Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 43197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 173(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Now that I had seen him, the death of my soulmate before I ever had a chance to make him mine had suddenly become a real possibility. I still felt a weak tug, but it was—so damn weak. I was scared, though I didn’t like to admit it.
When we found the stepmother, she made excuses and said she had been planning on letting us know where she was, but she’d been struggling with Kailar’s health. She told us where he was trying to find a job and Keion had tracked him down to an unemployment office in Knoxville. I had stayed behind on that occasion because Keion didn’t trust me not to react emotionally when I saw him. He said Kailar looked that bad.
He’d asked one of the employment counselors there to send me his file, pretending to have a job for him. The counselor was confused but sent his file, along with a dozen others she thought might be more “suitable.” Those went in the trash right away. Keion arranged for an interview and walked in just as the counselor who had been interviewing Kailar was insulting him, even taunting him.
Keion had been trying to use his magic to heal him since he’d found him. So far, he still looked terribly ill, but Keion thought it was working a bit. We needed to get him back in the water though. His stepmother had told Keion that Theos hadn’t told her much, but he said that Kailar was special and needed to swim daily. He told her Kailar’s health suffered when he didn’t, but she didn’t know the full extent. Since Tybee, Kailar had refused to go in the water, and his aura, which should have been a bright beautiful blue or green, had been weakened, and barely held any color at all. Keion called me as soon as he’d seen him and told me his hair was solid white, and his skin looked gray. Death would soon be a visitor to my mate if I didn’t get him under my protection and try to understand what was happening to him. If it took all my magic, every last ounce of it, I wouldn’t lose Kailar. I couldn’t.
Chapter Four
Kailar
The alarm on Alexa went off at precisely nine o’clock in the morning. I didn’t need it. I’d been awake all damn night, trying to understand what was really going on. The story Alyx had fed me the night before, the one where everything would be just fine in my new world, had faded in my mind from reality to complete and utter bullshit as each hour ticked away through the long, dark night. By the time three o’clock in the morning rolled around, I was fully realizing what Alyx and Keion had done to me was exactly like I thought. It was all some sort of mind persuasion, or hypnosis and I’d fallen for it.
But why?
What the fuck was their end game? I had nothing to offer, yet they acted like I was a prize—both Alyx and Keion. To sum it up, I was clueless. And sleepy. And feeling weak…as usual.
I slid my thin legs over the edge of the bed and waited for enough strength to return so I could stand. Alyx had said breakfast would be served at 9:30 sharp. Hell, maybe I was the breakfast. How could I have so stupidly fallen for their lies? Yep, they were definitely serial killers, and I was at the top of the list. That had to be it.
Then my brain kicked back in, and I thought, No, they weren’t serial killers. That was stupid. Wasn’t it?
That only left what? Magic? They called this place Magick Hill. Could they be using magic on me? But again, to what purpose? I was a nobody.
As soon as my feet hit the floor, though, the strength was there. Not all the way, but definitely stronger. Weird. It felt like all my nerves were buzzing—maybe not in a good way but not in a bad way either. I checked my hands. They didn’t look nearly as old and weak as usual. Glancing down, I saw strands of my long hair. It was no longer a stark white but more of a mixture of pale colors like pink and blue and green. What the fuck? My fingers traced the edges of the new strands and the hair felt…healthy, at least. Even the still-white hair felt different than before. With an excitement that I hadn’t felt in years, I eased off the bed and made my way toward the bathroom…toward a mirror. I usually tried the avoid them—had even requested my stepmother to remove all of them from our small apartment except for the ones in her room.
Don’t get excited. Don’t get excited. Don’t get excited, I warned myself.