Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
I grinned. “You are ridiculous.”
“And you are beautiful.”
“Stop with the lines.”
“They are truths, and I am helping you become accustomed to them.”
I groaned, resting my head on the pillows. “What am I going to do with you, Theseus?”
“If you require suggestions, I have plenty.”
“Do any of those suggestions allow us to keep our clothes on?”
I could see the lust in his gray eyes again. “None at all.”
I laughed a belly laugh, then reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug.
“This hug was at the bottom of my suggestions.”
“I can let go.”
He held me tighter, rolling me over with him until I was now on top of him. We stayed like that for a moment before his embrace loosened, and he reached to brush my curls from my face. From there, his hands traced down the bridge of my nose and then over my lips.
“You were sad,” he whispered from out of nowhere.
“When?”
“When you were told of the witches. When you saw their bodies.”
I didn’t want to lie to him. “I felt uncomfortable. How did he kill them?”
“My father is very powerful.”
“I can feel it.”
He nodded. “It is not just instincts that you feel but him in your head still.”
“He is always listening?”
“It is not merely that. Reading minds is but the very basic exercise of his ability. Should he wish it, he can rip a mind to pieces.”
“What?”
He tapped my forehead with his finger. “Think of it in this way. To read your mind, he is merely applying a slight pressure that you can’t even notice. But then there are times in which he applies more pressure. That is what he did to the witches. He could see what they were thinking of doing, and with a thought, he crushed their brain from the inside. I’ve seen him do it. One moment they are there, and then they just collapse. If he wished to, he could keep the pressure at medium, enough to have them shaking in pain but not enough to kill them. He was merciful to the witches.”
“Merciful?” Crushing or exploding their brains within their skull did not seem like mercy.
But he nodded. “He could have done what he did to the Wiccans of these lands when they refused to submit to his rule years ago.”
“What did he do?”
“He forced them to kill one another.”
“He influenced them? Like you did with Dr. Lovell?” I replied, remembering the sticky note he made Dr. Lovell believe was identification.
“What I did pales in comparison. What I did was momentary, slight, and does not always work if the human is very self-aware. By the time Dr. Lovell returned home, he would have been confused at why he did so. But no more than that. My father’s gift is different. When Wiccans did not adhere to his wishes and kept killing vampires, he forced them to attack their loved ones while fully conscious of their actions. It was as if they were prisoners in their bodies, watching as they set fire to their own lovers, cut off their own hands, or exposed themselves to mortals, and all they could do was weep. They had killed seventy-eight Noble Blooded vampires over two years, and in a matter of three days, one hundred and ninety-one Wiccans turned to forty at the hands of my father alone. They became the Wiccans of the Vyara. The name Vyara, for the only witch who came to him and asked for mercy.”
The story seemed like something out of horror movies. Then again, wasn’t that the case with all wars? I now understood why he was so unbothered when his family had gone without them and why his brothers could so easily say that they could kill the rest of them. Because they actually could.
“You did not know these witches, nor did you know the ones who came to us today. So why does it make you so uncomfortable?”
“I know I didn’t know these witches. He said they were just the Omeron. But what happens when I do come across more of them? Something is wrong with my memory, too,” I replied.
“So you fear you may harm a witch you once knew?”
I nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. Sigbjørn did what was right for him. I knew it even at the moment. But for some reason, I dislike it when people die. I do not think I like death—the seventy-eight vampires killed, the one hundred and ninety-one witches killed, the circle of witches who died today. Whether witches, or vampires, or humans, I dislike it. I know it is the way of the world—even animals hunt and kill each other—and it is silly for me to think everyone could just get along. But I can’t help but think of those who grieve the loss of someone they cared for.”