Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“Greetings, Mother,” Lyrah said brightly, since I had yet to greet the priestess myself.
“Greetings, daughter,” the priestess said, speaking to me and not my stepmother. “I understand you have come to enter into a holy Binding today.”
“So she has!” a voice declared, just as I was opening my mouth to say I didn’t want to be Bound and I was here against my will. I didn’t know if it would do any good, but I wanted it on the record anyway.
But just then Grr. Malofice appeared beside me. He was wearing a rich robe of blue embroidered with gold and silver thread—a Binding Day outfit. It fit him very badly, bunching around his considerable paunch in a way that would have been comical if I wasn’t so miserable and depressed.
“So here you are, my dear!” he remarked, taking my hands in his.
I winced and tried to pull away—his palms were cold and clammy. But he only gripped me tighter and pulled me close to him so that we were nearly nose-to-nose.
“I don’t think so, my dear Jessina—you’re not escaping me again!” he hissed. “Oh, and I know what you’ve been up to these past few months! You’ve been a very, very naughty girl.”
The look of lust he was giving me made me feel sick to my stomach.
“If you know what I’ve been doing, then why do you still want to Bind me?” I demanded in a low voice. “Surely you know I’m not a virgin anymore?”
Behind me, Lyrah sucked in a breath.
“Jessina!” she gasped.
“No, no—it’s all right. It doesn’t matter to me,” Grr. Malofice assured her. Turning his attention back to me, he offered me a perfectly horrible leer. “And don’t worry, my sweet—I don’t mind used goods. It just spares me from trying to be gentle the first time I take you. I can be as rough as I want to!”
His grip on my hands tightened until I could feel my bones creaking. I winced and tried unsuccessfully to yank away from him again.
“Stop it—you’re hurting me!”
“Not nearly as much as I’m going to hurt you.” A cruel glint joined the unfettered lust in his mean, piggy little eyes. “Oh my dear, sweet wife, the things I have planned for you! The punishments you will endure to pay for your two months of freedom and fornication!”
Through all this, the Sympath priestess had been silent, simply watching us with the single face that was awake. But now she stepped forward.
“Enough—release the girl,” she said. Her words gave me a quick flare of hope…which died almost immediately when she continued, “It is time for the ceremony to begin.”
“Ah—yes, Your Holiness.” Grr. Malofice let go of my hands at last. I rubbed them together, trying to massage some life back into my fingers. He’d been squeezing them so hard they had started to go numb!
“Very good.” The priestess nodded. “Now I shall place and light the candles to call the blessings of She of the Four Faces. Then your Binding Ceremony can begin.”
She went to the statue of the Goddess and began to place the colored candles around it. But just as she was placing the last one, there was a ripple in the crowd behind me.
Turning, I saw someone pushing their way through the assembled people. At first I couldn’t see his face but he was tall and broad shouldered and his horns winked bronze in the golden light.
Hope began to fill my heart. Could it be? Yes—it was!
“Jessina!” Turk shouted, shoving his way through the crowd. “Let me through—that’s my Fated Mate!”
61
JESSINA
There were gasps and the people around him made way until Turk was able to shoulder his way right up to me.
“Turk!” I looked up at him, my heart so full I could barely speak. “You…you came!” I got out at last.
“Of course, I did. I love you, little bird!” He looked at the priestess. “I demand you stop this ceremony right now. I claim this woman as my Fated Mate, which means she cannot be Bound to another.”
More gasps from the crowd but Grr. Malofice wasn’t having it.
“Get rid of him!” he exclaimed, glaring at the priestess. “This male is an interloper! He can’t just claim the girl is his and take her away—we have already signed a Binding Contract!”
I felt my heart sink. He was right—the contract made everything air-tight and ultra-legal. But then I had a thought—just a seed of an idea, from one of the old tales I’d been reading on Turk’s entertainment cube.
“I claim Turk as my Fated Mate, too,” I told the priestess. “Isn’t there some kind of test you can do to prove that we’re meant to be together?”
The face that was awake looked thoughtful.
“Actually, there is, my child. Though no one has asked that it should be performed for many years.”
“Well, I’m asking now,” I said firmly.