Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 235897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1179(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 786(@300wpm)
“Good for them. He’s been pining after her for years.” His hands bracket mine on the railing, and his body heat staves off the chill from the ocean breeze. “How much pain are you in? I don’t want to ask you to sit through dinner if it hurts.”
I’m not about to be a barrier if he wants to talk to his mother, especially knowing what I would give to have the same opportunity with mine. “It’s not too bad as long as I don’t twist. Or breathe too deeply. Or lift Andarna.” The joke falls flat.
“So you can sit through dinner.” The conflict in his voice has me turning in his arms.
“Only if you want to.” I look up at him.
“Do you want me to?” He swallows.
“I’m not making that choice for you.” I bring my hands to his chest, trying to remember the last time he was indecisive about anything and coming up short.
His eyes narrow and he steps back. “You think I should, don’t you?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think.” I shake my head. “And I’m probably not the best person to give you advice on this—”
“Because she charmed you in the three minutes it took for her to push a tray through the door?” He puts more space between us, retreating down the veranda.
“Because my mother just died.”
He stills, and regret instantly washes over his face. “I’m sorry, Violet.”
“You don’t need to be. I’m just saying that I’m not the person to ask if you should spend a night talking to yours, because I would give anything for ten minutes with mine.” I set my hand over my chest like it has a prayer of holding the grief inside where it belongs. “I have so many questions, and I would kill for a single answer. Maybe you should talk to Garrick, because any advice I give you would be poisoned by my own grief. You have to do whatever’s best for you. Whatever you can live with once we leave here. Whatever choice you make will be the right one as far as I’m concerned. You have all my support.”
“I don’t know if there’s a right choice. She’s not like your mother.” He laces his hands behind his neck as Sgaeyl passes by again, following her own footprints. “I absolutely understand you wanting ten minutes. I want them for you. Right or wrong, everything your mother did was to protect you and your siblings. She died protecting you.”
“I know.” I swallow the growing lump in my throat.
“My mother abandoned me.” His hands drop to his sides.
“I know,” I repeat in a whisper, my heart breaking all over again for him. “I’m so sorry.”
“How does she”—he points to the door—“deserve my ten minutes when she fed me chocolate cake on my tenth birthday and vanished later that night? I am the fulfillment of a contract for her. Nothing more. I don’t give a shit how she looks at me, or whatever bullshit she undoubtedly spewed at you. The only reason we’re in her house is because she’s married to one of the triumvirate, and I have no problem using that to get what we need.”
My chest cracks a little more with every word, then splits clean open. I knew she’d left, just not how.
“And don’t think that has anything to do with this.” He points to his eye. “I’m aware in the moments I lack emotion. You and Garrick don’t need to share little oh no glances. I already feel it. It’s like sliding over a frozen lake while a shrinking part of me screams that I’m supposed to be swimming in those pieces I’ve bartered away, and those feelings are right beneath the surface, but fuck is skating faster and a hell of a lot less messy. This shit?” He swings his finger back toward the house. “It’s messy and painful and infuriating, and if I could choose to give this portion of myself away, so help me, Malek, I would. I get it now. It’s not just the power that’s addicting; it’s the freedom to not feel this.”
“Xaden,” I whisper, all but bleeding out by the time he finishes.
Steam billows over the veranda, and our heads whip in the direction of the beach, where Sgaeyl stands the width of Tairn away with a curled upper lip, glaring at Xaden.
“Stop pacing and eat something,” he begs her. “I know you’re hungry and I can’t stand that you’re hurting this far from magic, so alleviate some of the pain and go hunt. I’m all right.”
She drops her jaw and roars so loud my ears instantly ring. The glass doors bow and the little table trembles before she snaps her teeth shut. Three errisbirds fly out of the tree on my left, and two dark-haired boys come running out of the house to see what the commotion was.