Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“Vampires are already adults when they’re Made—and I’m a unicorn.”
“Ugh.” Izak rolled his eyes.
Vivek opened the cooler but kept his eyes on Izzy. “I’ve opened it. No damage.”
“What did she send?” Izak tried to arch his neck to look over the side of the desk.
“None of your damn business, baby angel.” He pointed to the door. “Out, or I’ll volunteer you to Nisia for infirmary duty.”
Shuddering, Izak hotfooted it out of there. It wasn’t that he lacked kindness or empathy. It was that the kid had spent way too long in the infirmary when he’d lost his legs and broken nearly all of the remaining bones in his body. Vivek got the aversion—and was the reason why Izzy never ended up doing infirmary duty even though most young angels pulled time there.
Nisia, the senior healer, was well aware of the reason behind Izzy’s conspicuous absence—and she’d made sure to give Izzy the field first aid lessons he needed away from the place he so hated.
“I wouldn’t normally countenance this kind of avoidance,” she’d said to Vivek one day when he’d been in there for various tests, “but he’s too young to have spent the amount of time he has in the infirmary. It has left scars.”
“Trust me,” Vivek had gritted out as he flexed his bad leg in the way she’d asked him to so she could measure his progress, “I understand the kid.”
The healer hadn’t made one of her trademark sardonic comments; instead, she’d said, “Izzy is lucky to have a friend like you. Many in angelkind have no true understanding of what it is not to have your body behave as you wish it to behave.
“It doesn’t matter that they are often those with soft lives—not lives that put them in danger of losing limbs or wings, or even their very existence. Their talk can nonetheless cause harm to a vulnerable young heart.”
She’d allowed him to relax his leg and, while he’d massaged it in the aftermath, had added, “He’s safe in the Tower because he is the youngest of the angels, and treated much as a younger sibling by the vast majority of people. You do the same.” A faint smile. “But you’re also an example of a strong, powerful member of an archangel’s innermost team who shares his aversion. The knowledge is a shield for him against less tolerant members of angelic society.”
Now, smiling at the thought of Katrina imperiously waving Izzy down like he wasn’t an angel assigned to the Tower, he looked into the cooler to find a small bottle of blood, an enormous pack of the small chewable sweets that he could still ingest even with his vampiric anatomy, and a bottle of salve on which was taped a note that read: Put this on to ease your leg. The old ways are ofttimes yet the best.
Rolling up his pant leg, he did as ordered. The scent that came from the salve was a rich, bright green. But the cool of it soon bloomed into a warmth that felt like heaven. He gave himself a moment to appreciate it before putting the salve safely back in the cooler, and quickly taking a drink from the bottle of blood.
Dark orchids and musk and secrets.
She hit him like a drug, dangerous feminine power and a luscious sensuality.
His cock went rock hard, his pulse racing.
Shuddering and kicking himself for that first gulp that had emptied a third of her gift, he put the bottle by the side of his desk in a safe spot and promised himself a sip every ten minutes. He’d make it last as long as he could.
Before returning to his work, he gave himself ten seconds to craft a message to her: You are intoxicating. I am honored by the gift. What little he knew of Katrina told him a formal acknowledgment would be appreciated; whoever she was, she’d come from another time, held to different mores.
No response, but he hadn’t expected any. She’d said what she had to say in the form of the gift she’d sent him—the rest, they’d speak about when they were together. Turning back to his work, he rubbed the throbbing pulse on one wrist, the power of her blood fueling him as nothing else could have.
But the pleasure of tasting her went out the window forty-five minutes later, when he saw the current status of the Mantle. “Shit.” He zoomed in, hoping he was wrong, that things hadn’t accelerated this badly.
He wasn’t.
They had ten minutes, if that, before the Mantle failed. “If you’re planning something, Cadre,” Vivek said aloud, “you better do it soon or it’s game over.”
57
Elena was on the wing again by the time they reached the edge of the Refuge. They’d passed the last mortal settlement some time back, and the knot in her stomach had grown into a stone lump in the intervening time.