Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153544 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 768(@200wpm)___ 614(@250wpm)___ 512(@300wpm)
I smile, then laugh long and hard and so maniacally that even I start to believe I’ve gone crazy.
He shakes me with his hold on my hair. “What the fuck are you on, bitch?”
I spit in his face again. “You’ll never get what you want, Devlin.”
He punches me hard enough to throw me to the ground. My vision blackens and I think I hear him laughing and laughing and laughing.
He who laughs last laughs best, arsehole.
If he thinks I’ll go to either Killian or Landon and start a war, he’s sorely mistaken. I’ll wait until I heal and then I’ll talk to Jeremy and Gareth so they’ll take care of him.
They’re reasonable enough to not get too violent or start a war.
I think I’ve got the plan all in motion until I feel strong arms lifting my head.
For a moment, I think I’m imagining things, that in a moment of weakness, he’s the one who comes to mind first.
But when I strain to open my eyes, I find Killian’s dark face staring at me, his fingers stroking my cheeks, and his voice a raging volcano.
“Who the fuck did this to you?”
Unable to keep my eyes open, I let them close, a pained moan leaving my lips. For some reason, it feels safe with him here.
I don’t want it to, but it does.
And I can finally admit that.
“Fuck, baby. Open your eyes. Tell me who did this.”
I purse my lips and let the darkness swallow me in its clutches.
38
KILLIAN
Of all the feelings that exist in my arsenal, irritation and anger take the crown as the prominent ones.
Especially fucking anger.
There needs to be an outlet to relieve the constant rage lurking inside me. A little bit of violence, a little bit of mayhem.
A little bit of anarchy.
I thought I knew anger so well, that I was already acquainted with the sensation of bubbling blood in my veins, the tensing of my limbs, and the red covering my vision.
Turns out, I never knew what actual anger was until I found Glyndon’s half-unconscious body by the cliff.
After that stunt of posting her hand in another man’s on IG, I was already planning murder—all eloquent thoughts Mom planted in my head to get Glyndon back long gone.
Or maybe they weren’t. I was just using another method to pursue her.
And since she wasn’t answering my calls, I had to use the tracker I implanted in her phone to find out where she went.
When I realized where she was driving, a disturbing uneasiness hooked against my bones and left me on the edge. I drove with the recklessness of a madman who had every intention of risking his life.
The scene I find, however, is nothing I could’ve conjured in my fucked-up mind.
At first, when I see the curled-up figure lying beneath a tree, I refuse to believe it’s her.
The early morning light casts a bluish hue on her legs that are tucked into her chest.
My heart thunders as I kneel beside her, so gently, so calmly as if another entity has taken over my body.
I touch her shoulder and carefully tug. Her head rolls and bumps against my knee.
The person I see in front of me is almost unrecognizable. A map of violet bruises spread over her cheeks, and one of her eyes is blue, swollen, and slightly open. Blood mars her once translucent skin and leaves a dry trail beneath her nose and mouth.
It’s like someone used her as a punching bag.
Someone who’ll wish for death when I get my fucking hands on them.
This is the part where I realize I actually had no clue what anger is all about. Those bursts of anger I felt before? Those could be called strong irritations or waves of mild anger at best.
But they don’t compare to this all-encompassing rage flowing in my veins instead of blood.
Splashes of red cover my vision until it’s difficult to see Glyndon through them, but I still grab her face and cradle it on my lap. She’s so small and weak in my arms. I always thought she was easily breakable, but that didn’t matter once I decided she was under my protection.
I just never thought someone would have the fucking audacity to touch her.
My hands are steady as I inspect her body for other injuries. My professors always expressed awe at my ability to remain collected under stress. The way I have a muted response to threats and disasters—a fact that enables me to find a solution faster than my colleagues.
That muted response is faltering right now, but I grab on to it with all my might. That’s the only way to assess Glyndon’s condition.
The good news is, she’s breathing.
The bad news is, she’s doing it with effort.
“Who the fuck did this to you?” I don’t recognize the masked rage in my deadly calm tone.