Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
He stepped up to the last painting on this wall and finally did give a reaction. One she wasn’t expecting.
A soft gasp escaped him, and he leaned closer suddenly. Those beautiful eyes widened, zipping around as he sopped up the details. He stayed for a long moment, his body tense, his focus transfixed—just as transfixed by the painting as she was by him. Both of them were watching something that shouldn’t be half so interesting. It was clear he really loved art, that he felt a passion for it that this room had exploited. She couldn’t remember feeling so passionate about anything.
His arm jutted out suddenly and his fingers wrapped around her neck before she could blink. Air was cut off, but her reactions were strong. The knife hand darted out of its own accord, blade aiming for his ribs.
As though an experienced dancer, he stepped diagonally and twisted, reaching under his outstretched arm and catching her wrist before she could do any damage. His grip tightened in such a way that agony shot through her.
The knife fell from suddenly lifeless fingers.
“Good girl,” he said softly in that whisky voice. She was at his mercy.
TWENTY-THREE
Nessa
He lifted her off the ground with zero effort and, taking another step, moved them nearer to the center of the room, where there was more space.
The lights started to flicker. The air grew heavy and the door to the room widened. The ground vibrated just slightly, and little feet thumped from an undisclosed location.
His arched eyebrows pinched together slightly. His gaze traveled the air around them before making its way back to her eyes, as though he could see her.
“Are you a spirit, I wonder?” He looked behind them at the ground. “The knife is real enough. Crisp edges.” Back at her now. Her air was still cut off, her wrist painfully in his grasp. “But you are hazy, like a beautiful angel of death come to snatch me up and carry me straight to hell.”
Could he see her? That had to be impossible! There was no magic as strong as Jessie and Sebastian’s combined power. No two mages in the world could match them or produce such an intricate potion. Nessa should know—she and Sebastian had looked high and low. They’d exhausted their search.
As Tristan’s eyes moved over her, though, there could be no doubt.
Spots appeared in her vision. Still she held perfectly still, her brain churning furiously. She wasn’t sure how to get out of this. With an arm trapped, she couldn’t do any magic capable of breaking his hold. Without air, she couldn’t use words, and she wasn’t strong enough to think any spells into existence.
And so she surrendered to the moment. To his control. To this situation. Fate would take her where it would. If that was to the grave, then it was probably past time. She’d been evading it for so long. She’d always known it would catch up with her eventually.
He swore under his breath.
The fingers on her wrist relaxed, and then her feet bumped down as he switched his other hold from her throat to the back of her neck. He pulled her closer so he could look down into her face.
She used the release to react, smashing him with her strongest spell.
It didn’t stick, though. It was like it hit him…and then split down the middle and fell away. He didn’t flinch. The only sign that he’d felt anything at all was a tiny tightening of the eyes.
“What are you?” she managed through a bruised throat.
“A better question is, what are you? I felt you spying. I haven’t known one of your kind to wield a knife. What sort of sorcery is she practicing here?”
“Wh-what?” Nessa said, so close to that handsome face, to his hard-as-stone expression. He was ruthless—she could see it in his glowing eyes, which were brighter when he was incensed. He didn’t have a streak of crazy like Broken Sue—he had a streak of wickedness. Both men were violent, but on opposite ends of the spectrum: the protector and the villain.
The villain was a lot more dangerous, because he didn’t give two shits about rules. And now she was in his clutches.
“I’m just a mage,” she rasped.
Dolls burst into the room and ran for Tristan, their little faces screwed up in anger and their weapons out. He snapped his head up, and for a moment he froze. His gaze tightened.
“I don’t remember dying, but those are certainly agents of hell,” he murmured, pulling her up and dashing around a grouping of chairs piled atop a table. He sprinted for the side, for an open door to the interior tunnels Ivy House must’ve popped opened after he’d grabbed Nessa.
“No,” she cried, but it was too late. He dashed in and yanked it closed behind him, taking a look around.