Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
I really should’ve listened to Holland.
“You and I are really going to need to work on watching that mouth of yours.” Kolis was kneeling over me before I could even move. He grabbed my nape and flipped me onto my back. “Because you and I?” He caught my wrists, grinding the broken bones together as he pinned my arms above my head. He straddled my legs, trapping them. “We’re going to be spending a lot of time together.”
“Get off me, you piece of shit!” I screamed, eather flickering frantically. He switched the hold on my wrists to one hand. “Get off me—”
He slapped his free hand down on my mouth, his fingers more bone than flesh and cutting into my skin. “I have a feeling I’m going to have to cut out your tongue, and that would be a shame. I’m sure once Kyn finishes with his brother, he’ll want a taste of that sharp tongue.” A spasm shuddered through him as he rolled his neck. “I need you to listen to me when I tell you how this will go.”
I glared at him, wishing my stare could burn him alive.
“First and foremost, you will give me The Star,” he said. “But that will no longer satisfy me. You will give me more than that.”
I strained against his hold, rage choking me.
“You will give me retribution,” he whispered, blood dripping from his throat onto my face, even though the wound had healed. “I will keep you alive until Sotoria matures, and then I will drain every drop of blood and essence from you and rise as the Primal of Ash and Blood.” He lowered his head, and my body went rigid. I felt his fangs against my throat. “That will take years, Seraphena. Years. And in those years, you will feel what I have. What it’s like to have the one thing you only ever wanted repeatedly taken from you. Do you know how that feels? You should have gotten a taste of it since I’ve already begun.” He lifted my upper body when I didn’t answer and slammed me back down. My head cracked off the floor. He removed his hand from my mouth. “Do you?”
“Fuck off!” I shouted as panic, icy and slick, coated my skin, and my vision blinked in and out. I couldn’t pass out. I couldn’t.
Kolis gripped my chin. Snow fell in larger flakes, coming down faster. “Every day without her kills a piece of me,” he said, real emotion creeping into his voice, thickening it. “And I want that for you. I want you to drown in it. Choke on it. I want each and every day you live to be coated in sorrow and regret, while knowing you could’ve prevented it by giving her to me.” He slammed my head back once more, and my vision faded again. “I want Nyktos’s death.”
My heart stopped, and my struggles ceased. “No,” I seethed, feeling the essence trying to rise. “I will not allow it.”
“You are no longer in a position to decide what you will allow.” He tipped my head back until my neck protested. “But I don’t want a quick death for him. He will live as long as you so that he, too, can feel that loss every day. So that he can feel everything done to you, just as he feels this right now. And as I said before, Seraphena, I have so much planned for you.”
My insides flashed cold, and our eyes locked. I thought I heard footsteps, but I had to be imagining it because he didn’t react.
“And because I am a kind and gracious King, I will allow you two to leave this existence together,” he said, eyes burning like coals. A shadow moved out of the corner of my eye. He was zeroed in on me and only me. “But by then, I imagine both of you will be begging for death.”
He shifted his lower body, and my entire being flinched. “Should we start now?”
I refused to look away from him. I refused to cower—to beg or disappear.
“I’m going to ask you once more,” he said, slipping his hand from my chin and running it down my chest. I clamped my jaw as he squeezed, swallowing the cry of pain. “Do I scare you?” His hand twisted, and I kicked my head back. A wave of agony washed over me. “Do I?”
I panted through the pain. My head was spinning. Another flash of lightning radiated through the sky, reflecting off a blade of dull white. I didn’t understand what I was seeing in the falling snow until my eyes locked with ones the color of the Stroud Sea. “No,” I rasped. “You don’t scare me anymore. I feel absolutely nothing when it comes to you.”
Kolis lifted his head, eyes narrowing. “We’ll have to change that, won’t we?”