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)
“What is going to happen to me?” I asked him, my voice so low I wondered if it would even carry across the distance between us.
At first, I didn’t think it did. Knox didn’t move a muscle, nothing to betray he’d heard me.
Clenching my jaw, I waited, even though my first instinct was to fill the silence. Knox had taught me about that, the power in the chasm between conversation, what it meant if you were willing to weather it and wait for someone to tell you what they truly thought after having time to consider.
Knox had taught me a lot of things.
That the world was dangerous, dark and full of miscreants.
That my life was as fragile as that of a butterfly’s wings.
That I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was.
But I wasn’t weak either.
And most importantly, I was infatuated with wicked things. Wicked men.
One in particular.
“You are going to be destroyed,” he answered finally, his voice rough, not calm and controlled like it had been.
I flinched at the animality in his tone. The life in it. The pure heat.
He pushed off the counter, reaching me in a handful of strides. His hand went to the back of my neck, holding me in place.
My breath caught in my throat, my heart in my toes.
I peered up at him, unable to look anywhere but into the inky abyss of his eyes. The famous quote about staring into the abyss said it stared back at you. But this one swallowed me whole.
“You will be destroyed.” It came out softer this time, his thumb stroking my jaw in a gesture so impossibly tender, I hadn’t thought he was capable of it.
He was holding me like I was delicate, precious, like he was scared that one wrong move would shatter me—in direct odds with what he was saying.
“Your fate was sealed the second Stone laid eyes on you,” he continued. “The second he tasked me with breaking you.” I stifled a gasp when he leaned closer. “But you have broken something instead…” He trailed off, swallowing words I was desperate to hear.
Him. That’s what he left unsaid. What my wretched, hopeful, fucked-up heart was hoping he’d say. That I’d broken him.
I ached for him to give me that, to say it out loud.
But he didn’t. Didn’t say anything to further explain just how and when and by whom I was going to be destroyed. He just stood there, holding on to me.
Our lips were inches apart, my heart beating so fast it was about to explode. My skin felt like it was made of wasps, and my thighs were clenched together so hard that there was barely space for the wetness seeping from my pussy to escape.
I was sure that the loud bang I heard was coming from inside my head. But it wasn’t. In the next breath, Knox’s hands were no longer at my neck. Before I could unravel what was happening, I was shoved roughly behind him.
Then there was a loud crack—not as loud as I expected a gunshot to be. Not that I knew it was a gunshot right off the bat. Knox let out a grunt but didn’t move.
My legs turned to cooked noodles as I stood behind his large form.
“Move or I’ll shoot again!” a voice shrieked.
My ears were ringing from my heart pounding, the bang and the gunshot, but that didn’t mean I didn’t recognize the voice.
“Daisy?” I choked out.
Blinking rapidly, I tried to peer around Knox, but he wouldn’t move.
“Piper, are you hurt? Maimed? Essentially changed or injured in a way that can never be repaired?” Daisy’s voice was shrill and dramatic, but that wasn’t outside of the ordinary. She had the same tone when she found a spider in the tub.
Though in that scenario, she was too afraid to even smoosh said spider, yet there she was, somehow holding a gun, waving it around and pointing it at Knox.
And she had fired that gun.
Knox was still shielding my body with his. I stared at his back. He was wearing black, as per usual, but I noticed a wetness spreading over his shoulder. My finger tentatively touched it, then I stared at my red finger pad.
“You’re bleeding,” I told Knox. I stared at my sister, standing in this cabin, wearing a light-pink, wraparound cashmere sweater over a unitard and leggings. She looked as if she’d just come from practice. Which would make sense if we were in Manhattan, not hundreds of miles away.
“You shot him,” I informed my sister.
“I’ll shoot that motherfucker again, right in the head if I need to!” she shouted.
I was trying to compute her words, her presence in this facet of my life that had previously been untouched by any markers of true reality. Her being here, whether armed or not, fractured it all, sent my past and present lives hurtling together in a crash that made my brain hurt.