Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
“I mean . . .” I rolled my eyes and then winced, which also hurt. “Your people. Weston’s. Sorry—“
“Stop apologizing.” He used his finger to gently dab some salve on my cheek. “This will help with the swelling and bruising. Obviously not as well as if you had your animal, but it’s something. Listen, Aurelia, I’ve seen the way you’re trying to help with the drugs. I recognized the differences between your village and the places hit hard by Granny’s drugs. I always wondered, though, if it was all an act. The pretty, wide-eyed, naive routine seemed a little over the top given the hell those drugs have wrought. I wondered if you’d run back at the first chance you got.”
“That’s why I was locked in the mayor’s house? Because I was an esteemed guest, ready to be taken back?”
He shrugged. “Safe keeping? Keeping you from us? I don’t know. But now . . .” He paused. “The more you learned of the outside world, the more that ‘routine’ peeled away. I’ve watched it with my own eyes. You’ve tried to help, nearly killing yourself and defying the alpha to do so. And today—”
“I got my ass handed to me.”
“No, you gave better than you got against a man twice your size and three times your muscle mass. He should’ve been much faster—“
“He was.”
“—much stronger—“
“He definitely was.”
“—and way outclassed you.”
“That’s insulting. He has no class at all.”
He grinned, a small expression, and it melted something inside of me. He’d always been my harshest critic.
“Today I saw what I needed to see to put my doubts to rest once and for all. I’m sorry it took me so long.”
I winced as he pressed too hard. “Forgiven. Does that mean you’ll stop doctoring me now? It’s worse than the actual wounds.”
Chapter 34
Aurelia
“Love, no, you are not going to walk like some tramp.” Hadriel very gently marshalled me toward the front of the horse procession.
“What does walking have to do with tramps?” I asked in confusion.
“I have no fucking idea but it’s the only thing that came to mind and your confusion makes you pliant. Now, here.” He pointed at Weston’s horse. “You’ll go with him so that he can mother you.”
“I don’t need mothering. I need to walk, because getting up on a horse and riding is going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
“I see what you did there, with the word play.” Hadriel winked, and then pointed at his eye. “See what I did there? I winked, like you are constantly doing to me because one of your fucking eyes is swelled shut and it’s giving me heart palpitations. Get on the bloody horse so that I don’t start crying. I cannot handle the sort of pain you’re in.”
“Aurelia.” Weston stalked up to me like the predator he was. He’d been busy tending to his pack. He’d had to give out the last of their phoenix elixir, but no one died. For that, I was eternally grateful. I hadn’t forgotten what Tanix had said, even though it hadn’t been what he’d meant. “You’re riding with me.”
“All due respect, Alpha—and this isn’t a ploy to get you to have anger sex because that would hurt too much right now—but no. Thank you, but I physically can’t. It’ll hurt too much to get up there and it’ll be hell to stay. Please, be nice to me for once, and let me walk.”
His gaze roamed my face, his expression crumpling into anger and pain as he took in my swollen eye, my cracked lips, the bruises on my cheek. He lifted his hand and made to trail a finger across my wounds as though he might absorb my pain into himself, but instead let his hand hover, probably afraid to hurt me further. The angry expression melted to regret and frustration, and I knew he hated that he’d allowed Alexander through. That he hadn’t been fast enough in performing his duty to keep me from harm.
“It’ll be okay if I just walk,” I said softly, swallowing down a lump in my throat.
I wanted to tell him that he had done his duty and protected me. That he had saved me. I’d already done that, though, many times over. First when he saw the damage Alexander had done and froze in enraged agony, and again every time he approached me thereafter. He never accepted my gratitude, though. To him, he'd failed. Nothing I said would dissuade him from his self-loathing.
He glanced at his horse, his lips tightening. “Fine. We’ll walk,” he snapped.
“No, no. I will walk. You will ride like the alpha you are—“
“Gods finger me,” Hadriel said, exasperated. “Aurelia, love, shut the fuck up and let him walk with you. Can’t you see the stress you’re causing us all? Go! Walk! I’ll walk. We’ll all fucking walk if we can just get underway and get there. The faster we get to our own lands, the better. We can’t have those fuckers trying again. They might get it right next time.”