Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“Do what you came here to do, and get out,” Valen snaps. “I don’t have time for your games.”
“Apologies. However, the high lord made clear I’m to be thorough in my review of her memories. He’s quite determined to find out what she knows, as am I.”
“You had her for a month,” Valen’s cold condescension seems to chill even the air. “You learned nothing. If you fail to recover what High Lord Dragonis seeks, your usefulness will be at an end.”
Whitbine clears his throat. “I will discover what she knows—” He turns back to Valen. “—and whether she’s been tampered with.”
“What are you suggesting?” Valen’s frigid tone has me yanking at the unmoving doorhandles once again.
“I’ve nothing concrete,” Whitbine says quickly. “Just that perhaps something has made her memories unreachable. It could be inadvertent, of course. Trauma or the like. Or it could be something slightly more … intentional. I’ve yet to—”
“Do go on and bore me with every single way you’ve failed to do your duty.” Valen rises, and Whitbine quickly follows.
“Apologies, my lord.” Whitbine drops his chin in deference.
Bile coats my throat, acid rising as my stomach churns. A cold sweat breaks out along my brow, and I cower as both vampires approach me.
“Make this quick.” Valen glowers down at me. “I have a city to destroy.”
“You may leave her with me, Lord Dragonis. I—”
“And let your incompetence continue uninterrupted and unwitnessed? I think not,” Valen snarls.
Whitbine’s eyes flash with so much malice that I flinch. Then his face returns to its perfect mask.
“Don’t touch me.” My voice shakes, my entire body revolting against the nearness of my torturer.
“Oh my dear Georgia, that’s no way to greet me, now is it?” he simpers.
“Get on with it,” Valen sighs, his expression bored, his gaze somewhere over my head.
“Doctor, let’s begin.” Whitbine takes my wrist.
I scream, horror coating my mind in acid, eating away at my sanity. I can’t do this again. I can’t go through it. I won’t survive it. With a hard yank, I try to free myself, but it does nothing to stop him. Whitbine’s too strong. Even when I’m not lashed to a table, he can still overpower me with ease.
He brings my wrist to his mouth, but Valen grabs him by the throat and lifts him from the floor. “She’s mine,” he seethes. “You may not take from her.”
“Ah.” Whitbine chokes out. “Understood.”
When Whitbine releases my wrist, I fall back, then try to dart away. Valen catches me easily and pins me against the doors.
“Let go!” I scream and fight. I’m not helpless now. Not strapped down. But Valen’s grip may as well be thick iron chains. “No more theatrics, little rabbit.” He turns to Whitbine. “Do it.”
Quickly, Whitbine swipes his blood between my lips, grazing across my teeth. The acrid taste of it invades my senses, and I cry out as it takes hold.
“Don’t fight it,” Whitbine says. Except it’s not just him saying it. It’s a command.
Immediately, the tension leaves my body.
Valen releases me and steps back.
“Sit with me.” Whitbine leads me to a couch near the fireplace.
It doesn’t matter how badly I want to bolt out the doors or even jump into the damned green flames. I can’t. I can only do what Whitbine tells me.
“Let’s warm up, shall we?” He settles beside me, his gaze holding mine captive. “Speak only truthfully, Dr. Clark. Now, tell me what’s happened since you’ve been in Lord Dragonis’s care.”
The compulsion is bitter on my tongue. “I woke up here, and there was a man who taunted me. He said we were blood consorts. He was cruel…” I speak for long minutes, going over every detail, every moment I spent waking and sleeping, eating and creeping around the corridors.
Whitbine’s expression changes to amused when I recount how Gorsky wants me dead. I keep talking until I get to the now, to sitting here with Whitbine.
“Has Lord Dragonis questioned you?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“Did you answer him truthfully?”
“Yes.”
His eyes flash. “I see. And how do you feel about Castle Dragonis?”
“I hate it.”
He tsks, his mouth twisting with slight amusement. “Quite rude to speak thus in front of your host.” He cuts a look to Valen. “However, I appreciate your honesty. Now that we’ve gotten a better hold on your memory, let’s go back. Tell me about your work on the cure. Let’s begin when you first came to DC. Let’s begin with your sister’s inauguration.”
I don’t know how long Whitbine questions me. It feels like days. Could be hours. Could be less. Time doesn’t mean anything when I’m under the compulsion, when my entire consciousness is laid bare and sliced into thin strips. Bits of information that Whitbine digests. He’s chewed me up many times, the same questions asked and answered.
“But you never found a cure?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” My head is splitting in half, the pain so great that my entire body shakes from the weight of it. I can’t remember. All these questions I can’t answer. Whitbine has cut and cut and cut, dissecting my memories over and over again, but still there are things he can’t find. Things I don’t know. Things that have been stolen from me either by Whitbine or some trauma I can’t fully grasp. Were the answers ever in there? I don’t know.