Wicked And Wilde by Jenn Stark

Author:Jenn Stark
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Elewyn Publishing
Published: 2016-05-23T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

I awoke alone on a stone floor, with stone walls all around, and lay there curled in a tight ball for a minute more, cackling at the irony of waking up in yet another rock-walled prison.

Eventually, I realized I could move, sort of. I crawled to the far wall to lean against it, gradually inching my way up to a seated position. Everything on my body hurt, especially my face. I lifted my palms to my cheeks and winced as they settled against abraded skin. Burns. I’d been burned in that fire, I must have been. Burned and hadn’t realized it, my mind too transported by what I’d seen, what I’d felt. What I could never unsee or unfeel.

Nothing mattered anymore.

I sighed as I sagged against the wall, trying to remember why I’d come to this place of despair. Beneath my card pouch, the jade amulets were both slung securely around my neck, and were both cool to the touch, their work done in this place. They were reunited, their magic whole.

Mine had been torn asunder.

“Snap out of it,” I grumbled, gingerly rubbing my face again. It was rough, but it wasn’t bleeding. The skin was intact.

Progress.

And at least I was alone, my evil twin electing not to travel with me anymore. So things were definitely improving.

I leaned forward with the clear intent of getting to my knees, then my feet. Instead, I simply fell, my arms giving way like string cheese. My face bounced hard off the floor, and I winced but could do nothing other than lie there and experience the pain arrowing through me for a long moment.

I hadn’t thought anything could be worse than what I had seen between Armaeus and Mirabel, but this was, in a strange way. Because now the shock was over, and I was left with the aftermath. This was the first moment of living with the awful understanding, and knowing it would haunt me for a lifetime.

A lifetime of realizing that no love could be greater than Armaeus’s first. A first I could have no part of.

I groaned, curling up on the floor again. I didn’t have to do anything quite yet. I didn’t have to fight. I could rest here, for a little while longer. Rest and heal. If I could simply sleep…

“Yo, dollface.”

My eyes snapped open.

Directly across me on the floor was a pair of no-nonsense platform stilettos, exactly the pair Nikki had been wearing when I’d seen her last at the Clementinum. Her outfit was different though: a prim librarian pencil skirt, starched white blouse, and red horn-rimmed glasses to go along with the blonde bun complete with pencils sticking out of it. I rolled to my side, squinting up.

Nikki stood with her fists on her hips, scowling down at me.

“I said yo, wake up. I’ve been covering for you so far, but Kreios is going to figure this out soon enough, and there’s gonna be Hell to—” She winced. “Let’s just say I don’t think it will go well.

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