Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
I heard the scream in my head. I felt the blazing heat, followed by the rapid onset of excruciating pain. I replayed it all in my head, a pair of dark midnight eyes watching on. Teaching me a lesson, he’d called it. So no man would ever want what was his.
My palms flattened on the tiled wall. I turned up the temperature of the shower to counterattack the shivers that had broken out along my skin. But as I stood there, shaking my head and gasping for breath to rid my mind of that night, of the night he forever ruined me, I thought of Hush. I thought of him on the floor, body shaking from the racking seizure. And I thought of the scars on his arms. So similar to mine.
I lifted my head, tipping my face up to the shower. My tears mixed with the stream and washed down the drain. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed under the spray—enough time to help me decide what I would do next. I got out of the shower and went to the mirror. I rubbed the steam off the glass and stared at my reflection. Blue eyes met mine. My wet hair ran down my back and over my shoulders. Even after all this time, it was still hard to face this. Face . . . me . . .
Mine, bella. You belong to me now . . . Don’t you know there’s no leaving me now I’ve got you? I will give you a good life. One worthy of a queen . . .
The skin on my back crawled in disgust. Swallowing the nervous lump that had lodged itself in my throat, I slowly turned, never taking my eyes off my reflection. I hadn’t looked at my back for months and months. So when the red scars came into view, I couldn’t contain the whoosh of breath that fell from my lips. I didn’t know what I was thinking . . . what I expected to find this time, every time. It was always the same: the ugliness, the mottled and broken skin textured into lumps and bumps that would forever remind me of the time I’d placed my trust in the fucking devil himself.
The devil who was now searching the length and breadth of the country to drag me back to hell.
I didn’t even blink at that thought. I was numb as I stared in the mirror as if studying the ruined flesh would somehow reverse the damage.
I let my instincts lead me. Reaching for the thin pink towel on the floor, I wrapped it around my body and opened the bathroom door. Steam escaped, colliding with the fresh air from the hallway. I walked downstairs, turning toward the living room. I heard the cracking of the fire and my footsteps padding on the wooden floor as I followed my feet to the room. I kept my eyes straight forward, blocking the stifling fear that was trying to claw its way up my throat.
“Sia?” I heard Cowboy call. He was sitting on the couch where I’d fallen asleep. He shuffled to the edge of the couch, but I held out my hand for him to stay still. Looking to my right, I met Hush’s ice-blue eyes. His forehead was lined in confusion and his full lips were pursed as he looked at me. My vision shimmered as the tears I’d known would fall began to drip over my cheeks. Clearing my throat, I let my lips move. “When I was seventeen, I ran away,” I announced, my voice broken with the pain this memory brought out each time I relived it. Hush stopped breathing. His large body was a statue under the blanket that kept him warm. I absently noticed that he once again had color in his cheeks and life in his stunning eyes.
My hands shook on the towel as I gripped it tightly over my breasts. But I had to keep going. “I . . . I was broken.” I lowered my eyes to the floor, focusing on the grains in the wooden floors. “I didn’t have a close relationship with my aunt. And I was always pissed. Pissed that I never got to know my momma, who had died so many years before.” I winced as those feelings drove themselves to the forefront of my mind. “My poppa was non-existent in my life. Ky . . . Ky came and saw me as much as he could. But the war with the Diablos was building and occupied most of his time.” A teardrop hit my lip and fell into my mouth, the salty water the perfect allegory for the bitterness that dripped from my soul in those days. “My aunt was a kind woman but had no real love for kids. She was gone a lot, and I . . .” I sniffed and let my wet hair hide my face. “I was lonely.”