Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“She wasn’t so much healing as taking longer than normal to die. From what Rhea had learned, it was as if her body was trying to put itself back together but failing as she was dying. And because the little seductress had many admirers, one of them being a vampire, she entered into immortality the same night as Theseus. They are exactly the same age again. Ever since then, Orspina has been trying to get Theseus to forgive her. Theseus has been ignoring her, purposely sleeping with other women, hoping to the gods she truly wasn’t his mate—well, when he wasn’t off looking for a method to die. Anyway, that’s the story. Greeks—it’s always so dramatic with them.” Melora shook her head and drank from her bottle again.
When she saw me staring, she offered the bottle to me, maybe thinking I was hungry and not trying to erase the knowledge that my mate’s former wife had been chasing after him for over a thousand years.
“You would think she’d give up, or at the very least, accept defeat now that you are here. But then again, it’s her obsession. I knew she’d come if only to see you in person.” Atarah sighed pitifully. “And before she could do or say more than a few lines, you crushed her. Not that you could do much. Her gift gives off different scents of flowers depending on the flower that can be dangerous to some. Oh, and apparently, she looks even more beautiful than most vampires. But that doesn’t count to me.”
“Thank the heavens I do not have your power, Dru,” Melora replied, licking blood off her lips. “If it were me? I’d be a bloody tyrant. Let anyone even talk to Ulrik for longer than a minute and snap.” She snapped her fingers right in front of my face. “I’d turn them to ash—actually, no, I think I’d make them into some sort of fish.”
“Fish?” I repeated, not understanding.
“That way, she could torture them in water and deprive them of it, too,” Atarah replied, shaking her head at her. “Melora is only vindictive when it comes to Ulrik.”
“Hey, don’t go throwing me under the bus and not mention the actual woman you imprisoned.”
“Imprisoned?” My head whipped to Atarah.
But Atarah turned her head and drank.
“You should have seen my face when sweet, kind, loveable Atarah let a woman sink into the earth until all you could see was the top of her head and left her there for almost twenty years.”
My mouth dropped open. “You what? Why? She was after Arsiein?”
“No,” Atarah said gently, looking now into her empty cup. “She betrayed my family and me.”
“Atarah, forgive me. I went too far,” Melora said quickly, but Atarah shook her head.
“It’s fine. She already knows about you, so I guess it is my turn to share my story. Though, I must tell you it is a bit long,” she replied as she looked at me.
“I don’t mind. I do enjoy stories.”
“You won’t enjoy this one,” Melora muttered.
“I was born in Warsaw, Poland, on September first, nineteen twenty-three,” Atarah went on even though she had heard Melora. “My father was a shoemaker, and my mother, like most mothers, took care of the home. There were five of us children—four girls and one boy. I was the youngest girl, the fourth before my brother. He was often sick, and as you may know, witches normally do not get sick. They weren’t very strong witches, my parents—so weak that they may as well have not have had any magic. Sadly, my parents’ magic died out with me. And they believed it a waste. What good was a fourth daughter? If anything, it should have been my brother Igor. I felt bad, too, so I would always bring toys and candy with whatever little money I’d earned while working. And we lived as we were…until one day, it seemed as though the air shifted.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, sitting up slowly. Sigbjørn had used almost that same phrase, but I didn’t understand it.
“You have been blessed to live in an era and upon a land where there is no war,” Melora added. “For if you had lived during the times of great wars, you’d understand it means unrest is in the air.”
“Exactly.” Atarah nodded. “One day, we were the shoemaker’s children. Then we were the troublemakers, then we were the other’s, and then we were no longer people at all. It felt like it was so sudden, but it wasn’t. We just tried to keep our heads down and stay away from anyone we didn’t know. My mother wanted to escape, to leave. But my father was so sure of the propaganda being told about us. So sure that the Polish-French-British alliance would hold and everything would go back to normal.”