Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 138334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 692(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
A lump crawled up his throat and lodged there. His woman. His Lotus Blossom. He glanced at her. She looked very small and fragile, as only Meiling could look. He reached out and took her hand, uncaring that she had huddled as far from him as possible. He didn’t say anything, just ran his thumb over the back of her hand. What was there to say?
“When this is over and we’ve managed to find these Dragon Justice people, I want to make certain we revisit those two smug bastards.”
She’d never once asked him for anything. Not one time.
“Consider it done, Lotus,” he assured. He’d been planning on it anyway. He’d almost instructed Meiling to go to the car and wait for him. He would have done it right then, but there were too many guards and servants who could identify them.
Once at the airport, he’d text Rene to find out where the members of Dragon Throne Justice were and who they were. He wanted to have that information by the time they landed in New Orleans. He wanted to have as much information on each member as possible.
* * *
* * *
THANKFULLY Whisper’s heat was over, giving them a respite. Rene had gathered as much information as he thought possible on the board members calling themselves Dragon Throne Justice. As Lubin had said, five made up the board. They were older now, much older, which to Gedeon meant they were the original members calling for the deaths of his family and Meiling’s. Three members were from a lair in southeastern Russia, the other two from China near the Russian border.
It was rumored the three men from Russia were members of the bratya and, like most of the lairs in that area, refused to mate with the woman who would be their true mate. This drove their leopard insane. No male heirs had the same gifts their fathers had. Gedeon thought it was most likely due to the fact that the men hadn’t mated with the right females. The same was true of those men in China. They had also chosen not to mate with their true mates. That seemed to weaken their genetics, and no heir was born with the gifts their father had. The one son insisting he wanted on the board was a shifter, but had no special talents that anyone had ever seen.
Meiling and Gedeon built a replica of the very large palace, which was really a fortress the Dragon Justices retreated to with their army of soldiers. The structure was built on the border between the two countries and was heavily guarded.
They studied every entrance and exit, the roof, the outside walls, the gates and the guard shacks. They memorized the changing of the guards, every routine from the kitchen to scraping ice from the walkways. The palace, with its extensive grounds, had been built to withstand an army. The Dragon Justices expected to have to fight off soldiers attempting to take over their territory. They wouldn’t consider that two motivated assassins might slip inside their domain, kill them where they found them and leave without ever being seen.
Meiling and Gedeon packed to board the plane that would take them to Russia. They crawled into bed, Gedeon wrapping his arms around her. As Meiling placed her cell phone on the nightstand, sudden fireworks seemed to explode.
Startled, she lifted the phone so both could read the screen.
Email now. Urgent. E.
Meiling’s eyes met Gedeon’s and there was open fear in hers. Both could feel the urgency in Etienne’s text. Meiling opened her email and then the program with the key so she could insert his email into it.
Jules and Louis betrayed me as well as you. They told these people you were close with Cosette. That you talk with her several times a week. She must have told them. They’re her cousins. Why would they betray her? She’s been taken again. She was at her music class. I had three bodyguards on her. They were killed. The note said only you can get her back. If you don’t come for her, she will live but wish she is dead. My poor Cosette. Again. I know they are saying you must trade your life for hers. I cannot ask you to do this, but I don’t even know who they are.
Gedeon cursed under his breath. “Cosette is his daughter?” He had done his research into Etienne. The daughter was around eighteen or nineteen.
Meiling nodded.
Etienne was asking Meiling to trade her life for Cosette’s. The Frenchman knew that was what he was doing. He might not feel he had any other choice, but he should just own it. Not pretend he wasn’t putting Meiling’s life on the line. Already the program was eating the message, the black holes appearing in it.