Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
I moved faster than them.
I ducked quicker, hit harder, embraced death that always hunted me.
I would give the Reaper a soul tonight.
I’d give him four.
My fists struck.
My legs kicked.
Ruthlessly, silently, I attacked and pummelled, not feeling any pain as they landed their own strikes. They screamed at each other to defeat me. They yelled instructions on how best to win.
But I no longer spoke their language.
Words were useless.
Savagery was everything.
I was free.
The constant suffocation of hiding. The agonising attempt at ignoring who I truly was.
It was as if a pressure valve had opened.
Spilling out my darkness.
Letting loose my brutality.
I attacked them.
Inhumanly, viciously.
I wanted them bleeding.
I wanted them begging.
I want them in motherfucking pieces.
Chapter Twenty-One
*
Nerida
AGE: 20 YRS OLD
*
(Love in Polish: Miłość)
I’D ALWAYS KNOWN ASLAN HID FROM A large part of who he was. I felt it each time he drove inside me. I tasted it each time he kissed me, and I heard it every night he snarled in his nightmares.
He treated me like I was his master and queen.
Yet beneath his reverence lurked a darker kind of touch.
A touch that could hurt.
A touch that could kill.
A touch that had killed.
Memories of him cutting off Ethan’s fingers filled my head. The way his eyes had shot black as he’d lined up the knife against Ethan’s cock. The absolute ruthlessness that overcame him as he went to slice.
I’d intervened.
Not because I wanted to save Ethan but because I’d wanted to save Aslan.
I didn’t know what that would do to him.
I didn’t know if he’d be able to come back from the black pit of violence that’d sucked him so deeply, so quickly, it both thrilled and terrified.
Aslan would do whatever it took to protect me. I’d witnessed it myself. I felt his depravity stalking beneath his devotion. I lived with a man who treated me so softly, so sweetly, but beneath his care existed absolute savagery. The undertones of his love had always been sharp, ready to snap if I was threatened.
And now, he’d snapped.
I wouldn’t be able to intervene this time.
Four guys and him.
The one he’d punched and sent into the gutter joined the fray, kicking Aslan’s legs, trying to get him to go down while the other three rained fists all over his head and shoulders.
I stumbled out of the way as the snarling mountain of testosterone crashed against the side of the building. At least the guy who’d pushed me down had forgotten all about me as he chose to help his mates attack the love of my life.
My fingers clutched at my naked neck, my heart racing with loss. My necklace was in the gutter somewhere, but no way would I go and retrieve it. Not while Aslan was being pummelled.
This is my fault.
Why the hell did I talk back?
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Get the fuck off him!”
I kicked the closest guy as Aslan shoved him away. My toes hurt from my stupid glittery sandals. The guy didn’t even notice I’d kicked him.
I punched one of the younger guys.
He snarled and backhanded me.
I went flying.
I landed on my ass.
My hands shot behind me to catch my fall, my wrists screaming, palms bleeding.
Leaping back to my feet, I circled them, trying to find a vulnerability to stop this.
“Get off him!” I yelled.
Nothing.
No one stopped or cared.
I was utterly fucking useless, and I hated it.
I hated that this was my fault.
I hated that I’d let them bait me.
If only I’d held my tongue.
If only I’d done what Aslan had commanded and stayed quiet.
Then they might’ve harassed us and moved on.
It shouldn’t have mattered what these bastards thought of us. They could call us names and slander Aslan with their racist bigotry but who cared? They were nothing more than idiot losers, offended at life and unwilling to be nice.
They meant nothing.
So why did I retaliate?!
“GET OFF HIM!” I snarled, kicking someone’s ankle. “Stop it!” I slapped someone’s cheek.
I was nothing more than a pesky mosquito.
Fists flew, grunts sounded, I ducked out of the way as they crashed to the ground only for Aslan to spring back up and punch with single-minded determination.
I clung to my phone, cursing our stupid Uber driver.
Where the hell was Mazda TYZ129? If only he’d arrived sooner, we wouldn’t have even been here when these idiots walked by.
Call the police.
I tripped back as Aslan round-housed a guy, sending one of the older, fatter ones whirling to the ground. The way he moved. The sheer power he possessed. It was awe-inspiring. Heart pounding. A beauty to behold how effortlessly he embraced bloodshed, all to keep me safe.
He groaned as someone’s fist crunched against his jaw.
Only for that someone to go flying as Aslan punched him back with a right hook far more vicious. The fight escalated from a drunken brawl into a free-for-all feud.
Grunts and curses.
Blood and bruises.