Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
He starts unbuttoning his shirt. “You took too much.”
Shame heats my skin. “I didn’t mean to.” I brush my fingers over Wolf’s high cheekbones. His eyes flutter a little, but he looks almost drugged. “What’s going on? I’ve taken more than this before and he didn’t act like this.”
“Felt too good,” Wolf murmurs. “Couldn’t stop coming.”
It sounds startlingly familiar. It’s how I feel when they bite me. Pleasure so strong that it overtakes all else. Orgasms that rise and rise and rise until the bite ends. But that doesn’t make sense.
I crawl out from under him as Malachi sits on the bed and hauls Wolf up to sprawl across his wide chest. I gingerly touch my mouth. My teeth feel normal, my cut lips already healed. “I don’t have a bite like a bloodline vampire. Do bites even work on other vampires? This is impossible.”
“When will you admit it, Mina?” Rylan’s tone isn’t unkind as he sinks onto the bed next to me and wraps a surprisingly comforting arm around my shoulders. “You’re not a vampire. You’re a seraph. The rules don’t apply to you.”
12
I don’t know why it still stings to be reminded that I’m not human, vampire, or dhampir. I’m something else, something rare and dangerous and unknown. “I’m aware.”
Rylan sighs. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not.” He tugs me closer as Malachi offers a forearm to Wolf. Wolf bites quickly and drinks deep. Within a few minutes, he’s looking more like himself again. Relief makes me a little woozy. We’ve exchanged blood before—all of us. It’s never been truly dangerous, not like it appears to be now.
No. That’s not true. From the moment I met Malachi, and then the others, they’ve been dangerous to me. One bite taken too far could end my life. It’s something none of us have really spoken at great lengths about, but we’ve all been aware of it. This is different.
I’ve never been dangerous to them.
When Wolf finally sits back, Malachi levels a look at me. “We’ll talk about this later. Right now, we need to discuss our next step with Cornelius.”
I start to argue that we need to talk about it now, but his rationale makes sense. If we don’t survive the fight with my father, it won’t matter that I’m dangerous to them, because we’ll all be captive or dead. What a cheerful thought.
Rylan huffs out a breath. “Why don’t we start with where we are? Did you figure out the state or the town, at least?”
“Still Montana. Best I can tell, it’s the next town over from the compound.”
“Azazel didn’t take us far.” Wolf shakes his head, a grin pulling at his lips. “That wily bastard.”
Malachi nods. “We won’t fly under the radar for long. We have to move while Cornelius is still scrambling to search for us.”
Every time he says my father’s name, I have to fight back a flinch. He’s no demon to be summoned by speaking his name, but I can’t shake the strangely superstitious feeling that we shouldn’t say it. I swallow past my fear. “Even if I kill him publicly, what’s to stop my siblings from finishing what he started? They’ve all had their powers for years at this point. I won’t win in an endless string of duels.” Our plan had seemed so reasonable—if a long shot—when we put it together on the run after escaping Malachi’s house. My time with Grace poking holes in it has only made me doubt myself. My father is powerful. He stopped Rylan, who is a bloodline vampire who can change his entire form, with a single word.
Seraph or no, my father can compel me to do whatever the hell he wants if he gets a chance to speak.
“It has to be public. Witnesses. You have to take control of the entire compound with one shot by killing him by doing it bloody enough that they won’t challenge you. He’s already primed them to fall in line when faced with a strong leader. We just have to convince them that you’re that strong leader.”
I give Malachi the look that statement deserves. Most of my siblings considered me beneath their notice while I was growing up, and I preferred it that way—fewer people who wanted to kick me when I was down. That might have benefited me growing up, but it hardly primed them to follow me as a leader. “The only chance we have is an attack he doesn’t see coming. He needs to be dead before he’s able to use his magic. If he gets one word out, we lose. How are we supposed to manage that in public?” Otherwise, we’re delivering ourselves right into his hands.
“I don’t know yet.”
I can’t stop my bitter laugh. “Isn’t that rather crucial to the plan?” It’s not fair to take my frustration out on Malachi. He didn’t exactly choose to be held captive by my father for over a hundred years, or to be bonded to a seraph when the attempt to gain freedom came with more strings than any of us expected. He needs my father dead just as much as I do.