Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 610(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Slowly, I became aware of a pleasant scent. A woodsy, soft one. I also became aware of my head resting on something firm, but not nearly as hard as the ground, and then the distant singing of night birds and insects. My heart kicked up. I was still in the gardens, lying half on cool grass, but my head was—
The thumb on my arm stilled. “I think you’re finally waking up, na’laa.”
My eyes fluttered open and my breath caught. The Lord’s face was above mine, cast mostly in shadow. Only a thin slice of moonlight cut through the canopy of limbs above us, glancing off his jaw and mouth.
He gave me a faint smile. “Hello.”
Bits of what had happened came back in an instant, propelling me into action. Jackknifing upright, I scurried onto my hands and knees, backing away several feet.
“You should know by now.” The Lord’s hands fell to his lap— the lap my head had been resting in. “That I’m not going to harm you.”
“You said you didn’t care if my neck was snapped,” I panted, arms and legs trembling with the rush of leftover adrenaline.
“That is what I said.”
I stared at the shadows of his face, dumbfounded. “I helped you last night and you let him take me— ”
“But I didn’t let him take you, now did I?” He crossed an ankle of one long leg over the other. “If I had, you wouldn’t be alive. He would’ve snapped your neck or ripped out your heart as he threatened.”
He had a point. I could recognize that, but the fear and anger, the sense of betrayal and the icy panic, were flooding my system, chasing away that strange and completely idiotic feeling of safety, of being cared for.
I lifted a shaking hand to my throat, still able to feel Muriel’s grip pressing in, bruising and crushing.
“Are you in pain?” the Lord asked.
“No.” I gently prodded the skin as I rocked back on my haunches. The skin there was a little tender, but nothing extreme, which made no sense. I clearly remembered falling— no, being thrown aside and my head hitting something hard, then sudden, violent pain before the nothingness. I lifted my gaze to the Lord once more, recalling the warmth of his touch and the brush of something softer against my forehead.
“Contrary to what I led the dearly departed Muriel to believe, and unfortunately, you to also think, I didn’t allow him to continue to use you as a shield,” he said. “I stopped him, and you were caught in the middle of that.”
The memory of something hard crashing into us— a flash of a hand landing on Muriel’s arm— rose. “He . . . he threw me.”
“Actually, that was me,” the Lord corrected. “I was attempting to get you to a safe distance. I may have done so a bit too enthusiastically.” His chin dipped, and the moonlight hit one high, sweeping cheekbone. “My apologies.”
My heart hammered as I lowered my hand to hover a few inches above the plush grass. A bit too enthusiastically? I remembered that feeling of weightlessness— of flying. He’d thrown me aside as if I weighed nothing more than a small child, and there was nothing small about me. I swallowed hard as I started to look around us.
“Muriel is no more,” the Lord shared.
That I figured. “There was another who was here. A . . . a Bas?”
“That was Bastian— Lord Bastian. He’s left,” he said. “We’re alone, na’laa.”
There was a skip in my breath. “I should be hurt. I should be . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. That I should be dead. I sat back on my ass. Or fell on it, landing in a puddle of moonlight. “Did you . . . did you kiss me again?”
“Excuse me?”
“Heal me,” I clarified. “Did you heal me again?”
Across from me, the Lord uncrossed his ankles and drew one leg up. He lifted a shoulder. “I told you that na’laa means several things in my language.”
I blinked, pressing my hand into the grass. His unwillingness to answer my question didn’t pass by me. “I remember. You said it means ‘brave one.’ ”
“It does.” One arm dropped to rest on his bent knee. “It can also mean ‘stubborn one.’ ” There was a hint of a smile in his voice. “Which makes the nickname all the more fitting.”
My lips turned down at the corners. “And why would you think that?”
His fingers began to tap against the air. “Is that a serious question?”
“I’m not stubborn.”
“I beg to differ,” he said. “I clearly remember telling you to come to me. You didn’t. Then I told you not to move and you then ran.”
I stiffened, indignant. “I ran because I had just seen you put your hand into another’s chest and incinerate them.”