Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Or mayhap “inevitable” was the word.
It was hard to know when he made the decision to allow his presence to be known, but at some point, halfway to the top, he stepped in some distance behind her. As his strides were slightly longer than hers, the gap between them was gradually closed as the ascension progressed.
And yet Xhex persisted in her forward orientation, her attention remaining upon what was before her and off to the sides, but never what was in her rear.
The absence of a reaction—or any awareness at all—struck him as alarming. After which, it dawned on him that she was, in fact, totally alone.
“Xhex.”
The instant he said her name she pivoted, her hand pushing into her leather jacket and fumbling around for something.
“Do not shoot me,” he said, assuming a bored tone.
You care for things more deeply—
“Shut. Up.”
Xhex stopped with her searching, her dark brows slamming down over her gray eyes. “I haven’t said shit.”
Gritting his teeth, he forced a smile. “That was not intended for you. And are you… unarmed?”
He hadn’t noticed before, but there was no scent of gunpowder on her. Which was not her normal course of things.
Alone? With no personal protection? Where the fuck was her mate—
“Then who’s it for,” she countered. “And what the hell are you doing following me.”
No surprise she left the weapons question unacknowledged. And he told himself it was not his place to worry over her.
He did not believe that lie, however.
“You came to the mountain, sister mine. I was already here,” he intoned grimly.
She glanced around. “So you think you own all this now?”
“No, but if you’re accusing me of tracking you, I have every right to point out the fact that you arrived where I reside, not the other way around.”
“Your home is the Colony.”
“By birthright, so is yours.”
Xhex shook her head. “No, I was escorted out of there. Remember?”
He opened his mouth to answer with something flippant, something appropriately distancing and arrogant. But as the moonlight filtered down through the pine boughs, he saw not the illumination for what it was. Rather, he saw fragments of that old woman, as if her shimmering essence had been split apart, yet not diminished.
Shifting his eyes back to his sister, he felt as though he were standing at the lip of a great fall, one that he had been teetering on for quite some time. For… over twenty years.
“What,” Xhex snapped.
When he could not speak, she threw her hands up and pivoted away from him. “I’m done with your games—”
“I have never forgotten.”
His sister slowly twisted back around. “What did you say.”
He cleared his throat. And yet his voice was no stronger as he repeated, “I have never… forgotten why or how you left the Colony.”
THIRTY-FOUR
EVERY TIME I get out… they keep pulling me back in.
As Gus ran for the patient room he’d recently been treated in, Al Pacino’s voice banged around his head, but one of the better scenes in the worst Godfather movie was promptly forgotten as he shoved open the door and flipped into doctor mode.
The patient on the bed was not a surprise.
The options for treatment were going to suck.
And given the amount of blood on the front of that gray sweatshirt, there was a whole lot of nothing good going on.
“What happened,” he asked Lydia as he pushed one of the staff out of the way.
Even with the three or four medical types circling the bed, removing Daniel’s clothes, hooking up leads, the woman was right by her man, and going nowhere. She was clearly scared to shit, her face frozen in terror, her hands shaking as she kept pushing her hair back over her shoulder. But someone was going to have to forcibly remove her if they wanted to reach that left side.
Which, at the moment, they didn’t need to.
“He started coughing,” she said, “and he couldn’t stop—and then he just lost consciousness. I called down here and they came with a stretcher and…”
As she trailed off, he glanced at the monitor. Oh… great. Oxygen stats were in the cellar. Blood pressure was way too low. Heart rate was in the high 180s, trying to compensate for both.
“I need oxygen, stat, and let’s get some blood.” Maybe Daniel had an infection somewhere and was going septic? Except the downturn had been a little fast for that. “When he’s stable, I want to do some imaging—and could someone gimme their stethoscope.”
That last command was followed fast, and as soon as he’d plugged his ears, he took a listen—
“What is it.” Lydia leaned in. “What are you—why do you look like that?”
Well, because the poor bastard’s lungs were full on one side. Not that he was going to talk about that until he had a plan—
The door to the room opened wide, and yup, there she was: C.P. Phalen, still in her tough-guy armor. And as she stepped inside, he fought back his emotions.