Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
I swam to the edge, holding him with me until we got to the bank. Then I pushed him up and rested beside him, collapsing.
A clothed foot stepped beside me, and my aunt’s silver cloak bunched to the ground when she knelt at my head. Her hand came to rest on my cheek. “You should rest, child. You have gone through much.” She straightened, and I heard her say further, “As has he.”
We were both lifted in the air. Kellan was asleep, but his hand fell out, reaching for me. I put my hand in his, and then we were both being carried through the air to the house and to my bed. Kellan was placed next to me and his arm reached out to curl around me, pulling me close. He tucked his chin on my shoulder and twisted a leg around mine before he fell into a deep sleep.
I looked up at my aunt who had followed behind to perch on the edge of the bed at my head. She smiled in the moonlight now and combed my hair back behind my ear. “You are very beautiful. Just like her.”
An image of my mother flashed through me. Pain followed quickly behind.
She added, “My name is Aumae, and I am honored to meet you, Shay. To meet both of you.”
My eyelids fluttered closed, the exhaustion was too much, but I wondered whom she meant—the messenger and me or Kellan and me? Then I fell asleep, and nothing mattered.
When I woke, it was night again, and I sat up.
“How are you?” Kellan asked, perched on a windowsill. It gave him a mysterious, feline, and lethal look at the same time. Then he blinked, and all mystery was gone, rising in a fluid motion.
My heart skipped a beat, but I answered, breathless, “I’m fine. You?”
He cracked a grin. “Shay, don’t lie to me. How are you? How is she?”
Then it all flooded me again, the sensory overload, the pool, the kiss, and then his demon… “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing.” He stood before me as I still sat in bed. Neither of us moved, but we breathed as one. The air felt heavy, too heavy.
One breath. Two breaths. I asked, holding mine, “Was that you or was that…”
His eyes held mine, shining with a fierce emotion. “What do you think?”
I already knew—his demon had gone inside of me, but why? What did he do? What did he want? “Did he hurt me?”
Kellan snorted. “He helped you. Are you serious?”
“But—” Why would a demon help me? Help a hybrid?
“I’m a hybrid,” Kellan bit out, in front of me in a flash. He braced both arms on either side of me on the bed and bent forward until his nose was an inch from mine. As his eyes bore into mine, he repeated slowly, with deadly promise, “I am a hybrid, too. I am human, and I am a demon. You’re not just a hybrid, Shay. And by the way, she’s merged with you. My demon helped you with that because you were freaking out, so much that you fought against accepting her. You should be thanking him, thanking me. Not wondering why we would want to help you.”
Jerking away from me, he turned, but I heard him mutter, “She doesn’t trust me.”
“I never trusted you.”
He looked back, and I waited for a few moments until he said in a low voice, “You did, in some small part. Part of you hated me, part of you distrusted me, but a part of you loves me. The part that loves me, and even more now, trusts me completely. And a part of you can’t handle that. Can you?”
He was right, on all accounts. “I do love you. You’re right, but I know that your demon did something to me. I don’t know what he did. It can’t be good, Kellan! I’m half-messenger. You’re half-demon. It can’t be good.”
He took two steps toward me, then stopped abruptly. One hand flexed into a fist, but he forced it to relax against his thigh. “He didn’t harm you. I wouldn’t let him. I wouldn’t harm you. Leave it at that.”
I was speechless for a moment, staring wide-eyed at him until he turned away. As he did, the tension broke between us. A soft knock sounded on the door, and Aumae glided inside, a cup in her hand. She smiled, tucking a strand of her hair behind one ear as the rest gathered on her other shoulder, hanging low in a loose braid. Her robe touched my arm when she bent and placed the cup beside me on a nightstand. She turned and glanced between Kellan and me, then her smile beamed more. “I’ve brought her a cup of tea. It’s very healing, especially with her changes. It will soothe her. That’s what she needs right now.”