Total pages in book: 214
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 195876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 979(@200wpm)___ 784(@250wpm)___ 653(@300wpm)
We stand in silence that gradually shifts from awkward to something almost comfortable, the space between us charged with something I can't quite name. I don't know how long we remain there, side by side without speaking, before voices drift up from below.
"Who the hells told him?" a woman's voice asks, low and urgent. “He wasn’t supposed to be back for months yet. Perhaps not even until the Crucible.”
"That remains to be seen," a man responds. "But the Rector obviously heard about the body with the burnt out mark. Why else would he be here?"
Raith and I both go still, listening. His body tenses beside mine, still as the night itself.
Both voices sound older. Instructors, I think, though I can't see them because they're walking in the open third-floor hallway directly beneath the wall we’re standing on. Their whispers are drifting up from the many windows below.
"Elements. What a fucking mess. If anyone asks, we assumed it was a prank by one of the fires. Scorch marks to imitate a siphon, not the real thing.”
“If anyone asks, I’m claiming I never saw a thing. Do you have any idea—”
The voices are silenced suddenly as a door snaps shut below.
Siphons? Goosebumps rise all over my skin, a chill that has nothing to do with the night air settling deep in my bones.
I glance at Raith to find him already watching me, his expression unknowable but his eyes burning with intensity.
"Siphons?" I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. "Did I hear them right? And what would that have to do with dead people's marks?"
Part of me wants to laugh the idea away, but I can't ignore the amount of fear in their voices as they spoke. I can't ignore the way my own mark seems to burn beneath my skin, as if responding to the words. Siphons are supposed to be monsters from children’s tales. Pure fantasy.
Raith’s expression hardens. In an instant, the vulnerability and openness brought on by his nightmares is gone. He's all hard lines and intensity again. Unreachable and unreadable. "You should go back to your room. It's not safe to wander at night."
"And yet you told me you've been wandering the castle at night since day one." I raise my eyebrows, surprised by my own boldness.
His full lips come the closest to a smile I've ever seen on him, and the sight is breathtaking—transforming his face into something almost unbearably beautiful. I forget to breathe for a moment, but the near-smile is gone as quickly as it came. "Nobody else here has the balls to tease me, let alone provoke me," he says.
"If you think you’d find balls between my legs, you’d be sorely disappointed.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
Smooth, Nessa.
His eyes flick to mine, something dangerous flaring in them as he steps closer. "Trust me," he says, his voice dropping to a tone that slides over my skin like velvet, "disappointment is the last thing I'd feel."
The air between us charges with electricity, and I'm suddenly aware of how close we're standing, how the moonlight cuts across the sharp angles of his face. His gaze drops briefly to my lips before returning to my eyes, the intensity in them making my heart stutter.
Holy. Shit.
Fire explodes in my lower belly, unwelcome but not quite unpleasant. It spreads through my veins like wildfire, leaving me dizzy with a hunger I've never felt before. I'm hyperaware of him—his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the way his fingers curl around the stone railing. When did breathing become so difficult?
My brain scrambles, all thoughts of mysterious deaths and fairytale beasts forgotten. My mouth opens, and I can't seem to form a coherent thought in response. And the way my name sounded in his rough, deep voice? Gods. I could get used to that, even if I know Raith and everything he represents is not a good idea for me.
It's worse than "not a good idea." It's suicidal.
He's a fire. He's probably somebody Serena either wants, or, for all I know, already has. If he showed the slightest interest in me where she could see, I'd probably be dead before dawn.
Getting involved with Raith could literally get me killed in more ways than one, which is a fact I very much need my body to understand. Why, then, does every nerve ending in my body feel like it's been set alight at the mere suggestion of his touch?
"Go back to your room, Nessa," Raith says suddenly, his voice deeper than before, rough like he's fighting for control. "Try to sleep."
"Will you?" I ask, reluctant to leave despite every rational thought screaming at me to run, my traitorous feet refusing to move.
He turns back to the view. "Eventually."
I know a dismissal when I hear one, but I linger a moment longer. It is taking time and effort for the arousal he sparked with those few words to fade—for common sense to wrestle control of my thoughts and body again. "If I have the dream again tomorrow night... will you be here?"