Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I scowled. “What’s up with you?”
He snarled and lunged for me. His teeth clamped on my coat sleeve, scraping on the silver cuff beneath, making me jerk in fresh misery. The open port in my veins made those cuffs incredibly sensitive.
He jerked me forward with a growl, my body colliding with his bulk. “Hey!”
Getting a better bite on my coat, he tugged me in a half-circle until I faced the door.
I narrowed my eyes at the gloomy interior of my quarters. The sun hadn’t broken through the dreary clouds today, reflecting my depression.
I searched for Rook.
Why the hell hadn’t she arrived yet?
I’d grown to know her habits these past few weeks and regularly caught her snoozing when she thought she was alone. It seemed sleeping was one of her favourite pastimes. But there were limits—
Whisper snarled around a mouthful of coat, shaking me like a dead wildebeest.
“Do you mind?” Grabbing the giant cat’s whiskers, I tugged them very, very gently. Just enough to make him drop me. “Stop being so dramatic.”
Spitting and hissing, he wiped his muzzle on his leg before glowering at me like I’d betrayed him.
Which I kind of did.
We had an unwritten rule that I wouldn’t grab his whiskers unless absolutely necessary. I’d read in the zoology encyclopaedia that yanking his whiskers—also known as vibrissae—was intensely painful and disorienting, thanks to so many sensitive nerve endings.
“I’m sorry, okay? But you started it.”
Staggering to my feet, I rested my palm over the vitalsync core. “Why are you in such a foul mood? Did I not feed you enough last night?”
His glowing eyes met mine. He let out a roar so loud, so angry, it rattled the windowpanes.
“What the hell is your problem?”
He slammed into me, teeth clamping on my coat again and jerking me forward.
“Don’t make me grab your whiskers again.”
He let me go, trained to recognise that word.
A frustrated whimper escaped him followed by a savage growl.
The fire in my blood paused as goosebumps scattered down my spine. He’d never put on such passionate displays before. Not before she arrived.
I went still. “Is it Rook?”
He cocked his head and sneezed.
I didn’t know what that meant.
Would he even recognise Rook’s name?
Bending over, I held his stare. “Has something happened to the girl?”
He hissed right in my face.
I took that as a yes.
Urgency shot down my legs to go to her—
I froze.
A thin bead of sweat ran down my temples as a burn centred in my heart that had nothing to do with the vitalsync core.
This felt...human. Messily intense instead of callously engineered.
But...
If she was in danger—if Marcus had noticed the unwanted connection forming between us and decided to use it against me—wouldn’t I be walking into yet another trap?
What would he make me do in order to stop hurting her?
The worse question was: what would I be willing to do to keep her safe?
Anything.
I didn’t like that answer.
I didn’t like the sudden flash of wrath and violence and—
Fuck.
Swaying backward, I shook my head.
Impossible.
How had this happened?
I didn’t even know her.
I wasn’t supposed to feel anything.
She meant nothing to me, so why did the very thought of Marcus and his men laying a single finger on her make me want to slaughter them in the slowest, sadistically cruel way possible?
I backed up, shaking my head as more rage filled me.
If she’d become yet another tool to keep me in-line, then...I’d somehow already fallen for it and—
Stalking into my quarters, I threw myself onto the well-worn couch.
Fuck it.
Whisper dashed after me, snarling, spitting, hissing.
He leapt onto the couch and shoved his nose right in my face. Panther spittle landed on my black shirt as he growled.
“I’m not going.” I crossed my arms, fighting the trembling in my legs demanding I go immediately. “She means nothing.”
My pulse violently disagreed.
My hands balled into white-knuckled fists. “I have no intention of getting tangled in their games. I was only using her to combat my pain. Her suffering has nothing to do with me.”
A wrenching somewhere in my soul—
Whisper roared right in my ear, making my skull throb.
“Fuck you too,” I shouted right back. “Even if I do go, I’m just running into Marcus’s trap. Do you think he’ll stop hurting her if he knows how quickly I’ll give in?” I shoved the cat away from me, hating the judgement in his stare. “I go now and he’s won, do you hear me? I go and I condemn both of us to a lifetime of yet more pain.”
Whisper hung his head and whimpered.
I didn’t know how much he understood but he definitely recognised my tone. With a flick of his long tail, he dropped to the floor and charged toward the door.
He didn’t look back as he vanished.
In the silence left behind, I glowered at the coffee table and how clean everything was. Not a speck of dust, not a piece of lint. I’d always kept this part of the palace tidy because my days were long and insufferably boring but...somehow, she’d transformed my home from a prison cell into something more.