Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Whoever I was?
She couldn’t have wounded me worse if she tried.
She watched me as if I’d force myself upon her. As if I’d ignore every protective instinct, every honour-bond worship I held for her, and hurt her.
“I’m sorry,” I bit through gritted teeth, dropping my hand from her breast.
“For touching me?” She shivered, still trying to escape.
“No.” I looked down at where I held her, committing to what had to be done.
“For what then?”
“For this.” Without warning, I jerked her forward and caught her as she tripped into my arms. She made a small sound of surprise as I ducked, plucked her effortlessly from the ground, and threw her unceremoniously over my shoulder.
She grunted as the air in her lungs vanished.
Not giving her time to settle or fight, I locked my arm over the back of her thighs and ran.
“Stop!” She pounded on my lower back. “Put me down!”
I didn’t speak.
I decided I didn’t like words. They were flimsy and pointless. The language of wolves was so much more efficient. She was mine. I’d claimed her. That was all she needed to understand.
Growling, I forced more power into my legs, bounding through the grass with speed.
The girl screamed.
Her cry echoed over the plains, but I didn’t care.
She’d be safe with me and Salak and the wolves who’d kept her alive in the dark.
“Stop! I have to go back. You can’t do this!” She punched my back with raining fists.
I didn’t stop. I didn’t slow.
I wouldn’t stop until we were—
Something crashed into my side, sending me tumbling to the ground. Grass flattened as I landed heavily. The girl kicked me, crawling out of my hold as I struggled to catch a breath.
Wincing at the pain in my hip, I struggled to climb to my feet, only for a blur of something golden and spotty to leap on my back.
The warm weight of it pinned my belly to the earth, claws pierced my skin, and the steady pant and warning growl of a predator sent chills down my spine.
I stiffened as the beast lowered its head, its stiff whiskers tickling my nape. Its hot breath gusted over me as it snarled right in my ear.
“Syn...don’t.” The girl came closer, limping a little from our tumble, her bare legs coming into my sight as she bent and touched the creature atop me. “Let him stand.”
The beast snarled again, its claws sinking deeper into my back.
“Please...” The girl lowered her voice. “Just let him go. We need to return to Niya and Hyath.” With a sharp breath, the girl switched back to the language she’d used when we first met. The one I hadn’t been able to understand.
The first sentence was just a tangle of sounds, but the second...something happened.
The tones slipped and slided, changing shape and reforming. Slowly, they settled into something comprehensible.
How, I didn’t know.
Why, I didn’t care.
All that mattered was I understood her in all ways, and the rest of her sentences weren’t foreign. “He’s like me, Syn. He can’t remember who he is or where he’s from. Let him go, so he can return to his own family. We’ll go back to ours.”
She was wrong that I had my own family.
I had wolves who’d prevented me from dying.
I had a pack that gave me comfort when I was so ready for death.
But they didn’t erase the longing within me. The hollowness that’d carved its way through me, only ceasing the moment I found her.
Inhaling against the agony of claws in my back, I grunted in the tongue she’d used, “My family is you. No matter how much you try to deny it.” I daren’t turn my head to look at her, staying on my belly with the beast hovering over my nape.
The girl sucked in a breath. “Y-You speak Firenese now? I thought you couldn’t understand—”
“I couldn’t.”
“Then how...?”
“Just like you suddenly knew my tongue, I suddenly knew yours.” I clenched as the beast gave a vicious growl. “The more you talked, the more it unravelled in my ears. It’s as familiar to me now as the other language we used.”
Silence fell before she whispered, “This doesn’t make any sense.”
Nothing had made sense since I’d awoken with nothing and spent an eternity trying to find what I’d lost.
She was what I’d lost.
I was sure of it.
“I’m not leaving you here,” I said. “You’re meant to be with me.”
My ribs cracked with hope when she didn’t say anything. She paced a little, her bare feet the only thing I could see. Finally, she backed out of my vision. Her voice filled with command. “Syn. Let him go.”
The beast grumbled but retracted its claws. With a wicked hiss, it leapt nimbly off my back, giving me room to suck in a proper breath without being stabbed with its talons.
I waited for a few heartbeats before shifting to my hands and knees.