Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Kane stayed where he was for a couple of reasons. One, it was possible he’d broken his ass, literally. Two, he didn’t want to rush at her, which was all he felt like doing. And three…
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” she whispered as she gripped the sofa arm like she was going to stand up.
“No, let me come to you.”
He got to his feet and walked toward her. The underground quarters were narrow, but long, and accommodated a small galley kitchen for food preparation, a water closet with a door, and furniture that, if measured against his standard of living prior to the prison camp, was casual, but compared to where they’d both been was palatial and beautifully clean as well as color-coordinated in blues and grays. There was even a proper bed, located behind the couch Nadya was sitting on.
“Callum said this is his personal retreat,” she explained. Then she blurted, “Are you hurt? I heard you scream out there—I thought you were dead.”
She covered her mouth over the hood with one hand. And then the other.
As he reached her, Kane lowered himself to his knees. In the lights that were mounted on the ceiling, Nadya’s draped form trembled and he wanted to take her into his arms, but he wasn’t sure where the boundaries were.
“I’m fine. I’m here. We’re safe.”
“Are we?”
“Yes, I promise.” At least for right now, he tacked on to himself.
As they fell silent, he didn’t know what to do next, but then she stopped his heart.
With a shiver that transmitted through the robing, she lifted shaking hands to her hood… and slowly moved it up and over her head. Her stare remained lowered as she revealed herself to him, but then she looked at him, and for the first time, he saw her eyes properly. Her irises were a swirl of blue and green and brown, the combination of colors so unusual, he had never seen it before. And in the center, in the black pinpoints of her pupils, he saw an eternity—
“You don’t need to cover yourself,” he said roughly. “Not around me. You’re beautiful.”
Her eyes returned to her lap. “How can you say that.”
“Back in the clinic, I was uncovered before your eyes. Did it affect your opinion of me?”
“But we are not the same anymore.”
“Yes, we are.”
He searched her face, cataloging the ropey scars that distorted one eye and half her nose and all of her cheek. He suspected the damage continued below the robing because the side of her throat was marked as well.
“Nadya…”
Rising up, he sat beside her on the sofa, put his arm around her, and eased her against him. Though her body remained stiff, she did tilt in—yet he had the sense that, though they were close to each other, they were miles apart.
“I’m going to keep us safe.” As the words came out of him, he looked over to a lineup of weapons in a glass-fronted cabinet mounted on the wall. “Don’t worry about that.”
And that was when it hit him.
“We’re out of the camp.” His voice was rough as he tried out the syllables, letting his ears test them for truth. “We’re not in there anymore—”
As he turned his head to look around some more—marveling, really, about the liberation—he caught his reflection in that gun cabinet’s glass.
What stared back at him was at once a stranger… and someone he could recall seeing all of his life—well, at least before he went into the prison camp. After that date, there had been no mirrors anywhere.
“Kane?” she whispered.
He had some vague notion that his body was getting off the couch and moving across to the cabinet, but he wasn’t tracking his own movements. He was too busy looking at himself, and as he came up close to the glass, he touched his own face, feeling nothing but smooth, healthy skin as he let his fingertips drift down his cheek to his jaw. Then he stepped back and stared at his torso. As he extended his legs, they worked perfectly, the muscles strong and coordinated, the knees flexing without pain, the bones underneath willing and able to support the load of his upper half should he need them to.
And underneath his skin? A humming of power that should not have been foreign, but felt like a revelation.
Turning away from himself, he felt helpless. Which made no sense. He should be jumping up and down and celebrating.
But none of this made sense. All he knew was that Apex and the others had gotten him out of the camp, and then someone had interceded on his behalf, and then…
“Yes,” Nadya said softly. “That’s what you look like now.”
“I find this… impossible to believe.”
He shook his head and walked around the cramped space. As he went up and back, he thought of the manor house he’d been given by his intended’s bloodline. There had been that horse path that had skirted the back meadow, the one he had taken his trotters on. He could have used its length and calming vista right now.