Total pages in book: 222
Estimated words: 213974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1070(@200wpm)___ 856(@250wpm)___ 713(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 213974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1070(@200wpm)___ 856(@250wpm)___ 713(@300wpm)
My heart lurched, and I swung my head toward Ione.
“It does not need to be painful,” she said, looking up. “Though it is not entirely comfortable. You will be tired afterward and perhaps have a headache, but it should not feel like any unimaginable pain.”
Yeah, well, the problem wasn’t the pain. I could deal with that. Still, I latched on to the excuse. “I can’t go through that again. It was horrible.” A tremor coursed down my spine, and it was more genuine than forced. “I won’t—”
“Seraphena.”
I locked up at Kolis’s whisper. Or had he yelled? I couldn’t be sure. Whatever it was, his voice felt like it was everywhere.
Oh, gods.
A compulsion. He was using compulsion again.
“Look at me,” he coaxed, his tone soft and lilting yet heavy and laden with power.
His voice washed over me like a rising tide, seeping through my skin—
No.
My fingers twitched.
No. No.
The muscles in my neck spasmed as I fought, and the embers hummed wildly in my chest. If he gained control, there’d be nothing I could do. Nothing. No. No—
“Seraphena.” Kolis was suddenly in front of me, his fingers on my chin.
I jerked back, starting to close my eyes. I could fight this, couldn’t I? I had Primal embers in me. I could fight this with…with—
“Look at me,” Kolis demanded, and a wave of power hit me hard. “Now.”
I tried…gods, I tried to resist. My muscles spasmed painfully. Air punched out of my lungs, and my eyes lifted past his mouth. His nostrils were flared with irritation. My gaze locked on his, and I felt it then, the compulsion seeping into my muscles, relaxing them. His power wrapped around my mind. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t.
I could do nothing but obey.
Golden flecks whirled in his eyes, slipping under and over the wisps of silvery eather. “You will sit, and you will not attempt to fight Ione. Do you understand?”
My lips moved, forming one word. “Yes.”
“That’s a good girl,” he murmured, running his thumb beneath my bottom lip, avoiding the healing skin there as I…
I stood still, unable to even shudder.
“Sit,” he repeated.
Like a puppet, I sat.
Kolis turned to the goddess. “Do what needs to be done.” He was silent as Ione moved closer. “And do it as quickly as possible.” He glanced at me and then away. “I do not want her to feel any unnecessary pain.”
He said as much now, but that would soon change.
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Ione knelt before me. Dark eyes lit with eather met mine. “You seem to be aware of this, but to be clear, I will need to take your blood.”
I did know that. I fucking remembered that part clearly.
Ione blinked, seeming to remember only then that I could not respond. She picked up my right hand, her touch cool. She halted, her brows lifting as her gaze flew to mine.
“Is there a problem?” Kolis demanded from where he lingered a foot—if that—behind the goddess.
Ione cleared her throat. “No.”
“Then get on with it.”
She hunched her shoulders and carefully lowered my right hand to my lap and lifted my left. I thought that was strange, but I couldn’t really focus on that. My mind filled with what was to come. Would I have to react? To summon the embers and at least attempt to get free? I didn’t know.
Ione’s warm breath against the inside of my wrist was my only warning. A second later, the sharp tips of her fangs pierced my skin. I jerked, not even the compulsion able to prevent that.
The burning sting traveled up my arm, causing every muscle in my body to clench. Ione drew deeply on the wound, and that sting hit my neck. I wanted to tear my arm free from her light grasp, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t—
Then I felt it.
A scratching like fingers against my mind, slowly sinking in instead of digging in with claws like Taric had done. The tendons in my neck cramped, and I felt my mind open.
Ione was inside me, in my mind, slipping in easily. It wasn’t painless as she delved into my thoughts and memories. The supper I’d eaten was peeled back, revealing the dreamless sleep, the conversation with Kolis, and my lies—all my lies. She kept searching. Images of a sky full of stars but no moon flashed, then small waves crashing beneath the House of Haides. Those quickly blended into others. I saw the woods and heard myself telling Ash that I loved him. The flashes came in rapid succession as Ione saw what I’d seen. Heard what I’d said. She saw the truths. All of them. She saw the lies, too. Sweat broke out on my brow. A tremor rolled through me as sharp, stabbing pain shot through my head and ran down my spine.
I felt myself shaking on the inside, tears filling my eyes as the ebbing agony became a fire. My skin felt like it stretched, thinned. My vision blurred.