Total pages in book: 182
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 856(@200wpm)___ 685(@250wpm)___ 571(@300wpm)
Once the beef was done, I set aside a plate for Weston and handed out portions to everyone. The new spices I’d used were a little off and my critique of it made everyone angry, so I used my new journal to write down how I’d prepared it and make notes of things I would change for the next time.
After everyone had eaten their bites and cleared the trays Nova had brought, Dante put a placeholder in the book, put it in my bookcase, and everyone said their goodbyes. The glow of their company lingered in the silence of their wake. This evening had been truly exceptional. The food had been decent at best and the painting was a mess, but the friendship and camaraderie would be cherished for the rest of my life.
I checked the fire in the stove. It was slowly dying, the oven losing its temperature. Soon Weston’s food would go cold.
Full night had fallen. Bedtime was close. He would’ve come by now if he’d planned to.
“Go to him,” my wolf pushed, anxious to be in the vicinity of her mate again.
I rested my hand on the door, thinking about it. But honestly, he had never been shy about stopping in when he wanted to see me. He’d had long days since he’d gotten back. He was probably tired.
I slid my hand away, feeling a strange hollowness inside that he hadn’t come. I didn’t like it. Gods, what if he was meeting with another woman? What if—
Panic seized me, along with anger, and I spun for the door again. Only when it was halfway open did I pause, breathe, and slowly unwrap my fingers from the handle.
What he did in his free time was none of my business. I’d been the one to create distance between us. We were lovers. We’d been forced into proximity on the trip, but now we had our own lives, our own struggles. I couldn’t stop him from finding a mate. I shouldn’t. It wasn’t fair.
“You’re his mate, you fuzzy-minded cow,” my wolf barked at me. “You are his mate. The human wants you. Go to him.”
The human was giving me my freedom. I couldn’t, in turn, strip away his.
I closed the door slowly, heart lodged in my throat, fighting against my instincts. Fighting against my wolf.
Through deep breath after deep breath, I put everything in the kitchen back in order before tucking away my art supplies. I placed my journal back on my desk and wrote a quick entry about what I was feeling: missing Weston, wanting to be with him, kicking myself for this frustrated fear of being trapped into a life I hadn’t expressly chosen. At the end I put in a memory of my mom, and then spoke directly to her, wishing she was here to give me advice. Wishing she was here to meet the man that didn’t exactly fit the fairytale mold, but would if the villain could turn into the good guy.
When I was finished, I straightened my desk, pushing a stray container back to its place, and noticed a slip of paper sticking out from under it. Pulling it out to put it away properly, I noticed what was on it.
Weston’s neat writing filled the page.
If you need anything, even just a warm body to sleep next to, come to me. Anytime. X marks the spot.
A smile stretched across my lips.
X marks the spot?
I looked around my art room but knew there was no X in here. I would’ve noticed—just like I’d noticed his cleverly hidden note under the thing he’d moved, knowing I wouldn’t be able to relax until I’d put it back in its correct place. Nothing in the front room, either; I’d been through there.
In my bedroom, I looked around my bed, creased from when I’d sat on it earlier. My wardrobe was closed. My shades had been drawn by Leala, who’d gotten things ready for bed before being released for the evening. Near the back corner, though, I found a piece of paper taped to a panel next to the stone hearth. After peeling it off, I found a tiny indent, nothing more than a compressed part of the wood.
Frowning, I scratched it, and then pushed, trying to figure out why X marked this spot.
Pushing did the trick.
A click sounded from behind the panel and it popped open.
“No way . . .” I said softly, pulling the panel open and peering in. A small stone tunnel ran along the back of my room, clearly a secret passageway. “This castle just keeps getting better. Dragons and a secret passageway?”
Another note waited on the ground featuring an arrow to point me in the right direction.
Hurrying now, I ran back inside the room and grabbed Weston’s food and the leftover bottle of wine from dinner then sped into the passageway, leaving the panel open just in case. Little tunnels led away from this one, each lined with alcoves that must have led to other rooms throughout the castle. At every intersection I came to, there was another note with an arrow. Two notes up and the arrow pointed right. I stopped in front of the alcove with a note taped on, the arrow pointing to a little keyhole. There was no key.