Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114617 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 573(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
“Uh... I...”
“I remember you being more articulate than this.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting to chat,” Edric snapped. “I came to leave you something, and then I was going to go.”
“Go?”
“Away. From here. From the academy. From this Alice in Wonderland hellscape. All of it,” he said, boldly climbing up and dropping down on my bed. “You offered everyone else a one-way trip over the gates. I was taking mine.”
“But not before you left me something...” I eyed him. “Were you going to take a dump on my pillow? Masturbate in my panties and leave me to find the evidence?”
Edric rolled his eyes. “Will you cut it out with that shit? Luame help me, why are you like this?”
“Trauma,” I replied, shrugging.
He blew out a breath. “Yeah, well... that would explain a lot. And it’s why I have to say I’m sorry.”
I stilled. “Sorry? Why are you sorry?”
“The letters.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I stopped speaking. Stopped breathing.
“They weren’t supposed to burn them, Volana, I swear. When Paxton stole them, I realized what they were and said he had to put them back. We couldn’t fucking mess with a dying mother’s last words. That’s j-just”—his voice cracked—“something you don’t do.
“Badr refused to put them back, but Orion said it’d be fine. That we’d only threaten to burn the letters to get you to tell the truth,” he said. “I told them that if it’s only going to be a threat, we should take the real letters out of the envelopes and put in blank paper, so—”
“Did you?” I cried, leaping forward and grabbing his arm. “Did you keep the real letters? Where are they!”
“Volana...” Edric looked away. “No, we didn’t take out the real letters. What you saw was real. They’re gone.”
Hope left me like a steamroller flattened my body. There was none left as I slumped over—empty.
“Badr said it was too risky to try and fool you with blank paper. You might notice that your scent wasn’t on them. You’d see the difference. Blah, blah, blah. They were terrible excuses,” he said softly, “and I guess I never really believed them from the start.”
“Is that why you came here?” I rasped. “To tell me you were smart enough to figure out they were lying bastards? Whoopee for you.”
“No, Volana.” A warm hand on the back of my head made me jerk back, eyeing him suspiciously. Edric drew back immediately and reached into his pocket, sliding over his phone. “I was worried they would end up going too far, so I took these when they weren’t looking. Just in case. I know it’s not the same but...” Edric tapped his phone and the screen woke up. On it was a picture of the letter Mom wrote me for my eighteenth birthday.
I reached out, my hands shaking as I cradled the phone. I swiped across the screen, the tiniest trickle of hope filling my chest as letter after letter looked back at me. Most of them were taken at weird angles and in poor light as if Edric was trying to conceal what he was doing, but I could see them. I could hold them again.
“Why?” I croaked, lips trembling.
“Because Paxton’s, Nyx’s, and Badr’s parents are all alive and well, and Orion hates his folks with his entire soul. Only I know what it’s like to...” Edric drew something out of his pocket. Well-worn and wrinkled, he smoothed the letter on his thigh. “To only have sheets of fucking paper left of the only person who has been there for you from the beginning.
“I told you, Volana, there are just some things you don’t do. I understand why you’re punishing us. If anything, you’re going easier on us for destroying the letters than I ever would be.”
I nodded, cradling the phone to my chest. “Thank you,” I whispered. I was shattering my badass reputation. I was making a saint out of someone who’d been nothing but a devil, but— “Thank you, Edric.”
“Castor really hurt you, didn’t he.” It wasn’t a question.
Meeting his gaze, I nodded. “You’re not a complete and total bastard, are you.”
Edric chuckled. “Don’t get carried away. I’m going straight to the alpha council after this and telling them I’ll only help them take the academy back from you if they pay me my two million.”
“Smart,” I mused, tucking the phone under my pillow. It was mine now. “You going to tell them before or after you take off to the Bahamas that you’ve got no idea how to do that?”
“After, of course. If you’ve taught us all anything, Volana, it’s the benefit of good timing.”
A little giggle burst out of me, over as soon as it started. I felt my wolf stirring in my chest—the signal that it was time to cut this short.
“But seriously,” Edric said, sobering. “Why did you want me to have a chance to escape?”