Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 85552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
“You must be, Camille. Surely, you look different.”
I moved my wrist and hugged myself.
“With the hair, you must have mage in your blood. Surely, you knew that.”
“Yes. . .my mother never wanted to talk about it, but I always knew something was different about me.”
“We must find out.”
Tension gathered in my shoulders.
Leeta’s voice grabbed our attention. “They came for you, Camille.”
I turned to kneel next to her as she coughed over and over. “What are you saying?”
She cleared her throat and whispered, “Camille, they came for you.”
“Me?”
“She must be delirious.” Xander’s blond-and-black striped eyebrows furrowed. “We can’t give her any more of your blood. Something is wrong.”
Shivering, Leeta snatched my shirt collar and yanked me to her. “Listen to me.”
I fell into her heaving chest. “I’m listening.”
Xander hissed. “Leeta, what are you doing?”
I held my hand up to quiet him. “Who came for me, Leeta?”
“Hundreds. . .so many guards. . .an. . .army. . .” She cleared her throat again. “They tracked your scent to the room you slept in.”
A cold chill ran up my spine. “Hundreds of vampire guards?”
Xander snarled. “Why would there be hundreds of Royal Guards searching for one domina?”
“After not finding her, they. . .set fire to the town. One yelled. . .that they found your scent, Camille.” Leeta’s eyes closed. “Then they ran off toward the north.”
She released my shirt and collapsed to the ground with parted lips.
“This is all because of me?” My bottom lip quivered. I scanned the destruction. “No. It can’t be.”
Freemont’s citizens still raced away, towing young ones and any of their belongings that they could hold. Houses crashed into themselves and exploded into sparks of fiery red.
A lump of sorrow sank down in my gut.
People died and lost their homes because of me?
“Leeta must be delusional. She’s traumatized from the fire,” Xander explained, but his face possessed that tense look he got when he was worried.
“You don’t believe that.”
“I don’t know what to believe until she is fully healed and really able to tell us what happened.”
“What if she’s telling the truth?”
Xander lifted her up in his arms and rose.
“Xander. . .what if they burned this town down over me?”
“Then I’ll kill them all.” His fangs lengthened. “For now, we should hide, just in case. Leeta said they tracked your scent and went to the north. That makes sense. I’d taken you north first, before you found out, and we had to turn around and go south to Zumaya. This gives us maybe a week before they approach Zumaya. We’ll have to hide.”
Stunned, I stood. “Where will we hide?”
“In the sewers.” Xander walked off.
I caught up with him and gazed at the town’s damage with new eyes. “Have you ever seen guards set a town on fire when they searched for an escaped domina?”
“No. Leeta has to be delusional, because if this is the truth, then you’re in danger and I don’t want that.” Xander led us out of Freemont’s border where the fire had begun to lazily die down.
What were once probably well-established restaurants, hotels, and homes were now piles of burning wood and streams of smoke that floated from charred heaps.
I shivered. “Do you know the usual procedure for going after a domina?”
“I’ve never seen more than two or three guards search for one.” Xander shook his head. “Especially one that was untouched.”
I’d been an untouched domina when I escaped—neither the Quiet King nor any other vampire had pierced my flesh with their fangs or had sex with me.
Untouched dominas weren’t as valuable as touched ones. We hadn’t yet proved we could birth babies or quench a vampire’s thirst.
Nevertheless, I counted myself lucky.
But during my time with Xander, my untouched status changed. He drank from me and set a bond between us—one that included his ability to read my thoughts and dominate all of my desires.
“How many guards are sent for touched dominas?” I asked.
Xander let out a long breath. “Ten or so if the domina was able to birth many children.”
“Only ten?”
“And never a hundred.”
I trembled and could barely walk further due to all the fear.
Xander continued, “And I’ve never seen the guards destroy and terrorize a town like this.”
Hushed silence floated between us.
We traveled down a darkened road that led us away.
Cracks and snapping sounded behind us as the town of Freemont collapsed unto itself.
Please don’t let it be that I was the cause of that destruction.
A massive stone wall appeared miles ahead and bordered Capitol City, the place I’d lived in slavery with the Quiet King.
Now that we left the charred town of Freemont, fresh air emerged and the two moons surfaced in my view. They bathed us in white light.
No one else walked the path but us. The rest of the people, I assumed, fled in the other direction where our horses were tied.
For now, only wild animals traveled with us out here. Turquoise-striped tigers prowled by and kept their distance between them and Xander. White shaggy wolves journeying in huge packs, howled together, and sniffed the air.