Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64359 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
I notice that Sheriff is not wearing any weapons. Aristo and the other valkers would never allow that. He is standing here with only the weight of his largely self-proclaimed authority to protect him. It is arrogance, and I hope Emrys makes him suffer for it.
Sheriff is a horror I sought to escape over and over again. Now he stands before me in his shiny space-junk uniform, looking at me with judgement I was never going to escape, and making me realize I should never have spent so long running. What I should have done was gotten stronger and made allies.
Sheriff can’t touch me now, not even this close. He’ll never touch me again.
“So am I to understand,” Emrys purrs, his voice even between deeper inhalations of smoke. “You raised this human from an infant?”
“I took that creature into my home,” Sheriff says. “She repaid me with disobedience and criminality.”
“You took her in after her own family was killed.”
“Yes.”
“By you.”
“By fighting with my unit.”
“So you destroyed her world, killed her family, kidnapped her as an infant, and you have the temerity to be offended when she grows up to be anything other than grateful?” Emrys lets out a dry, rasping laugh. “You are deeply delusional, aren’t you, so-called Sheriff.”
I am grinning so hard it feels like my face might split open. Emrys is not going to give me up. I know that. He doesn’t have to say it. There’s no promise he needs to make. I can feel it in the marrow of my fucking bones that I will never be betrayed by him.
“You do not understand,” Sheriff says.
“That’s what people say when they want to do something terrible, or when they are defending something plainly awful,” Emrys replies. “They appeal to some kind of ephemeral sense that exists outside the obvious, as if the one they were talking to would surely understand their evil if only they knew some extra little fact that makes their depravity acceptable. My kind slaughters the innocent regularly. But we do not have the nerve to expect their gratitude in response. And we certainly do not raise the young of our prey only to turn on them.”
“She committed crime after crime,” Sheriff says. “She brought shame to our family. She needs to face justice. She killed someone in the course of fleeing. She is dangerous, Emrys. She is not a safe creature to have around.”
“That is fortunate,” Emrys says, snugging me close. “I do not want a safe creature. I cannot imagine anything more tedious. You can abandon your hunt here, Sheriff. It is over. She is mine.”
“I can’t allow that. I will not be forgiven until I return with her head, or until it is taken before the hall of justice.”
Emrys runs his fingertips down the nape of my neck, over my shoulders, and down my spine in a soothing gesture. He senses the tension in me and moves immediately to defuse it. So much of what Emrys communicates is done without words. If only Sheriff was smart enough to read the room. There is danger here, but it is not coming from me.
“Surrender your need for revenge, Sheriff. Go back to your world or don’t. I don’t care. I can tell you that if you continue to have even the thought of so much as harming the smallest hair on the least important part of her body, you will be destroyed in the most creative and cruel way I can come up with. In fact, it will not be my ideas alone that you will suffer. I will open the floor to the court, and they will each have their turn with you.”
In some credit to his bravery, Sheriff manages not to shudder at the threat, which is given with deliciously malevolent tones that make it very clear Emrys would enjoy his destruction.
“Justice will not be intimidated,” Sheriff says.
“You’re an incredibly stupid creature, aren’t you,” Emrys says. He is not angry. There is not even judgement in his tone. There’s just a straight up incredulous note in his voice, as if he cannot believe the number of warnings he is giving, and how many of them Sheriff is blowing through.
“If you will not allow me to take her, then I will have to perform a rogue form of justice. It is not my preference, but I cannot risk losing this chance. It may be my last.”
He draws a weapon that he must have hidden down the back of his pants, probably in the crack of his ass.
“ARGGHGH!”
Before Emrys can react, a scream in the semi-distance draws everybody’s attention. It’s the sort of blood-curdling cry of desperation and fear that can only come from one source. The screaming gets closer very swiftly and parts of it come through the door. The other parts of what come through the door also come through Sheriff.