Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 98961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“I could handle twins, but triplets? No way.”
“You’re trying for another?” Lucas asks, pushing the tips of his fingers slightly under the waistband of my leggings.
“We have been,” Abby sighs. “I got pregnant right away with Penny so I assumed it would happen within a few months the second time around too.”
“I’d like another,” Lucas says and I spin around in his arms, looking at him like he lost his mind. “What?”
“In order for us to have another kid, a necromancer has to curse you, we have to wait until you’re actively dying and then hope we get lucky and I get pregnant the first go at it. And someone has to curse you!”
“You broke the curse the last time.”
“Yeah, and I had to do a blood sacrifice and maybe you missed the part about you actively dying.”
“I won’t get stabbed the next time around.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” I raise my eyebrows.
“I am,” he says but his lips twitch into a small smile.
“Okay, let’s say I’m able to replicate the same curse, get pregnant, and then un-curse you. Did you forget how fucking miserable pregnancy was for me?”
“But look what we got out of it.”
“You are impossible.” I slide my hands up his chest, clasping my hands around his neck. “And I love you for it.”
“I love you too.” He kisses me, tongue pushing into my mouth. I’m instantly turned on and miss him when he pulls away, only seconds later. He doesn’t care who sees us, but he won’t make Abby uncomfortable.
“Okay, now I feel bad complaining about not getting knocked up right away.” Abby gets up from the breakfast table, walking Juliet to me.
“Don’t be. I never thought I’d have a kid and I was perfectly fine with it,” I tell her. “And really, being pregnant was awful for me. I couldn’t drink, couldn’t get in physical fights, and feeling that human was just...” I shudder. “It wasn’t fun.”
Lucas takes Juliet from Abby’s arms and I smile again. “Though it was worth it.”
My phone dings with a text and I open the drawer to get it and see that I have a slew of missed calls and texts from last night and today. I open the thread from Kristy first, and immediately feel bad that I didn’t reply sooner. She apologized over and over for the way the conversation went yesterday, and now thinks I’m mad at her.
I quickly reply that I’m not, my phone died, and things have been crazy over her.
Melinda sent me a handful of texts as well, and nerves flash through me when I open them, worried something happened to Easton. I quickly scan through her texts.
Melinda: Hey! Just wanted to let you know Easton is supposed to be discharged around nine this morning.
Melinda: So I asked a friend with a friend in the Order if anything was said about missing artifacts, and she had no idea what I was talking about. So looks like they haven’t even noticed you guys took anything LOL
Melinda: We’re heading home! He looks thrilled, doesn’t he?
She sent a photo of Easton sitting in a wheelchair, reluctantly obliging to the hospital policy of being wheeled to the lobby.
Melinda: The officer that questioned him is here. Apparently there was a vampire attack last night?!
Melinda: You okay? I haven’t heard from you and I’m starting to worry.
Melinda: Okay, your phone is dead. Now I am worried.
Her most recent text is the last one I got, and it just says, “call me ASAP”.
Chapter
Thirty
My jaw tenses as I listen to the phone ring. Once. Twice. Three times.
“Hello?” Melinda answers.
“Hey, I just saw your text.”
“Oh, right. You okay? You totally ghosted me.”
“Yeah.” I bring my hand to my forehead. “It’s, uh, been a little crazy over here. The oracle worked.”
“Uh, good? I think, right?”
“Yeah. It’s good.” Of course Easton didn’t tell Melinda anything about Lucas. “What’s going on?”
“I figured you’d want to hear this right away because it seems super sketchy in an end-of-the-world sort of way.”
“Great.”
“I know,” she says apologetically. “We heard from another hunter, that last night this church in Kansas had a mass suicide. I thought for sure this church would turn out to be more of a cult, but it doesn’t seem that way. But thirteen members carved a sigil on their chests and then drank poisoned Kool-Aid.”
“Well, fuck. Any idea what made them go all Jonestown?”
“Supposedly, an angel visited them at night and told them to do that. Their bodies were arranged in a pentagram and I didn’t recognize the sigil, but it definitely looked demonic.”
“Do you have any pictures of it?” I ask.
“I have a bunch. Do you want crime scene photos or do you want me to sketch it?”
“Oh, crime scene, please,” I say too eagerly and Abby gives me a look.
“Okay…hang on one sec.” A few seconds pass by and then my phone dings again. I pull it away from my year and look at the first photo she sent. It must have been taken from a balcony above the altar, and shows an aerial view of the bodies, arranged so they form a circle and star, just like Melinda said. The next photo is a close up of one of the victims, showing the sigil on her chest.