Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
C.P. lifted her chin. “I was going to be patient one. After Daniel declined the dubious honor.” As the female became shocked, she nodded. “Yes, and that seemed rather fair to me given that Vita-12b was created at my behest. Now, though…”
“You can’t.”
“I’ve decided that I’m not going to terminate the pregnancy. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I will be doing whatever I can to stay alive until the birth.”
“C.P….”
“Do me a favor.” She looked away. Looked back. “Call me Cathy. I’m really feeling a need to drop the bullshit these days.”
* * *
Standing across the desk from the great C.P. Phalen, who was at the moment dressed in sweatpants and that fleece that smelled like Gus, Lydia fell silent. She had no idea what to say—about anything.
“Is it okay if I stay a few days?” she asked after a long pause. “In case Daniel comes back, you know.”
“You can stay for however long you want.”
“Thank you.”
C.P.—Cathy, that was—nodded and seemed to get lost in her own head. Which was fine. Lydia had plenty to think about also.
After Daniel had left the den up on the mountain, the male on the pallet, Blade, had just stared at her without saying a thing—although she had felt as though he was reading her in some way she didn’t understand, yet clearly sensed. When she’d demanded that he explain himself, he’d just told her that he wasn’t feeling well and closed his eyes. That was it.
Frustrated, she had departed the den and then walked down the trail. Halfway through the descent, she realized she was still wearing the red robing. She’d ditched it and shifted, and spent much of the day roaming around, her mind full of recriminations that were only partially dimmed due to her being in her wolven form.
When she had finally arrived back at C.P.’s house, she had dressed in the clothes that she, as always, had left folded on the salt bag.
Just like she had been doing every day.
She should have told Daniel that she’d stopped working. But she had sensed all along he wouldn’t be trying C.P. and Gus’s drug—and she just hadn’t wanted to talk about the future. She was living it with him; discussing the tragedy and all its implications had made her feel positively ill. And then there was the reality that her time away from the house and the lab was her sanity. Every weekday, from nine to five, she had coursed the acreage of the valley and the mountains in her wolven form. It had been the only way to stay even partially together under the pressure, and she had taken such solace with her kind, whether they were genetically just wolves or wolven like her. With her clan, in the lair of the wolven, she had reconnected with the side of herself that had been dormant by design, the practice of denial that her human grandfather had mandated for her survival no longer necessary.
Even before Xhex had told her that her future was on the mountain? She had known that to be true.
If she was going to survive at all after Daniel was gone, she was going to have to go there. And she’d been determined to start getting used to being in the lair.
“Thank you.” Wait, what was she talking about? Oh, right, C.P.’s—Cathy’s—hospitality. “I mean, well… I think I’m going to go check my phone. See if…”
But he wasn’t going to call her.
“Daniel will show up,” Cathy said. “Either because he comes to his senses—or because he’s not going to have a choice.”
A striking fear blew open Lydia’s adrenaline system, and she struggled to control her panic. “I’m just… going to go check my phone.”
“Do that.”
“Let me know if you need me…” For what, Lydia didn’t know. “And even though it’s very complicated, congratulations.”
C.P.—Cathy, and God, she was going to have to get used to the Cathy thing—blinked quickly. “I appreciate that. It’s a shock, as you can imagine.”
“It’s a blessing.” Lydia put her hand on her own lower belly. “The father must be very happy.”
As she let that drift, the other woman winced and said no more. So after an awkward parting, Lydia drifted back through the house’s towering, black-and-white rooms and halls. Going along, she felt as though they were in the same place.
Lost.
THIRTY-SEVEN
ALTRUISM WAS NOT the hallmark of a symphath. Not even close.
After night fell more than sufficiently, Blade finally got up off the pallet he’d spent the day on, and to burn a little more time, he immersed himself in the heated spring’s gentle embrace. Just as the water reached his pecs, he heard an approach through the cave’s passageway, the footfalls powerful and undisguised.
It was not who he wanted to see, although certainly someone he had expected.
“Sister mine,” he said before Xhex strode into the cave, before he sank beneath the surface to wet his hair.