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)
The Kruen whipped around the edge of a boulder.
Pax gathered his light and stretched out his mind to bind it, and he impaled the monster on its side.
With a piercing screech, a fragment of the shadow fell, writhing before it withered.
In an instant, the remaining shadow amassed. It lashed out with its limbs, which appeared in a thousand fiery tendrils.
She and Pax broke apart to dodge it. A molten blade streaked past her arm, missing her by an inch.
Only she realized in a flash that her Nol had not been so lucky.
She screamed as Pax reeled back and clutched his side where he’d been struck by the Kruen’s searing limb.
His gray eyes were wide with agony. Her Nol’s pain had become her own.
Pax dropped to his knees, and she couldn’t help but do the same. On all fours, she crawled to where he’d fallen. With shaking hands, she reached for him, begging, “Pax. Don’t go. Stay with me. Please, don’t go.”
She’d all but forgotten the vicious Kruen as she turned her back and clutched Pax’s shirt.
“Pax,” she whispered as she reached out and touched the severe, sharp angles of his face.
But she already knew she could not keep him there.
Like a torch, his spirit surged, flickered, and then he was gone.
She had no time to rebound or stand.
Because, from behind, a strike fell deep into her flesh.
The lash of a whip that was sharp and excruciating.
And it shattered the last of the light.
I jolted upright in bed. My hands were fisted in the blanket, and my mouth was opened toward the ceiling on a silent cry that I fought to keep locked in my throat. The scream threatened to break free, and I warred against the urge to release it, knowing what would happen if I gave voice to the agony.
This was something that could not be shared.
Jagged pants heaved from my lungs as my mind spiraled through the remnants of sleep, and I blinked through the disorder as I struggled to get my bearings in the wisping darkness. To adjust to being yanked from one reality to another.
Visions continued to flash, horrors that rushed through my brain in a circuit of confusion. My heart thundered at my ribs, and I could feel the blood careening through my veins.
I finally managed to inhale a shaky, steadying breath, and I shifted to sit up on the side of the bed. Slowly, my eyes adjusted to the lapping shadows of my surroundings.
I was in my tiny room. The same one I’d awakened in for my entire life.
Safe.
It was only a bad dream.
It was only a bad dream.
I might have been able to convince myself of it if it weren’t for the fiery pain that seared across my back, starting at my right shoulder and slashing at an angle to my lower left side.
And I knew somewhere in this world, someplace I could never see, Pax was suffering the same affliction. I wanted to reach out. Touch him in this realm. Find the one my heart loved with every part of me.
But I could only ever have him while I slept, and never in the way I truly wanted to.
Reaching up, I touched the top of the wound on my right shoulder, wincing at the sharp sting at the contact. It was open, as I knew it would be. Venom dripping poison into my body. When I drew my hand away, I was able to make out the dark, charred blood that coated my fingertips.
Proof of this nightmare.
My reality.
The secret I fell into every night.
Chapter Two
Aria
It was the dead of winter in Albany, New York. Forever cold and dreary. At this time of morning, darkness still clung to the house. Heat hummed from the vents, but it was no match for the chill that seeped in from outside.
I eased downstairs slower than I normally would. My long, black hair was still wet from my shower, and the strands fell around my shoulders and dampened the fabric of the black sweater I wore.
It was baggy enough to cover the makeshift bandage I had fabricated out of an old white tee and duct tape. It wasn’t like I could keep industrial-size bandages under the counter for times like these.
Mornings when I woke with a burn were always hardest. When the physical pain was so great that the only thing I wanted to do was turn around and climb back into my bed and sleep for days. The exhaustion was close to overwhelming, the toxins I could feel thudding through my veins with each beat of my heart, making it nearly impossible to face the day.
But I would.
I had no other choice than to protect this secret with every breath that I had.
To remember my purpose.
To accept it for everything it was.
The blessing and the curse Ellis had promised it would be.