Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Callum drew on his jacket. Then he walked over to the table.
Looking down at the male, he waited. And sure enough, those eyes couldn’t stay on his own.
After they shifted away, he said, “Thanks for dinner.”
“It proves nothing, you know,” Blade cut in. As if he’d guessed the conclusion that had been arrived at.
“Worry not, symphath. Your secret pain is safe with me.”
Callum went over to the door. As he opened the way out, he heard in the background: “Don’t be a stranger. Come back anytime. With that male of yours, too.”
He pivoted around. “He’s not mine.”
“He will be, if you’re smart enough to keep him.” Blade finished his wine and put the empty glass back down. “And you can, if you want to. You’re the one he’s been waiting for as well.”
As Callum left the private quarters, the words trailed after him, streamers that seemed tangible.
He told himself that he’d been wrong, that lack of eye contact meant nothing, that it was just a symphath, seducing him into some kind of fucked-up situation that was going to crash and burn on him. But somehow . . . that paranoia didn’t stick.
There was a healing being offered to him. If he just had the courage to take the plunge into the present.
And leave the past to die where it lay.
CHAPTER TWENTY–FOUR
After Mayhem piloted the Suburban through the gates of the estate, he glanced up into the rear view to catch the two halves closing, resealing . . . becoming once again a barrier to entry.
He kept their speed low, because of the snow.
His light foot had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that as awkward as this silence was, he didn’t want to get out of the damn vehicle. His stupid mind had decided that the second he pulled up to that big old Victorian house, Mahrci was going to fly away.
And he was never going to see her again—
“Can you slow down a little?”
He snapped to attention and looked across the console. The female was staring out the front windshield, her profile a study in tension.
“Oh, yeah. Sure.”
The lane was plowed, and there was no wind or snow making things hazardous. But sometimes speed was not just m.p.h., but perception. Maybe she didn’t want to be back, either.
He wasn’t asking, though—
“Can you . . . go slower.”
This time, it wasn’t really a request, and he lifted his foot off the accelerator completely. The SUV rolled for some number of yards, and then it just stopped, the idle unable to move the heavy treaded tires through the snow pack.
Glancing over at her again, he tried not to memorize what she looked like, that profile so achingly beautiful that his chest hurt, the dark tendrils of her hair curling up around her face, her lips parted as if she were on the verge of speech.
Or a kiss—
“I’m Whestmorel’s daughter.” She took a deep breath. “And the reason I’m here—well, one of them, is that I am refusing my arranged mating and I have no other place to go.”
The sound of an exhale was loud in the interior. And then he coughed because he realized that he was the one who’d released his breath like that.
“I just need a place to think.” She smoothed her hair back, and hung her hands on her shoulders. “My father is livid because I’m embarrassing him in front of all the families that matter so much to him. But see, it’s not about me, really. He wants me to get mated to the male because it’s important for him. For . . . the things he’s doing. I tried to fall in love, I really did. And I thought I had some feelings for my intended at one point. Some things you can’t live with, though. Some things are just . . . wrong.”
Mahrci glanced over, and there was a strange light in her eyes: Tension . . . but there was more to it than that.
“I’m sorry,” he said. Even though a part of him was glad she’d had the backbone to get out of the situation.
“Hemmy, I’m telling you, this is . . . a bad mess that I’m in. And I don’t want anybody else sucked into it. That’s why I didn’t want to talk to you about myself.” She shrugged. “Also, it’s nice to just forget about things for a little bit, you know?”
He nodded. “I do. I get that.”
Her eyes swung back out to the lane ahead, a glowing white path cut between two mini-mountains of banks. On the far sides, the trees seemed to crowd up to the natural fencing, the snowfall from the night before lingering both in the boughs and on the bare branches.
“What about your mahmen?” he asked.
“She died in childbirth.” She put her hand on her heart. “Not mine. My infant brother’s, and he went unto the Fade, too. Since then, it’s just been my father and me. Well, I was raised by the doggen, and my father has always been . . . busy. But it’s been only the two of us.”