had no other choice. My heart was racing so hard it was about to burst out of my chest.
And there’s nothing I can do in the car. There’s no way I can make it out the door stuck between them.
Even if I could, I couldn’t leave Charity behind.