Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I pick through her thoughts more, focusing on the resentment edging her thoughts. Maybe it is my own madness that makes me gravitate toward it, but I cannot help myself. Your kin—he is the reason why you are here now? Why you are trapped?
Yup. I was in hiding, but his goons swung by my area and now I’m stuck here with Azar’s bunch of idiots. It’s a shitty situation, but it’s also been made pretty clear to me that I’m not allowed to leave.
Why do others control if you leave or not? Are you chained, as well? I do not sense it in her thoughts, but perhaps I have overlooked it somehow. My own anger begins to stir once more, the red haze enveloping my mind.
Not chained. It’s okay. Her thoughts are soothing, so soothing. Stay calm, Zohr. I’m here.
Calm. Calm. I will try.
Maybe you don’t ask me about things that will make you angry, she teases, again with a hint of humor in her thoughts. I stay because I know how men like this work. They trust no one. If I disappear, they will assume it’s because I am running from them for a reason, and they’ll come after me. I have to stay. It’s just how nomads think.
Nomads? The thought is unfamiliar to me.
Those without a home. They’ve been kicked out of other forts for bad behavior.
Her thoughts tell me of the human nests, and I send her a flicker of understanding, letting her know I follow. My people, too, cluster together in groups for companionship. Why are you not in one of those nests?
Me? I’m just not a fort kind of girl, I guess.
There is more to it than just that, though. She is withholding the truth from me. I am in your thoughts, my mate. I can tell when you are hiding things.
I can feel her mental shrug as much as I feel her moving, heading closer to my location. Through her eyes, I can see that she is heading through one of the strange, square nests—a building—and moving toward another. Closer to me. I flare my nostrils, but I cannot smell her. Not yet.
There’s lots to reply to there, you know. Like, am I really your mate? Isn’t that a discussion we need to have first? And why do you feel you get access to everything in my head just because you’ve decided you’re my mate? I’m allowed to have my secrets. We have this mental connection because I’m here to rescue you. I’m responsible for you. Don’t ask me for more, Zohr, because I’m not sure I have it.
Her words anger me. She is not my mate? Of course she is. Did she not claim me, just as I claimed her? I gave her my seed—
—And she rejected it. Left me and cleaned it off of my body as if it was not the essence of who I am. The growl budding in my throat rises furiously.
Zohr? Are you okay? I’m getting a lot of bloodthirsty thoughts from you.
I am held captive by fools who need their throats torn out, I tell her. No, I am not okay.
I guess that was a stupid question. Her thoughts feel apologetic. I’m sorry.
And now she is hurt. My frustration mounts until I cannot bear it. The urge to see her, to scent her, hits me with visceral need, and I growl low in my throat, twisting in my bonds. The male human nearby shouts something at me, but I ignore him. He does not matter. Let him come and try to silence me—I will rip his throat out with my teeth, even in this form.
I’m almost there, Emma sends to me. Please be patient just a little longer.
I hear the sound of something. A door opening, I realize, combining her thoughts with my visual cues. I close my eyes so I can focus on what she sees, experience the world through her gaze since I am trapped down here. A wave of fresh air moves through and with it, the thick scent of Emma’s scent-masking perfume.
I choke on the taste of it.
Sorry, she sends meekly. Has to be done.
If it is something I must endure to find her scent underneath, I will tolerate it. Even now, when the air moves, I can catch hints of Emma’s true scent, and it fills me with joy…and hunger. Come sit with me, I demand, struggling to see her over the lip of the strange, pale pit I am at the bottom of.
Be there soon. Just let me talk to Artie and tell him what I’m doing.
“Hi there,” my Emma says brightly, and she speaks to the man holding a fire-spitter and standing near the entrance. The one who shouts at me to be silent so often. Artie. He is scared of me, and the noises I make are why he clutches his weapon—his fire-spitter—so closely. I memorize his face through her thoughts, because I will tear his throat out if I see him and I am free. Ugly. Big nose. Big brows. Small mouth. Eminently destroyable.