A Matter of Time (The Angel Sight Series) Read Free Page A

strength. “I have every idea.” He escaped my hold and slid his hand up my stomach, mere inches below my breast. “I have so many ideas.”
    My heart trailed up my throat so his fingers couldn’t feel the irrational thrumming it had picked up. His words sent chills and heat all over my body, causing my palms to sweat and goosebumps to coat my arms. With the boldness this place had shown me I possessed, I said, “Why don’t you show me?”
    Kade distanced himself and threw off the sheet covering us, so I could just make out the lines of his face. “Don’t do that.” I leaned forward to sit up, but he placed the flat of his palm against my chest, just below the collarbone. “If you move again, I don’t know if I can control myself.” The truth to his statement was written in the tightness in his jaw, the flickers of muscles around his eyes, and the shallowness of his breaths. The unyielding blackness swallowing his eyes warned me it would be like this until we found a way out of Hell.
    I swallowed and relaxed back into the bed, despite the ache growing in my stomach. I wanted so much more, but it wasn’t my place to push the issue if his control wavered again.
    I opened my eyes, banishing the past and returning to the painful torture session in progress. I could drift away again soon, but if I didn’t at least pretend I was present, Lucien and Azriel would pick up on my meditation tactic and find a way to rid me of it.
    Both bastards were still in their same locations, like I had been playing with life-size action figures and the life had crept out of them while I checked out. Only my wounded shoulder proved me wrong, bloodier and more thoroughly shattered than before. The pain from the healing was nothing I couldn’t handle. Not after what I’d already blocked out. Still, I grunted and wheezed. For show.
    “I think it’s time to try something a little more severe.” Az whirled around, broadsword still at his right side.
    Nothing prepared me for his left hand gripping the back of my neck and watching the tip of the blade slide into my stomach. Ice stole my breath. Blood bubbled up my throat and sputtered out of my mouth. I tried to inhale and choked on warm copper, spattering Azriel’s apron. His hand tightened on the back of my neck as the sword carved a new path up my stomach.
    “That’s more the welcome I had in mind.” His voice remained horrifyingly calm.
    I choked again, coughing and gasping. The room darkened.
    Happy place , I reminded myself. Go to your happy place before —
    I tried to gasp again, the instinct to live driving me. Fluid pumped from my mouth, my lungs reminding my instincts blood wasn’t good for them.
    No more , I tried to say, gasp, relay somehow. I needed a breather—a breath. One single breath of air—even Hell air—was better than … than this.
    “That doesn’t look good,” Lucien said. I was surprised I could hear his voice. Surprised I could hear anything but the constant over-heated flutter of my spazzing heart.
    Fighting against taking another pain-filled gasp, my chest burned. But now, my chest wasn’t alone in its struggle. My stomach, which I had to assume at this point had been sliced open like a gutted fish, seared and throbbed in a pain so explosive—
    My vision faded to black. The pain ceased for a moment. I felt myself falling, air rushing. I smacked into the damp, blood-soaked dirt floor. Not only did the pain return full-force, but it brought along a friend for my brain.
    The chains still around my wrists and ankles rattled as I curled myself up in a ball, waiting for the healing to kick into third goddamn gear and save me from the splitting pain.
    The crunching of footsteps brought with it a narrow set of ankles. Lucien. “It seems my essence has finally run its course.”
    I gasped through blood-filled lungs. His essence gone. I coughed, the action flaring pain. My vision went white.
    This was it. All of my refusals, all of my fight, all of my time,