Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 65151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 326(@200wpm)___ 261(@250wpm)___ 217(@300wpm)
“Yes.” How could he smile at her like that, with such regard and admiration? “It’s true. The containment will detonate should your heart stop beating. Don’t die.”
“How could you do this to me?” If anyone knew, everyone would fear her. And if they destroyed her to destroy the virus, Jules would rip the Dome apart. Frantic, she shoved at his chest. “How could you be so heartless? You said you loved me!”
“Oh so much, Brenya.” He snatched at her fingers to press her bloodied palm to his heart, more of his infectious calm working into the cracks of her thinking. “Here. I love you here. Do you feel that?”
“You made me the greatest threat to the Dome… and then you made me swear never to leave.” Her eyes welled, angry tears falling down her jagged scar, mixing with the red mess smeared around her lips. “Take it out… please.”
“No.” Spoken with so much kindness she hardly recognized the man. The Beta killer. The terrorist. “I told you this was an invasion—my target, Bernard Dome’s control of the satellite network. Jacques was a known authoritarian, yet left your Dome’s most valuable resource in the control of a mainframe. Your network was easy to access. Which means we are not the only ones doing so. I saw things. Troubling things.” His resolve openly hardened. “Brenya, it takes a great deal to trouble me.”
It seemed so horribly reasonable, so diabolical, as he explained in calm tones, pressing her fluttering fingers to his bloody chest, and wrapped an arm around her back to pull her closer. How he swayed with her again, making her shift her weight from right foot to left and back, a light rocking, a rhythm that slowed her breath. “I volunteered for the mission, because it was that vital. It could not fail. And I needed leverage. Brenya, there is no greater leverage than fear of the Red Consumption. Jacques didn’t know my Followers possessed the virus, though perhaps he suspected, but Bernard Dome’s Alphas were desperate for Omegas. For ten women, he let me in.
“I needed to make sure no one could take my weapon from me if my ship was destroyed upon landing. I needed to make sure that if I was killed, the takeover would be successful regardless. So, I designed the implant myself, and it was surgically installed the night I left Greth. It’s been inside me all this time… until I put it in you.”
She had seen every inch of his body, the man covered in scars, just as he was covered in those black markings. And none of them seemed fresh. Maybe… just maybe… he was lying?
No, he had Followers here that would have assisted him with this. Hand-selected soldiers that had volunteered for this mission too.
He was an accomplished surgeon.
And he’d been her surgeon—for her face, her shoulder, and her vaginal canal. Jules and his men could have hidden that insidious device anywhere inside her!
She couldn’t take it out. She couldn’t tell anyone.
But she could be horrified. “What if there had been an accident! Everyone would have died! You would have killed my sisters and my brothers because Jacques is a bad man? No. No, Jules. Why?” Brenya could not fathom what made a man do such things, risk such things.
It wasn’t even for revenge.
Bernard Dome was innocent.
He knew that. He’d seen her peaceful people. And though Central was horrible, it was the minority when it came to the population. Less than a third.
But he would not be moved. “There are lives I care about in Greth, and in order for them to flourish, control of the satellites is required. For you to be safe, I must have those satellites. My goal was diplomacy, but if Jacques chose violence, then everyone under this Dome would have been infected and eradicated so the good men and women I am responsible for would not suffer again. They’ve suffered enough already. More than you can imagine. Every single one of them. Some far more than I. And I am loyal, Brenya.”
No, this was greed. It had to be.
“To you above all. I am loyal to you. If I’d died, having that device in my body, you would have died—either of Red Consumption or from the chaos that would take place in your Dome once it was released. My beloved, dear mate. I chose my actions with care. I don’t put myself in situations where there might be accidents. Such as when Jacques imprisoned me. You came to break me out, to rescue me, but I stayed in my cell… to keep you safe. I will even concede that your plan to escape the Dome and build a beacon may have worked, but… commandeering the satellite network was not optional. Continuing to control it, more important than you imagine.” Voice even, Jules’s sea inched up her shores, a soft embrace more than a rough annexation. “I need that to keep you safe too.”