Total pages in book: 164
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152666 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 763(@200wpm)___ 611(@250wpm)___ 509(@300wpm)
The room was quiet as I watched her face, my fingers on her pulse, feeling it struggle to keep going. I wanted to hug her to me. To carry her in my arms and secure her in our—no, my tent, watching over her until she got better.
I clenched my jaw. That was a primal response. It wasn’t rational. I didn’t even know this woman, and given what she did for a living, I didn’t want to. I could not give in to nature’s siren song.
“Put her in Hadriel’s care.” I pulled my fingers away from her and forced myself to stand. “The rest of you, get the healing you need and meet us in the village.”
“Yes, alpha,” they all said dutifully if not exactly sharply.
I rolled out my shoulders as Tanix scooped her up carefully and carried her from the room. I pulled my gaze away, refusing the suddenly overwhelming urge to rip her from his grasp and carry her myself.
“Anything of note in this cottage?” I asked when he’d gone, closing my eyes against the woman’s lingering scent.
“Yeah. The axe wielder has been here before,” Sixten said. “Someone stoke that fire. It’s cold, isn’t it?”
“No, you’re just dying, thank the gods,” Dante said, still curled up in a ball. “I’m tired of listening to you snore.”
“Won’t you feel bad if I am actually dying,” Sixten muttered.
“No,” Dante replied.
“There’s only a few scents around this place, and hers is one of them.” Niven pulled his crimson arms away from his stomach. He looked down at the wound, stitching together fast. “From what we know of Granny, she keeps her private quarters in the city for essential personnel only. It means the axe wielder was important. If she was in the workhouse, as you said, she’s likely important in their operation. Does she also have a personal connection? That’s the question.”
“It’s a good thing our fearless leader punched Dante where it’d hurt the most and ensured her survival,” Sixten said. “Though punching him might’ve just been for funsies.”
“We’re going to see how you like getting punched for funsies just as soon as I can use this arm, how about that?” Dante bit back.
I picked through the various items around the cottage seeing very little of note. “Granny doesn’t have personal connections. Anyone around her is expendable.”
“Begging your pardon, sir,” Niven said, “but that’s true of anyone around her in the city. She could be hiding a relative away in this forgotten place.”
“Forgotten?” Sixten huffed. “This place isn’t forgotten. It’s secludedness has been orchestrated. Don’t you remember learning that Granny shut down all trade routes of the neighboring villages and forced those people to move nearer Ridge Town or starve? I’m not convinced she didn’t kill a few people off to make the situation a threat, as well. That woman is ruthless. Then she fortified the territory boundary and populated the outer forest with demon beasts, magically kept to the area. I mean, for all intents and purposes, she made this town an island. She cut these people off from the outside world.”
“And then people forgot about the village, yes,” Niven said patiently. “I figured we could all surmise the how of it and skip to the important points.”
“Like?” Sixten pushed, her attitude hard to manage when she was healing from a wound.
“Like the fact that there is a scent in Granny’s personal space that we don’t recognize from the city. The owner of that scent has been stashed in this territory for safekeeping, and she could be the key to this whole operation.”
Silence rang in his wake. It was a succinct summary and my insides felt like they were shriveling in response to it.
She could be the key to this whole operation.
She could be enemy number two, second-in-command behind Granny.
“Let’s see what Granny was hiding,” I growled, leaving the cottage, needing air. The idea that my true mate could be responsible for the largest, most expansive drug trade in the magical world and the horror it had brought to so many sickened me. Her connection to me sickened me. The gods were punishing me—it had to be. Karma had come back around for the part I’d played in this very kingdom, stealing people, ripping apart families. How fitting that my true mate would be doing the same thing with the new-found blessing of the crown.
“Wait—dang that axe! I’ll meet up with you—“ Sixten was cut off as I slammed the door shut behind me.
Tanix in wolf form loped up in the quiet. None of the night creatures made a sound. They clearly felt danger in their midst, as they had last night, at least until the woman and I had been thoroughly engaged. Then they’d crept back in, the glow bugs lending an ethereal quality to the moment.
I shoved the memory from my mind and started walking in my human form. Tanix shifted immediately from a gray wolf to a brawny man with red-gold hair worn tight to his head, low eyebrows and a mean expression. He fell in at my side. I noticed his glance down at my rigid cock.