Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
I’d tried so hard to keep the whole thing level, but I felt like shit, and this note and her situation was fucking garbage.
“Fancy a walk outside?” I asked hopefully.
“I could. I’m sore, though. I’d really rather not.”
“You and your busted face and ribs. You’re worse off than me. Fuck. Fine.” I rolled my eyes at her laughter. “It’s more fun when you’re on the shit end of the jokes.”
“Isn’t it just.”
I smiled despite myself and pointed at part of the letter. “She’s blaming you for getting taken captive, huh? Wow. That’s . . . charming.”
“He did tell me to run and hide, but where was I going to go? No one in that village would hide me, I knew you’d search my house, and outside . . . you’d sniff me out. There was nowhere pre-planned.”
“Pre-planning wouldn’t have meant dick. We had that place locked down, and, as you now know, the alpha is excellent at his job. He would’ve found you. This way, though, you at least got to stick a few people with an axe. I call that a win.”
“Silver lining.”
“Sparkly silver lining, yes. What else have we got here . . .?” I scanned the note. “Evasive measures,” I murmured with a hush. That was a nice term for killing an innocent in your stead to buy a little more time.
The pack had found where that innocent had been kept. Not pretty.
Aurelia could hear about that another day.
“Bring you in safely, sure,” I said, finally starting to feel just a bit better. “Trap you again, more like. And I’ll guarantee you Alexander didn’t get punished for beating the shit out of you. He got punished for not getting you out. This woman is very good with honeyed words. No, I think she trained him exactly as she intended to. He is her number one in that organization. She trusts him above all others.”
“Yeah,” she said softly.
My heart cracked a little at the broken tone in her voice, and I lowered the note, turning for my chair.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” I said, sitting back down.
“A lot, actually.”
“I’ve got nothing but time and an inclination to never travel by boat again. Hit me with it.”
She sighed, still staring at that ceiling. “She’s always spoken to me the way she did in that letter. My usual response is ‘I’ll do better.’ And I always have.”
She paused for a moment.
“It’s the last line that is tormenting me. I’ve wanted to hear her tell me she loves me for . . . forever. The only person who has ever said it before was my mom. And to do it after blaming me for getting captured, and the product, and for not knowing she was trying to rescue me . . .? How the fuck could I have known any of that, you know? Yet she makes me feel responsible for all the horror I didn’t know was happening. The letter makes me feel like I’m in her debt, and then she finally slams home the one thing I’ve always craved. It feels . . . cheap.” The tears that had been building finally spilled down her face. “Not real. Like she knew it would be the carrot in front of the donkey. It hurts.”
“And the red riding cloak she wore,” I said. “Sending Alexander to pick you up in that town instead of coming herself . . .”
“I hadn’t thought about the last, but yeah. I don’t feel . . .” She began to cry a little harder, wincing and resting a hand on her side. “I don’t feel like she means it, and it’s killing me. Was my life a lie, Hadriel? Was it all one big lie?”
Seeing her so sad was killing me. “No, love. It wasn’t. It was the life you needed to live at the time, waiting for us to come and find you.” I managed to offer a weak smile. “Sometimes we must travel through the darkness to appreciate the dawn—or some fucking inspirational quote like that. A smart person once said something similar, and I’ve probably dick-slapped it sideways.”
She took a deep breath, and I knew it hurt her to do so. “I’ve asked myself if I would have said no to that coating.”
I crossed an ankle over my knee, watching her quietly.
“She would’ve explained it in a way that sounded great. She might’ve even told me there would be a little sickness, but that it would help our business. Would I have put my foot down?”
I could hear the guilt in her voice, the helpless ache of being in a situation she had no control over. She worried she would’ve. She had locked down in her mind that she was responsible for the drugs, whether because of motivation, because she didn’t know about it when she thought she should have, or because she assumed she would’ve been okay with it if Granny said they should do it.