Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
We were drinking tea from intricate teacups, eating fucking Madeline’s.
The woman in front of me was interesting. She was slight, pale, fragile. But fragile like a stick of dynamite might’ve been. Vulnerable yet dangerous. I already knew the man, Lukyan, was. He walked and talked menace. It might’ve set my teeth on edge had I not already cut them on Knox. Regardless, it didn’t prevent me from feeling a prickle of fear in his presence, despite his polite greeting.
He was a man in the ‘business.’ The business of killing, I guessed. I couldn’t be sure. Some kind of criminal. One who’d amassed considerable wealth.
They emerged from the hall not smelling of cigars but of whisky. That surprised me but didn’t anger me. I even liked the smell of whisky on Knox’s breath when he laid his lips on my neck.
He’d pulled me away from the kitchen where Elizabeth and I had been preparing dinner. It felt foreign to be doing something so … normal in the midst of such chaos. But it was nice. I needed something to busy my hands. Elizabeth spoke little, of benign topics, studiously avoiding our abrupt arrival, acting as if we didn’t just turn up on her doorstep. She didn’t ask about the bruises either.
“I’m going to ensure that Daisy gets word to you as soon as it’s safe,” Knox said once he’d dragged me off, his voice low.
I blinked at what he was saying. Definitely not what I expected, even though my worry for Daisy had been pacing at the back of my mind at all times, like a caged tiger.
“Once it’s appropriate, you’ll meet up with her and Joey,” he continued, voice strange and tight. Distant.
A lump of dread formed in my throat even though he was telling me things that should’ve made me happy.
“You’re leaving me. Here,” I deduced though it didn’t take a rocket scientist to understand.
“Yes.” He tucked my hair behind my ear. He had his mask in place, as it had been the entire visit. He was edgy, stilted, on guard.
The intensity of it was comforting yet also pinching too tight, bordering on painful. But that was how I liked it. I liked it immensely, seeing that outside of the cabin, he still had that feeling for me. It wasn’t born of the surroundings, the situation in the cabin, the dark magic of the woods.
But my soul grieved through the impossible to ignore energy as he was saying goodbye.
“You’re going to be safe here,” he continued, never taking his eyes from mine.
My own eyes shifted behind him, to where Elizabeth was moving around in the kitchen, engrossed in her task. To where Lukyan was making no effort in hiding that he was watching us with a stare that could not be described as friendly.
Prior to this entire situation, that stare would’ve almost made me pee my pants, avert my eyes and run away. But now, I met the gaze levelly, without fear, communicating that I had tamed my own predator and wasn’t scared of other housebroken ones. His wife was baking cookies for fucks’ sake.
After a beat, Lukyan seemed to sense I wouldn’t scare like the general public did. The side of his mouth lifted, he nodded subtly to me, then he turned to his wife, pulling her into an embrace.
My attention went back to Knox, who had been watching me the entire time.
“There’s only one place I’m safe,” I told him. “And that’s with you.”
His gaze didn’t waver, didn’t so much as twitch, but his grip on my neck tightened.
“That’s the one place you’ll never be safe, Piper,” he rasped, all intense and foreboding.
I huffed in his face, rolling my eyes. “We’re going to agree to disagree on that. I’ve made my choice. It’s you.” I was determined to show him how serious I was.
He was still entrenched in the worry that he was going to taint me, ruin me. Not enough to let me go, thank God. He wasn’t that honorable.
I saw his jaw flex at my response. “In order for you to be safe, I need to take care of this.”
He didn’t elaborate as to what ‘this’ was. He didn’t need to.
“Stone… You’re going to kill him.” Why I repeated something I already knew, I wasn’t sure. I ached for him to explain to me what that entailed. Why I was being left there. How he could do it all alone.
“I’m going to take care of it,” he replied. I didn’t know if he wasn’t saying it outright because of Lukyan’s proximity or if he was trying to spare me from something.
“You can’t go alone,” I told him, worry suddenly clutching my neck harder than he ever could.
In my head, Knox was impenetrable. There was no way anything or anyone could hurt him.
But that was in my head. He was human, he’d shown me that much. He bled. Now that scared me. Knowing that he could be taken from me.