Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
“Did you…what did you do?”
“I helped to bear your burden,” Lan’ara tried to smile at him but she was suddenly tired…so tired.
“I was going into combat mode—getting ready to kill something,” Nate admitted in a low voice. “You pulled me back.”
The rustling in the underbrush came again and a moment later a zeether came out from behind the bushes and began nosing around the silvery trunk of one of the trees.
Nate frowned at it.
“What the fuck is that? It looks like a fox crossed with a cat but with silver fur.”
“It’s a zeether,” Lan’ara said, her voice shaking with weariness. Goddess, she was tired! Her muscles were trembling—it felt like she’d just pushed a heavy boulder up a steep hill. Still, she tried to project an image of calm and comfort. “He’s probably just sniffing around, looking for fruit dropped by the trees,” she said, trying to smile. “They’re perfectly harmless—look, I’ll show you.”
She took a step forward, meaning to hold out a hand to the little creature—maybe offer it a piece of the juicy silver fruit hanging from the trees. But when she put her foot down, her leg didn’t want to support her. It folded under her and Lan’ara found herself falling…falling…
“Hey!” she heard Nate shout, but his voice seemed to come from light years away.
And then the whole world went distant and gray and far away and she couldn’t hear or see anymore.
TWENTY-THREE
DAVRIK
What was happening? Davrik watched anxiously as Sonya yanked at the bracelet on her wrist. When she started screaming in pain, he jumped up and ran over to her.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” he demanded, grabbing her wrist.
“Burning! It’s burning me!” she gasped.
“The fuck it is!” Davrik growled, enraged that anyone or anything would hurt the woman he loved. He gripped the gold link bracelet and was about to break it off her wrist when she cried,
“Stop!” and put a hand on his arm.
“Stop? But it’s hurting you!” he exclaimed, looking down at her.
Sonya shook her head.
“Not now it’s not—not now that you’re touching me. It was only burning me because I wasn’t touching you—wasn’t close enough to you. And if you take it off, I’ll get in so much trouble.”
Her lovely brown eyes were filled with fear. Seeing that expression on her face made Davrik’s heart ache and burn at the same time. He wanted to protect her from anything that would hurt or frighten her so much. He wanted to rip the damn bracelet off her wrist and carry her out of here right now!
But he knew he wouldn’t even get out of the building—as discrete and luxurious as The House of a Thousand Flowers was, there were armed guards all over the place. If he tried to steal one of their “top tier flowers” he’d be shot at once and then Sonya would be worse off than before.
So instead of ripping off the bracelet that had burned her, he gathered her into his arms and lifted her.
“Oh…what…what are you doing?” Sonya’s eyes were wide and uncertain.
“Don’t worry, baby girl—not going to hurt you,” Davrik told her. “I’m just going to have a look at your arm and heal you, all right?”
“How are you going to heal me?” she protested as he settled on the bed with her cradled in his lap.
“With my Essence, of course,” Davrik said distractedly. He was already examining her burned wrist, holding her hand carefully in his own. Her hand was so small compared to his that if they pressed their palms together, the tips of her fingers would barely reach the base of his own long digits. But right now he was mostly concerned with healing the angry dark red marks the damn bracelet had left on her delicate skin.
“What’s ‘Essence’?” Sonya asked, sounding confused.
Davrik realized that she didn’t know what he was talking about. Of course she didn’t—no matter how protective of her he felt, this wasn’t his Sonya. So she didn’t know about his fangs or the Essence they could produce to heal his mate.
“It’s a pale blue liquid produced by my fangs,” he explained. “It’s mostly used for—”
“Fangs?” she interrupted, her eyes going wide.
“Yes. See?” Davrik opened his mouth so she could see the double set of fangs that all Blood Kindred had—they were located where humans had their canine teeth.
He could still remember the first time he’d showed his fangs to his own Sonya, back in his own universe. It was on their second date and he’d been explaining to her that while he had some Giant Kindred in his ancestry, he was mostly a Blood Kindred. When he’d showed her the double set of sharp points, she’d said,
“Oh, like a vampire!” and leaned closer to get a better look.
This Sonya, however, wasn’t nearly so calm when he showed her.
“Oh my God!” she gasped, drawing back from him. “So that’s why you paid so much for me—you want to bite me!”