Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 55059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55059 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 275(@200wpm)___ 220(@250wpm)___ 184(@300wpm)
“Really?” Grandmother spun around from her concoction to look at him. “Well, I suppose you look like you do.”
“Yes.” He laughed. “I teach it to some of the children in my village.”
Ha! Eira practically snorted, trying to hold in her laughter. She didn’t doubt he knew how to fight, but he looked more like an assassin. There was no way in hell he was just a teacher.
“Oh, how sweet!”
She rolled her eyes heavenward again. How someone as sharp as her grandmother could be so easily fooled by him just proved he probably was a witch. I mean warlock.
“Here you go.” Her grandmother handed her a hot cup of the tea. “I’d offer you some, Ryu, but it will knock you right out.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, confused.
“Eira drinks it to sleep. It’s about the only thing that gets her to fall asleep these days.”
The look she had given her grandmother to shush clearly hadn’t worked.
Softly blowing on the hot liquid, she caught Ryu staring at her again, but this time, it wasn’t at her burns but her lips.
“I see,” he said, clearing his throat. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to take that, considering I have a long walk ahea—”
“Oh, nonsense,” Grandmother hushed him. “You’re not going anywhere tonight, not in this storm, you’re not.”
“It’s okay. I don’t want to intrud—”
Pfft. Yeah, righ—
As if right on cue, lightning struck hard with a flash, followed by a thunderous bang.
“Well, if you don’t mind?” he asked.
“Of course not.” She nodded, confirming his stay.
Finally full, Grandfather shook his head and mumbled at the next strike of lightning, “Dragons.”
“Dragons?” Ryu asked curiously, wondering if he had heard him right.
“You haven’t heard the old wives’ tale about storms and dragons?” Grandmother was the one to ask as she finally started looking at him like he had been living under a rock.
“No.” Ryu shook his head. “I can’t say that I have.”
“Well,” she continued, “on stormy nights like this, they say it’s dragons fighting.”
He simply said one word.
“Interesting.”
7
Don’t Look at Me Like I’m the Weird One
Looking at the abnormally large black eyes, she was sure she was looking into the eyes of the devil.
The silver blade inched closer and closer to her right eye until it was mere centimeters from her pupil.
“Don’t blink.”
A tear welled up in her eye, making it even harder to keep her eyes open. Her body began to tremble. She was going to blink.
“Don’t blink, little girl,” he warned again.
The tear fell, and her eyes started to close …
“Eira … Eira … Eira!”
The lulling sound of her name getting louder brought her back to this universe.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed, jolting herself awake. Eira sat up, bundling her blanket around her in an attempt to safely be cocooned from the dark figure of the man standing over her.
The figure reached over, turning on the soft glow of the lamp on her bedside table. “I promised you I wouldn’t touch you, and I didn’t.”
Her racing heart began to steady at seeing it wasn’t the devil’s dead black eyes who haunted her sleep staring back at her, but Ryu’s warm, glowing ones. She checked her right eye to see it was perfect, then her left to feel the imperfection of the burns surrounding it. She was safely back in her body.
His jaw flexed in a tight clench. “It wasn’t without difficulty, though.”
“You really didn’t touch me, did you?” she whispered in disbelief that he kept his promises so fiercely.
“Trust me.” Running his hand through his disheveled hair in anguish, he sat down on the edge of her bed, trying to calm himself down. “You’d know it if I did, darling.”
Eira didn’t know exactly what he meant by that, yet she loosened her protective cocoon. It was obvious there was nothing to fear in his presence. Whatever code he lived by was extremely important to him, and she knew she herself was becoming just as important to him with each passing second. She knew it because, like he’d said, she felt it, too. As her heart continued to steady, she noticed his steady alongside hers.
“You scared the hell out of me, Eira.” Ryu didn’t try to hide the agony he had gone through while she was under and screaming. “I’ve never seen anyone have a nightmare like that.”
Still remembering the way those soulless eyes had made her feel and the touch of the cold blade piercing above her eye right before she had awoken, she shook her head, wishing she could forget it. “I’m not so sure it was.”
He looked at her strangely.
“Oh, come on. Don’t look at me like I’m the weird one!” she cried before shivering at the chill that ran up her spine. “I’ve just never had a nightmare like that.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, softening his features so she wouldn’t think he was judging her.