Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79087 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Staring across that grass, I wondered if she was still alive. I had seen it in her eyes. She had known she was going to die, yet she had come for me anyway. Why had she done that? She deserved to live. I didn’t.
Ivan hadn’t left. The Beast also hadn’t left. For the past month, they had been at the house, doing whatever necessary.
Victor was always there for me. In the middle of the night when I woke up screaming, he was there, holding me. I needed his warm grip more than anything.
The Beast wanted a ceremony to honor The Butcher, but I couldn’t do it. Ivan also hadn’t allowed it. Neither of us could accept that she was dead.
At the sound of crunching grass, I turned to see the man himself, heading toward me. I didn’t say anything. He didn’t need me to. Brother and sister with nothing to say to one another. It was kind of ... normal. We hadn’t really gotten to know each other. There was nothing to really know. Our lives had crossed by some twisted shift of fate. I was married to one of his men, of his choosing. There was nothing else to talk about.
“It hurts?” he asked.
I turned toward him. “Don’t you feel it?”
“In more ways than you can imagine.”
I looked at him. “Did you love her?”
“Not like that. She was a good woman. Complicated. Strong. She was ... feral.” He laughed. “She had my back all the time.”
“She didn’t deserve to die,” I said. “You should have made her stop.”
“No, there was no stopping her. Once she made the decision, she was coming to save you, but she knew we wouldn’t make it, if we all went in together. She did what was best.”
Tears filled my eyes. “She is so much better than me. She should have been the one to live.”
“Don’t,” Ivan said. “You do not honor her by saying stuff like that.”
“Honor her?”
“She died so that you could live. She loved you, Freya. You were a friend to her, and trust me, she did not have many friends. She did not trust easily, but she was willing to die to save you. That’s why she went in in the first place, to save you. Do you think she would be happy with you right now? Sitting around in the cold, catching your death, or trying to? Do you think she would want this?”
I hated the burn in my throat.
“The Butcher would accept that you are hurting. She would. She wouldn’t like it and I can guarantee she would hate what you’re going through, and probably tell you to fucking stop. She made her choice, and now it is time for you to make yours. Stop taking this life for granted. She died so you would live. So, live.”
“She’s not dead.”
Ivan looked at me, and I wasn’t quite sure what it was, but I turned my body so I could stare into his eyes, and I just knew. “You don’t believe she’s dead?”
“Are you going to listen to me?” he asked.
“Tell me?”
“I have my suspicions,” he said.
“You’re like me, that’s why you won’t have a funeral for her.”
“I will not bury her without a body. If she is alive, I will find her, and when I do and she is dead, I will give her a place to rest,” Ivan said.
I threw my arms around him, because knowing he believed like I did that she wasn’t dead, meant everything in the world. She couldn’t be dead. I refused to believe she was.
“Now, there is a man who misses you and is desperate to know his wife is okay,” Ivan said. “I suggest you go to him.”
I nodded my head. I’m not exactly sure, but I suddenly felt excited, like all my feelings were entirely justified. The Butcher was not dead. I believed it right through to my soul.
Ivan was not going to give up. The Butcher had earned that.
Getting to my feet, I walked across the lawn, wrapping one of the quilts I had made around myself, and made my way toward the main house, toward an uncertain future. Toward my husband.
I stepped over the threshold, and a strange sensation came over me. Like I was entering another part of my life. Sealing off the past. Throwing that behind a closet within my mind that was completely locked away and would not be allowed to see the light of day.
I knew where my husband was going to be, and I walked to the doorway of his office. He stood by the fire. Winter held our territory within its grip. With everything going on, we hadn’t had time to enjoy Halloween or Christmas. There had been no time for celebrations. Not even the New Year. All we had been able to do was survive.