Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
“His disorder is mental. They’ve put him under because he’s a danger to himself and others.”
“Oh, my god.” Empathy softens her dark eyes.
“That’s why I haven’t wanted to talk about his condition.”
She nods, her fiery hair sliding over her bare shoulders. “I’m sorry. I have a nasty habit of prying. The curse of being a reporter.”
“I understand.”
“While I’m prying, I wonder if you’d answer another question for me.”
I stiffen. Already I’ve said more than I should. With Sydney, I’m walking a tightrope. Using her leaves a bad taste in my mouth, but staying by her side until I get the information necessary to help my brother is critical.
“I’ll try.”
“Why move to the States? Why leave for so long if your parents are elderly? Why join the U.S. Marines? Why—”
“One question at a time.” I hold up a hand to stay her with an indulgent glance. “I moved overseas at eighteen. Went to school for a bit where I met some Marines and decided to join them. I obtained a green card, quit school, went to basic.” I shrug. “My parents and I…didn’t see eye-to-eye about my future, and a dozen years ago, putting distance between us seemed like a good idea.”
A huge understatement. My mother, once a gifted seer like many witches in her line, insisted that I would someday embrace my considerable magic and distinguish myself as a champion. Rubbish!
By the time she started making such predictions, Westin was dead, and I swore to disavow magic. After leaving home, I avoided magickind and made a home for myself in the States among humans. I haven’t wanted life another way since.
“So you moved to another country?”
Put like that, my decision sounds extreme. “They had Lucan to carry on the usual traditions. I wasn’t interested.”
“A family business?”
“Something like that,” I hedge. “Anyway, I joined the Marines because it was far, far from home, and I wanted to fight—something my parents were against.” At least in the human sense.
“You were a rebel.”
“Quite. I don’t regret anything, and I’ve made some great friends.”
While a Marine, I felt as if I fit in for the first time in my life. No one knew about my magical family or had expectations of me becoming a wand-waving Superman. Sure, my platoon ribbed me about being British and having a teacup up my ass and the like, but they respected the fact I was a crack shot, could wipe the floor with most in hand-to-hand combat, and was without peer when it came to explosives. I bloody miss them like hell.
I’m happy to help Bram and the Doomsday Brethren learn those skills. But lending my magic to their cause? I don’t have any. Nor do I want it.
“Are you still friends with them?”
Pain is a stinging reminder, like a wound that just won’t heal. “Sadly, many died in Afghanistan. A few committed suicide after coming home. Another went to prison. One is missing. I’m one of the few left standing.”
And Sydney is the first person I’ve confided in. Sharing my sorrow with her is dangerous, but it feels so good to unburden.
She throws her arms around me, as if she knows exactly how much it hurt to lose friends like Walt, who everyone called T-Rex because he was huge and had such lumbering footsteps. Or Brian, the prankster with the weird tattoos. Damn hard to believe that he’s gone missing under mysterious circumstances.
“I’m sorry,” Sydney murmurs. “I never meant to bring up something painful.”
For a brief moment in her arms, the hurt of the past and the worries about tomorrow are silent. I’m desperate to stay in this peaceful moment, but I can’t avoid reality. I need to leave before I do something stupid.
“I won’t ask if that satisfies your curiosity, since I know better. But I should get going.” I’m unable to resist filtering my fingers through her soft hair one last time. I drop my hand away with regret.
“One last thing.” Sydney grabs my wrist. “Kiss me. We never got to that last night.”
Her plea is so tempting, and I crave her mouth, but the increasing sweats, sex drive, and tingles tell me that I’m likely to be a wizard soon, and I’ll have the “gift” of being able to sense my mate by taste. If I give Sydney what she’s asking for, if I open my burgeoning magical senses to her, I worry I’ll speak the Call, caution be damned.
If I lost her, it would devastate me and leave me vulnerable to the kind of lunacy that could kill me.
Besides, magickind is fast becoming a dangerous place—one in which Sydney doesn’t belong. She’ll be safer if she stays away from me. And if she stops writing stories likely to catch Mathias’s notice.
So unless I want to risk tying Sydney to me forever, kissing her is forbidden. And mating aside, I have no intention of staying, so kissing her would be more cruel, not less.