Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
But it was no use. The tears were already flowing, stinging my eyes and burning my cheeks with their hot profusion. And it wasn’t just the trauma I’d just gone through I was crying for. The whole miserable time I’d been here on O’nagga Nine, I hadn’t let myself cry—not once. Because crying is weakness and weakness is death on a place like the miserable, frozen ball of rock I’d been stranded on.
Suddenly, though, I couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. They poured out of me in a flood of choked gasps and sobs. I mean, this wasn’t just a few little dainty tears here and there that you dab away with a lace handkerchief—this was ugly-crying where your face goes all the wrong shape and you can’t stop bawling. I hadn’t cried like this since I was a little girl and my pet cat, Mr. Mittens got hit by a UPS truck.
Lots of guys will back away once the waterworks start—some will awkwardly pat you on the back in a tentative gesture like you’re a bomb that might blow at any minute that they’re hoping to defuse. But most guys don’t know what the hell to do when a girl starts crying.
Vik’tor wasn’t one of those guys.
“C’mere, little girl,” he murmured. Tossing the knife away with a clatter, he pulled me into his arms and held me tight.
I sobbed into his chest—I literally couldn’t do anything else. I cried for all the fear and pain and sorrow I’d endured…I cried for the terrible life I’d been forced to live from the moment that asshole, Gumpas, had dropped me off here. But most of all I cried because I was homesick. I missed my Mama and Daddy and brothers and my Granny, who might not even be around anymore, since she’d been getting up there in age when I was abducted. I cried for all the pain and fear they must be going through, wondering where I had gone and what had happened to me.
I had missed so much in the six months since I had been taken—Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas—family holidays when we all got together and celebrated. Hell, I had missed my own birthday and I knew Mama and Daddy had been planning something special since I didn’t have a man in my life to do anything for me. I missed them all terribly and I mourned for the time I had spent apart from them—for the months and months I had lost since the moment I had been sucked through my cousin’s bathroom mirror and taken by the Commercians for their stupid AMI and sold to that ass-hat, Gumpas.
All the time I cried, Vik’tor just held me tight. He didn’t say a word about how I was getting the front of his shirt wet with tears and blood from my wounded face. He just held me tight and rubbed my back and shoulders with his big, warm hands while he murmured soothing nothings into my ear, telling me it was going to be all right and that nobody was ever going to hurt me again.
At last my sobs slowed down to sniffles and I was able to stop bawling like a baby.
“I…I’m sorry,” I said, sniffing and looking up at him. “I…I didn’t meant to cry all over you.”
“It’s understandable,” he rumbled. “After what you went through.”
“Er…thanks.” I told myself I should let him go now, but he didn’t seem inclined to unwrap his arms from around me, so I stayed where I was.
His big, hard body was comforting against my smaller frame—he was so big it almost felt like he was enfolding me. And his warm, spicy scent that might be cologne or might just be the natural smell of his skin was soothing. A moment ago I had been frightened of him but now, somehow, he was making me feel safe—safer than I had felt since I was first sucked through that mirror in Rylee’s bathroom.
I snuggled against him for a minute and he kept holding me until at last I lifted my face to look at him again.
“Okay now?” he asked, looking down at me with raised eyebrows and concern on his face.
I nodded.
“I think so. I just…suddenly it was all too much. You know?”
“I know, baby.” Vik’tor nodded. He lifted the end of his shirt and blotted my wet face and the blood on my forehead. I couldn’t help noticing that this sweet gesture bared the most amazing abs I’d ever seen, though I tried not to stare.
“So…” I said, pulling away from him at last and trying to get myself together. “That whole…’berserker rage’ thing only happens because of your Braxian side?”
He nodded.
“Like I said—Braxians go kind of crazy if they think their female is being threatened or harmed.”
I put a hand on my hip and raised an eyebrow.