Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 100563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I rubbed my eyes, begging them to work. Desperate for sight, shadow, shape. Anything.
His shoes grated on the floor as he turned to Eleanor. “How did you get free?” His anger boiled. “Why is no one inside here as I fucking requested?”
A man I couldn’t see muttered, “They were out cold. It got too hot and stuffy. Figured they couldn’t go anywhere, so we—”
“I hired imbeciles,” Drake muttered. “Shut up. I don’t care. Do your job, or I’ll end your purpose on this earth, got it?”
I blinked again, my heart rate manic as the first threads of light broke through the dark.
A soft feminine shout sounded in Jealousy’s vicinity. “Stop!”
“Don’t fucking touch her!” I grabbed the bars, wishing I could pry them apart and leap from this goddamn cell.
Drake laughed. “I love how you’re still giving orders, brother. Ah well, despite the lax security, it seems I have two goddesses to play with tonight.”
More light spieled through my vision, crackling like old paint, ripping back moth-eaten curtains.
Eleanor’s curse whipped my head toward her.
Her short scream made my mind drip motherfucking red. “GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER, YOU FUCKING SONOVABITCH.”
“It’s okay, Sully. I’m okay.”
Goddammit, how dare she make me this privileged, this wretched, this powerless.
My head ached as my eyes did their best to focus past the cloying haze. “Just let her go, Drake. You win, alright? Let both girls go and I’ll sign whatever deeds you want. I’ll give you the schematics for Euphoria, the codes, the programming, the sensors. I’ll give you the recipe for elixir. You can have all of it...just let them fucking go.”
He didn’t reply, leaving me floundering in the light crackled dark.
Eleanor gasped, her body rustling with fight. “Don’t!”
My heart pounded with panic, amplifying the Tritec in my blood, granting me a surge of strength that would demand the worst kind of payment at the end. “Don’t touch her!”
“You’re no longer in the position of command, Sully.” He kicked my cage, making me jolt. I hadn’t felt him come near. My instincts were scrambled by Eleanor. Every cell homed in on her. Every scrap of awareness and survival had locked firmly onto our electric connection. “I’ll take you up on that generous offer. However, I have to sample the merchandise, don’t I? Oh, and FYI, your resident squirrels are delicious. They taste like nutty chicken.”
“I’ll kill you, you—”
“What am I holding up, Eleanor?” Drake projected his voice a bit louder, cutting me off and waiting for a reply.
Eleanor took her time, either refusing to obey or debating other choices. Finally, she clipped, “You’re holding up a vial of elixir.”
Ah, fuck.
He’d raided my office then.
He’d found the last three vials on this island.
“Know what that means, baby brother of mine?” Drake snickered. “It means I hope you two had a good sleep because tonight, I get to sample what you’ve been having. I get to fuck a goddess. And you’re going to watch...everything.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
WE MADE A SAD procession.
Two goddesses, one god, one devil, and four hobgoblins.
Drake led the way, his boots kicking up sand while Jealousy padded in front of me, barefoot in just a black bikini. Swimming here hadn’t exactly equipped her with a wardrobe fit to hide her curves from evil men.
My palms clasped together, my wrists once again bound; faint bruises from the last imprisonment ached beneath the new. At least this time, my hands were in front of me, instead of behind. Jealousy’s too and Sully’s.
All trussed up like cattle with guns aimed at our heads, marched from our cages and down sandy laneways to our demise. Stars peeked between stencils of palm leaves. A flash of emerald hinted Pika chased us from afar, and the chorus of cicadas, frogs, and bats did its best to still masquerade as a paradise but failed.
Thanks to Drake, he’d infected this Eden with his monstrosity. He was Lucifer himself, undoing all the good in the world.
Sully’s harsh breath tickled my nape. His rage was a thick vapour, seething with condemnation, sharp as a scalpel and searching for the tiniest opportunity to murder his brother.
Glancing over my shoulder, I flinched as I looked into his red-rimmed eyes. I wished he hadn’t taken the cotton off yet, but I understood why. He’d wanted to see.
But...he can’t.
My heart bled when Sully kept his fractured stare directly ahead, not noticing I studied him. His back remained rigid, his hands clasped with white knuckles and rope chewing into newly knitted skin. Clad only in black boxer-briefs, the damage done to him remained on display like a dreadful tapestry. However, even with the bandage around his thigh and the terrifying blankness of his defective stare, he was still a thousand times the man the guards and his brother were.
He moved with an untouchable fortitude, a brooding vigour that guaranteed vicious violence the moment my life wasn’t in the crosshairs.