Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Only the second she did, the child’s eyes flashed open.
And those eyes . . . The palest gray eyes had turned a blinding white. Shafts of light that cut through the disorienting water, and her lips twisted in a demented grin before they opened wide, and a storm of shadows rushed from her mouth.
The child’s features began to morph.
Her face flashed between the child’s and a man’s.
The same man Aria had seen earlier outside the fast-food restaurant. The one she’d seen days before at the diner.
It was him.
It was him.
But she could no longer focus on the blipping facade.
Because she was surrounded by the shadows.
A hundred.
A thousand.
Wisps that curled and twisted and took new shape, transforming into screaming, horrific faces.
The faces of Faydor.
Kruen whirled and whirled, a blur that spun around her as they dragged her deeper into the depths of the chasm.
Aria fought, thrashing and flailing as she tried to break away, to get loose of the tendrils that wrapped around her limbs.
She fought.
She fought.
Yanking and kicking and trying to get free. She struggled against the burning in her lungs that begged her to breathe.
She couldn’t.
She couldn’t succumb. She couldn’t give in.
She thrashed more, but there was no give.
No break.
No relief.
That pain in her chest became overwhelming, and it hurt so much—agonizing—the feeling that she was suffocating, as if a thousand-pound boulder sat on her chest.
And there was nothing Aria could do.
She opened her mouth in search of the oxygen that wasn’t there.
And she inhaled the frigid water into her lungs.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Pax
I jolted awake, pulled from sleep—by what, I wasn’t sure, though my soul hammered in unrest.
Something wasn’t right.
I’d waited in Tearsith for her, my hands continually curling into fists as my spirit had roiled with this sticky, unsettled feeling that had taken me hostage. It had swelled and grown, and by the time our family had completely descended into Faydor, it’d become a frenzy that beat through my veins.
Whatever it was, it’d shocked me upright from where I was on the floor of the shitty motel.
The room was dark, save for the wedge of light coming from the bathroom where I’d left the door open an inch and the bare flashes that lit up behind the drapes in the window.
The floor was hard beneath me.
Aria was on the bed.
Asleep.
Which wasn’t fucking right, since she hadn’t been in Tearsith.
Only she wasn’t still. She was flailing. Her arms and feet frantic as her body jerked and twitched. The mattress squeaked with her frenetic movements, and her breaths were nothing but these gurgled, strangled sounds.
Panic jumped straight into my bloodstream, and I was on my knees on the bed just as her name ripped from my tongue. “Aria.”
She thrashed, and my hands shot out to grab her by the shoulders. Confusion bound me the second I touched her.
She was soaking wet.
What the fuck?
Teeth gritted, I shook her. “Aria. Wake up.”
She writhed, arms swinging, and her inhale was filled with the rattle of pain.
Horror kicked in, fear a thunder that raced through my manic heart, and I rushed to climb over her. I straddled her at the waist, my weight on my knees as I shook her harder. “Aria, you have to wake up! Listen to me. Follow my voice. Open your eyes.”
Desperation poured out with the words.
Only the gurgling in her throat increased, and her body tremored in these spasms that made me terrified she was losing her life. Dread clutched me in a fist, and I shook her even harder, lifting her up and slamming her down onto the mattress when she still didn’t open her eyes.
“Please, please open your eyes. I won’t let you leave me. I fucking won’t.”
They couldn’t have her.
I wouldn’t let them.
The thought of it cut through me, flaying me open wide, deeper and more brutal than any wound a Kruen had ever inflicted.
This world needed her. I needed her. Fuck, I needed her.
“Aria, please, baby, please.”
Frantic and shaking, I splayed my palm over her chest, fingers stretching wide, the single word haggard. “Please.”
Then I pressed down.
Hard.
Her body bowed beneath me as I compressed her chest.
I did it again.
And again.
Desperate. Pleading.
“Please, Aria. Please.”
Her head rocked back, and her chest stretched for the ceiling before she suddenly bolted upright.
Her pale eyes were wide with terror as water gushed from her mouth.
And she was wheezing. Deep, jagged breaths clamored from her lungs as she tried to draw the oxygen she’d been missing into the wells of them, anguished and full of fear as a sob erupted from her throat.
At the sound of it, relief pummeled me so hard I could have sworn that my ribs cracked.
I pulled her shivering frame against me, my arms shaking like a bitch as I wrapped her in them.
And Aria . . . Aria cried against my chest. Deep, guttural moans that bled from her spirit.