Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Together,” Lucas echoes and my heart skips a beat. Dammit, he can hear that.
“That’s all I want,” I relent, voice wavering with emotion. “It’s all I’ll ever want. Us. Together. As a family.”
“At what cost?” he asks, lowering his voice.
“That’s not fair,” I shotClick here to enter text. back. “You became a horseman.”
“What’s the word you like to use? Whataboutism?”
“Not fair,” I repeat and look at my phone, checking to see how close the Uber is. They’re on route, coming from town. The bars are closing soon, so whoever is driving was probably out waiting to take a drunk person home anyway.
“Meet me upstairs when he’s gone,” Lucas says and turns, speeding out of the room.
“What did you do?” Jacob asks, words slurring. “I wouldn’t want to piss him off, that’s all I’ll say.”
“I can handle him,” I sigh, though I’m not worried about a battle of strengths. A ball of anxiety is starting to form in the pit of my stomach. What if Lucas doesn’t understand why I did what I did? And even worse…what if things don’t work out like I think they will? “Things are just kinda complicated.”
“I don’t understand why a nice girl like you would get tangled up in vamp business,” he goes on. They say alcohol is truth serum, and the same goes when you’re spelled to think you’re drunk. At least I already worked not remembering any of this into the spell. “I get his appeal. He’s very…very impressive.”
I smile, remembering the first time I saw Lucas. He took my breath away, and not because he needed the air. He was the oldest vampire I’d yet to come across and his power and confidence rocked me. I hadn’t felt scared like that in ages, yet instead of running away like I should have, I craved him more.
“That he is. And he’s a good man,” I say, fully believing it.
“He’s a vampire, not a man.”
“You know they were all human at one point,” I remind him. I’ve had this talk with Abby before, and it’s funny how fast everyone is to remember that ninety-nine percent of vampires were turned against their will. They stood before another vampire with fear in their eyes, crying and begging for their lives.
“I kinda forget that,” Jacob says with a hiccup, swaying on his feet. We go into the front porch. I lean against the railing and Jacob sits on a rocking chair. “What did you do to make him mad?”
“Nothing of significance,” I lie and close my eyes, remembering it all play out. The sense of desperation starts to take over even though the threat is gone. I knew I had to do it as soon as Uriel appeared.
It was the only way.
Callie, I knew you’d come back.
Osiris’s voice echoes through my head and I finally let myself think about what happened. Uriel was here and I made a desperate run to grab the scarab. My fingers wrapped around it as I chanted the incantation, and in just the blink of an eye, I was there, projecting myself into the ancient, underground tomb.
“I didn’t have a choice,” I told him.
“We always have a choice.”
“Not this time. I’m not losing my family. Not again. So I’ll do it.”
“Do what?” His lips curved into a smile, knowing fully what I meant but wanting to hear me say it out loud.
“I’ll consider forging an alliance with you. Because you’re right,” I admitted, hating it then as much as I do now, “Together we could be unstoppable. And from what I’ve seen so far, you’re not a bad person. Not anymore than I am.”
The blue hellfire lighting the torches on the wall grew brighter, and the heat felt good. Welcoming. Like home.
“You know what it will take,” he went on.
“I do.” Our eyes met and he nodded and he extended his hand. My heart skipped a beat and I repeated it over and over in my head: this is the only way.
“Uber’s here.” Jacob slowly gets to his feet, voice startling me.
“That was fast.” I inhale, fingers gripping the railing so tight it hurts. If I had vampire strength, I would splinter the wood in half right now. “Thank you again for bringing those documents to us,” I tell Jacob with a fake smile. “You really went above and beyond for the King family.”
“Of course,” he says and beams back, proud of himself for thinking he really did go out of his way for us. I walk him to the Uber and then slowly make my way back inside.
Eliza is in the living room, doing a terrible job pretending to read one of my dark romance novels. Eamon is in there with her, with two photo albums spread out on the coffee table in front of him. One is my wedding album, and the other was a birthday gift from Kristy from a few years ago. It’s full of pictures of us from our Academy days, and we both had a good laugh flipping through the pages, reliving the memories.