The Pawn and The Puppet (The Pawn and The Puppet #1)

by Brandi Elise Szeker

If I turn a blind eye, I am no better than the people who revel in their torture.

She was my mother, and all I ever wanted was for her to love me. She’s made me feel unlovable and for that… I don’t hate her. I hate myself.

If more people with compassion chose to see the ugly and not turn a blind eye, maybe this world would be a better place.

“Miss Ambrose?” I freeze. I never told her my full name. “Don’t be frightened. He’s been expecting you.”

His voice. It’s a rumbling beneath the earth. Wise and powerful. That voice, so deep and silky. If a bottle of bourbon could talk, this is what it would sound like.

“I’ll thank you kindly to keep your hands off of my conformist,” he says, his rugged voice quieting the panic in the room like a theater. “You wouldn’t want me to lose my temper.”

The black animal’s eyes flash up at me, a russet-cinnamon color, and I now catch the familiar details—a wolf,

Is dessin a wolf?!

“You’re going to drink this. We’re going to fight through it together. And you’re going to leave this room without a scratch. They’ll think you’re an untouchable demon from hell.”

“Look at me,” he orders, “if he ever strikes you… You tell me immediately. I will cut off every piece of him that he believes makes him a man and shove it into his mouth until he asphyxiates.”

I trust a murderous patient more than the man I’m living with.

“Let me make myself imperatively clear.” He steps up to Aurick, only a finger’s length away. “If you ever…ever… strike her again… I’ll make her watch while I castrate you.”

I cannot be afraid of him. It would be like being afraid of the sky because at any moment, it could rain hail or fire. It’s intelligibly his nature, like a volcano.

there are far more than three alters, pretty one.”