Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
“We are,” he insisted gravely. “I told you, nothing made on this planet can hold me back. Not once I’ve regained what was taken from me.”
I lifted my weak hand and touched the manacle on his thick left wrist. What the hell had been taken from him? His health? His power? I guess he had just brought up the hearing and vision thing, but the way he worded that….
He held his wrist closer to me. “This is nothing.”
“You can take it off?” That was dumb, of course he could.
“What do you think?” he confirmed. “But there’s a device in here that might go off once I remove it, and I’m not going to risk it until we’re ready to get out of here.”
“Oh.” That sounded so easy, but it couldn’t be.
“I’ll hear them before they come. We’ll leave then,” the man known as The Defender said, steadily.
I sighed, weakly, exhausted and feeling like total shit. “I’m sorry I’m holding you back.”
His broad chest did that funny almost-hiccupping sound. “You should be; it’s annoying.”
Surprised, I glanced up at him.
The son of a bitch blinked.
“You’re… annoying,” I whispered. Rude.
His gaze ran over my face for what felt like a long time. The muscles at his cheeks flexed, and even his throat bobbed. He didn’t exactly sound happy about it, but he still said it. “I owe you my life, Gracie.”
I shivered. He didn’t. He really didn’t, but I couldn’t get the words out.
Those eyes glowed for a second. “I take it seriously.” He sounded like it. “You could have told them who I was, and that might have made them stop what they did to you.” He took a deep breath that I felt more than heard. “You tried to protect me.”
All I could do was look at him.
“We’re going to get out of here,” he claimed, sounding for once exactly how I’d imagined The Defender talking—serious and powerful with just a hint of arrogance. “I promise.”
What a promise that was.
I nodded, my chest feeling heavy, my soul too. But I wanted to believe him. I really did. Part of me didn’t, but I wanted to. So I nodded again, my head against his chest. That nice, not warm but not cool, yet very comfortable chest. “Thank you.”
He grunted.
“Want to know a secret?” I whispered.
I felt his “hmm” more than heard it.
“I used my underwear as toilet paper in the other room and hid it. I hope they throw up when they find it.”
Alexander—The Defender’s—chest puffed again, and I could tell his chin dropped to look at me.
I smiled, and the last thing I remembered hearing was his slow, slow heartbeat in my ear.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
I sensed my body being moved once or twice in the time that came afterward, and I definitely felt my cheek and head resting on what felt like a leg or something else hard but more comfortable than the floor. Warmish liquid was fed into my mouth in streams, and I was pretty sure I heard a voice coaxing me to swallow each time.
More than once, I felt something that wasn’t exactly cool being brushed across my face, but it still felt so nice. Soft, mushy food was slipped into my mouth, that same voice urging me to chew, to swallow again.
I had a weird memory that almost felt like a dream of sitting on what felt like a toilet seat and being told to pee. I was pretty positive I did it too. That was what being delusional must be like.
I was hot. I was cold. Hot, cold, hot, cold. It was a never-ending flip-flop of misery.
But at some point, while my brain was at its fuzziest, hurting so bad I wasn’t sure how I could still think, while total darkness enveloped my consciousness, while I felt like I cried and could have sworn I felt a hand wipe my face, all of a sudden, the shitty-ness lessened. The worst of the shivering tapered off, and eventually my brain didn’t hurt so bad. And when I finally opened my eyes, weak and still with the remnants of a headache straight from Satan, I was surprised to realize that my side was plastered against a body.
Not just a body, I found. Alexander’s chest again. I spotted the flat plane of his stomach first. Then the hint of a muscular arm.
I was on his lap. Not between his thighs, but on him.
The side of my face was sealed up against his chest.
He smelled spicy and dark, and for a brief moment, I wondered how bad I had to smell. I hadn’t put deodorant on in… I didn’t even know how long it had been since we’d gotten here. I’d sweated. I hadn’t showered. My skin was grimy and oily, and now that I thought about it, my head itched like hell. Then there was everything else wrong with me.