Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
She swallowed. “You assumed wrong.”
He was silent for a beat before saying, “I did.”
And then Graves leaned forward, fitting his mouth to hers.
Kierse released into him. He tasted as delicious and inviting as ever. But as her magic wrapped itself around him, for the first time, she felt more than just his fire. She felt him.
The magic that made him so powerful radiated off of him—a pure golden light. Endless, boundless, eternal. It felt like infinity. And then underneath the sensation, she could smell it. The musky scent of leather and new books. Just as he had described and yet so much more. Those were base scents. His magic was more nuanced than that. She could breathe in the smell of the first snow of winter, rosemary, and a hint of tea. All were distinct, and all were distinctly Graves.
“You were right,” she said against his mouth. “Your magic does smell like leather—and you said parchment, but I smell books. Like your library.”
He grinned. “Yours smells faintly, too.”
“Of what?”
“Spring.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Spring? That’s not distinct.”
“There’s this lake in Ireland. It’s tucked away far from prying eyes, and in the springtime, thousands of wildflowers bloom. They’re the brightest yellows and sharpest purples and darkest blues. The grass is so green it looks like a sea. Everything smells fresh and new. As if anything could be possible. That’s what you smell like.”
Graves kissed her again. Deeper. She felt herself drift away. Felt like she could let this moment happen. Let him consume her in a way no one else ever had.
But at its heart, she hadn’t given him all that he had given her. She pulled back slowly, hating that she had to drag herself free of him.
“What is it?” His hands were still tangled in her shirt.
She looked down and swallowed. “I understand your story. About being given away, that is. I was abandoned on the streets when I was very young.” Graves released her shirt and watched her intently, waiting for her to continue. “I told you that Jason picked me up when I was young. That he trained me to be his protégé. But that isn’t all of it.”
Graves tipped her chin up to make her look at him. “Tell me.”
His command spurred her forward. “He wanted to teach me how to be a better thief and bring me into his circle. I learned everything I could from him. He was a great thief. Though, to his chagrin, I was better.”
She froze up at the thought of what was next going to come out of her mouth. But his calm, steadying presence kept her together.
“Jason was . . . volatile.” A harsh laugh escaped her. “God, why is it still so hard to talk about him? He was an asshole and terrible and unforgivable.”
“It’s always difficult to speak of those who hurt us most,” Graves said softly as if he, too, understood her pain.
“Maybe that’s it.” She glanced down, wanting nothing more than to hide from Jason’s memory forever. For him to never again hold this sway over her. “Because I was special, we were together more frequently. He treated me like . . . family. And you have to understand that when it was a good day, it was like the sun was shining on a summer afternoon. He made the world turn.”
“But what about on a bad day?”
She shivered. “On a bad day, I was never sure if I was going to live or die by his hand.”
Graves went deathly still. “He hurt you?”
“Hurt me?” She looked up into his eyes with a disquiet in her mind. “For years, I never knew which step was going to end up with a kind touch and which was going to have me thrown off a building.”
“He threw you off a building?”
“To get over my fear of heights,” she said. “He broke my arm once in three places. It was reset wrong. So he broke it again just to be sure I wouldn’t have a disadvantage in his schemes. And all of his other guild members hated me for being his favorite.” She laughed hollowly. “What I would have given to be anything else. The level of abuse that I suffered at his hands . . .”
She couldn’t even say.
“Then Gen . . . Gen found me. She saved me,” she explained. His hand covered hers, so strong, so comforting. “I’d wanted to find my exit from Jason and his thieving ring. He caught wind of my plans to leave. He was . . . let’s just say less than pleased. I tried to run, but he’d been in this game far longer than I had, and he found me. He stopped me.” Her voice shook, and her hands trembled. The harsh words were the truest ones, and yet she’d never said them before.