Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 518(@200wpm)___ 414(@250wpm)___ 345(@300wpm)
“Don’t worry, Yummy.” Paxton slipped under my shirt and stroked my invisible belly button. “I’ll figure this out for you. We’ll get the forums back.”
I barely heard him because I was too busy choking on a piece of oxtail bone.
My goddess mark was sensitive. I mean really sensitive. I mean lower belly contracting and panties wetting like he latched on to my clit and tried to suck it off sensitive.
“You can keep your hands to yourself while you’re doing that!” I dumped my food on the ground scrambling away. My whole body shivered as electric shocks zipped beneath my skin. “Gods, you’ve gotten real bold, Clarke. I still haven’t decided yet if dying would really be so bad as long as you die too!”
He laughed. “Come on. I know what you need.” Paxton got up and started stripping.
“I swear, if you tell me what I need is to go for a ride, I will choose violence.”
“Forget a ride.” Paxton held out his hand. “How about we go for a run?”
My heavy bad mood lifted a bit. I didn’t realize until right then how long it’d been since I let my wolf run free through the woods. It was such a carefree thing to do, and free of cares did not describe me in the slightest bit.
I hesitated. “A run sounds nice, but I didn’t come out here for this, Paxton. I need to be figuring out damage control. No doubt Ash is in there right now, sending her daily report to the council, and after that, the council will call up the alpha leaders, and tell them to never speak to me again—no matter how much money I pay them.”
“Realistically, what can you do about either of those things tonight?”
I opened my mouth, but not a single syllable came out.
“That’s what I thought.” Naked as the day he was born, Paxton held out his hand for me again. “Run with me, Yummy. We both need it.”
I eyed the ridiculously handsome jerk before me, then flicked to the castle looming over the trees—beckoning me to another sleepless, tortured night filled with the choking fear that I was failing my daughter.
“A run doesn’t sound so bad.” I rose up. “Before we do...”
I fished a vial out of my pocket and handed it over. Paxton took and downed it before I could blink.
“Have you noticed this stuff is wearing off faster and faster?”
Blowing out a breath, he nodded. “What do you think that means? Is the medicine less effective with use or... are we running out of time?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, glancing up at the moon. “She gave us the bond the first time. Maybe she has to do it again.”
“You made a promise in her name to never bond with me. It’s not about what Luame wants right now, Daze. It’s about what you want.”
“That’s the first time in twenty years anyone’s ever said that to me.”
Chilled fingers laced through mine, making me drop my chin. “There’s a lot of things I want to say to you, Daciana, but everything comes out as self-serving when you’re dying. I don’t know how to make you believe I’m being real.”
“I don’t know either,” I said honestly, then smiled. “Come on.”
Shifting right through my clothes, I bounded off—the earth crunching under my pads. I was gone a quarter of a mile while the guy was still getting his fur out. “Keep up, water boy,” I barked back.
Most people didn’t know wolves—the real and the were-kind—could communicate with each other. Howls, barks, whines, growls, scent, and even the way we flicked our tails and licked our paws gave us a way to communicate with each other. Even though us werewolves spent most of our time in our human form—because let’s face it, opposable thumbs are freaking awesome—I could join a pack of real wolves right now, and they wouldn’t tell the difference.
This form was me—some days I felt like she was the real me—and Paxton was right. What I needed most on the night all of Wolf Nation saw me implode like a dying start, was to be the fierce, beautiful, fearless side of me that—
Something smacked my rump, ripping a yelp from my muzzle.
I spun around just in time for another waterball to hit me full in the face.
A black, almost blue-haired creature bounded through the trees, waterballs hovering around him like stars floating in the sky, and his fur swallowing the moonlight like a black hole. The image of that struck me. Me the embodiment of moonlight, and Paxton the unstoppable, unknowable force destined to suck it away.
The two of us shouldn’t work. We’d already proven that when our first attempt at being together resulting in me failing to manipulate him; him successfully manipulating me; me pushing him away; him stealing my mother’s letters; and me breaking a sacred rule to blow up our bond and giving us both a death sentence.