Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
He seemed utterly saturated with darkness.
Kyle bristled behind me. “Take another step and I’ll slit her throat.”
Henri didn’t stop.
Footfall after footfall. He. Did. Not. Stop.
Tears stung my eyes as the connection between us snapped free.
Emptiness flowed from him.
Vacant emotions and bone-icing nothingness.
Kyle cut me deeper. “I’ll do it. I’ll fucking—”
Henri flew.
One second, he stalked us. The next, he knocked me backward, using my weight to crunch Kyle to the ground. With cold, vicious hands, he tore Kyle’s fingers off my neck, ripped him off me, then dragged him away, kicking and screaming.
Coughing and choking, I scrambled to my feet, swaying a little at the onslaught of so many pounding bruises. My skin glowed with crimson paint, but beneath the red sludge, my flesh already welted with purple and black. A morbid rainbow of bruises that marked me as the chosen one.
Rachel and Mollie charged to my side and clutched me close. “Are you okay? Did he—”
“Don’t.” Pushing past them, I limped forward, needing to keep my eyes on Henri.
He felt all wrong.
Lost.
Broken.
Kyle kept yelling obscenities and curses, all while Henri tossed him onto his back and planted a foot against his chest.
“Get off me, you cunt.” Grabbing a handful of pebbles, Kyle threw them into Henri’s face.
With a grunt, Henri fell back. Clawing at his eyes, he gave Kyle a split-second window to shoot to his feet.
He launched himself at Henri.
The two men went wheeling back, fists flying, bodies twisting.
Kyle might be smaller, but his temper kept him evenly matched.
“We have to go.” Rachel tugged my arm. “We’ll follow where the other Masters went. I know them. They’re sick, but they’re afraid of Victor, so they won’t touch us now the game is over.”
“I agree.” Mollie took my hand. “Let’s grab Peter and—”
Henri bellowed as Kyle kicked him in the balls, then charged to the fallen knife.
“No!” I raced toward him, desperate to get the blade before Kyle did.
We arrived together.
I ducked for it.
Pain as he backhanded me and sent me flying.
In a blur of tears, I watched as he fisted the knife and bolted toward Henri.
“Watch out!” I screamed.
Lowering his hands from between his legs, blinking past grit, Henri braced himself just as Kyle launched through the sky and stabbed him.
The blade sank into Henri’s bicep, the tip vanishing into his arm.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Nobody moved.
And then…whatever strings existed in Henri frayed completely.
He didn’t seem real.
Not human.
With the smoothest arc as if he were a dancer in a past life, Henri snatched the knife out of his arm, grabbed Kyle by the throat, and shoved it into his jugular.
Kyle screeched.
A fountain of red exploded, covering Henri’s t-shirt.
“Oh my God,” Mollie gasped.
Rachel moved to my side.
None of us looked away as Henri deposited Kyle almost gently on the ground, dropped to one knee as he watched Kyle’s lifeforce pump out of his throat, and then…withdrew the knife, wiped the blade on Kyle’s slacks, and pierced it directly into his heart.
The crunch of ribs as he stabbed hard.
The whimper from Kyle as he died.
The blur of Henri’s arm as he withdrew the knife and stabbed again and again and again.
He didn’t stop.
He kept going.
A blood-covered savage as he turned a person into nothing more than a hunk of meat.
Chapter Eight
………………………….
Henri
CARNAGE AND BLOOD.
Blood and death.
Nothing else existed.
Just darkness and dying and the despicable need to slaughter.
To eradicate this world of filth.
To end all life that didn’t deserve to live.
To end myself.
I lost count how many times I killed him.
How many times I drove that blade into his flesh.
It became meditative.
Calming.
Freeing.
This was what I was.
Death.
And alone.
Always, always alone.
I would’ve kept stabbing if a voice didn’t call me back.
A voice I recognised but wasn’t the one that leashed me.
A voice that caused jealousy and annoyance and worry.
Such worry that I would never be worthy.
Such fear that I would always lose.
“Master H…”
A man’s baritone.
I ignored him.
I drove the knife into another gristly part.
“Henri.”
I shook my head from the unwanted noise.
“Henri!”
I paused.
The smog slowly lifted.
I blinked.
“Henri…”
I gulped at that one.
Feminine, soft, afraid.
Ily.
The world slipped back into focus.
I gagged on the mess I’d caused.
Shoving away from Kyle’s corpse, I shot to my feet and glowered at the knife in my hands. My fingers thick with another’s blood.
Such thick, cooling, congealing blood.
“Put the knife down, Henri.”
That voice again.
Giving me orders when he had no right to do so.
“Put the knife down so you don’t hurt her.”
Ily’s hand landed gently on my shaking forearm.
My head snapped up.
I looked past her to Peter.
He sat upright in a thicket of tussock. Bloody hands on his thighs, pain carved deep into his face. “Please, please don’t hurt her.”
“Henri…you’re okay. It’s over.” Ily reached for the knife. “Can I have this?”
My fingers tensed but then relaxed.
Opening my hand, I presented it to her on my red-dripping palm.
But I didn’t speak.
I didn’t think I would ever speak again.