90 DEADLY DAYS (WEEKLY UPDATES RETURNING THIS DECEMBER)

Chapter 32

Hi guys! Sorry for not updating for a month! (OMG, I'm so terrible! A month!? Really?!). I gave this a break because I wanted to ensure I did well on my finals and finished my first year of college strong.

And I did! If anyone is heading to college this fall hit me up, I'd love to give you some advice and tips for how to make it through! (And if you're also a writer, show you how to balance the two more or less).

Also, I was trying to improve my writing for this book. I really want to enter the Watty's this year so I'm trying to ensure I do my very best! Lol. If the tone or writing sounds different, that's probably why. I've been working on showing and not telling, and a whole bunch of other crap lol. There's so much I didn't know about writing.

Anyway, thanks with sticking with me and Phoenix! You all are so awesome! I'm lucky to have you guys!

Enjoy the read!

XOXOXO

P.S. How do you guys like the new cover? :D

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Chapter 32

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The wind burns my skin into rough sandpaper. Butcher's arm circling my middle is a bonfire compared to the sea of white. I sink into the warmth, pressing full into the side of my captor.

Butcher bows over in the howling gusts, his sable beard and Fynx fur crusted over with sharp crystals. His mane of wooly locks appears white thanks to several powdery layers of drizzle. Now and then he'll shake it all off, only to be covered seconds later. Snow starts to bury my eyelashes, weighting them down so that they try to freeze together. I keep blinking, fearful the moment I stop I'll be frozen into blindness.

I dig my legs through two-feet high drifts of hellish cold. Water stings through thin tunic pants, scalding my legs with prickling, hair-raising numbness. An exhausted cry escapes. In the distance waits endless white. There's no end. We'll die out here, in the snow, with only our tired bodies to meld together for dying warmth.

And suddenly a hand clutches my face, pinching until my lips pucker into the cold and are held captive in a calloused fist. As the fingers twist my head back, I grab Butcher's side, begging him to release. 

When ruby blackness beads up behind my eyes I realize it's not him.

The force pushes my neck back until arches like as a swan curling their neck back to catch a flying eel. The clamped fist torturing my face prevents the panic from escaping, it's all trapped in my bones and gasping eyes. I pull Butcher harder, this time begging him to intervene. They're going to snap my neck, snap me in two. I'll be a head lolling from the stem, staring with empty eyes at the snowy grave we sludge in.

Like a wilting daisy.

I dig my claws into his muscles. My trapped screams flush into terrified blood. I shut my eyes and am unable to untangle my frozen lashes. Blind and tortured, I plead for mercy. There are several hells Xaro showed me, but I never knew I could hate the inside of myself so much, that it could become another Hades.

"Princess of Lacona, hear and obey."

The upper half of my spine groans as pressure intensifies. I fear it will shatter and the bones will spiral away into the fluid between organs. I gasp as Xaro intensifies the agonizing pain, forcing the joint supporting my neck to finally shriek and bend, smashing down.