Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
“They left you with extraordinary memories,” he said after she finished a story about a winter trip where her father had built a snow cave for them to spend the night in.
“Yes.” A pause, her voice quieter when she said, “I just wish they’d planned better for what would happen if they weren’t there one day.”
So much pain in those words that even his stunted emotional core hurt. “Did you end up in foster care?”
“A short time.” A tight smile. “Then my grandfather came for me.”
It was clear from her tone that her experience with a grandparent hadn’t been the same as Ivan’s. He didn’t want to cause her more pain, so he didn’t ask why. Rather, he let her choose the route of their conversation, and what she chose was to get up. “I want a reed that usually grows near waterways. I think I hear a stream.”
Ten minutes later, Ivan was looking carefully for that reed when flecks of water hit the side of his face. He glanced up, saw she was intent on her own search, and realized she must’ve flicked the water on him by accident somehow.
Wiping off the small droplets, he returned to his search.
More water hitting the side of his face.
He turned … to see her looking innocently at a stone she’d picked up from the stream. “Isn’t this pretty?” she said, holding it to the light.
Ivan didn’t say anything, but he watched her out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to return to his search. She put the stone down, seemed to be looking for the reed again … then glanced over with a grin and flicked him again.
He snapped his head toward her and leaped.
Giving a laughing scream, she abandoned her basket and ran, her hair streaming behind her and the skirts of her dress a dazzling flag of color through the trees. He was highly trained and extremely fit, and he took the obstacles in his path with ease—but she was a changeling, this her natural ground.
It ended up an even match, until the two of them stood on opposite sides of a tree, each moving left and right as they attempted to outsmart one another. He jumped to the other side. But she’d already done the opposite and they were back in their same positions.
Her grin was wild and not at all human or Psy. It was changeling. Primal and full of delight. And he realized this was play. She was playing with him. He’d never believed he knew how to play, though he could fake it, but this felt as natural as his skin and his breath.
This time when he jumped, she was laughing too hard to avoid him, and he could’ve grabbed her … but he paused only inches from her, a sudden awkwardness between them as they stared at one another. A pulse beat in the hollow of her throat, a rapid little butterfly that echoed his own erratic heartbeat.
Heat made her skin glow, and he wanted badly to touch, wanted badly to have that right. But the frozen moment went on too long, until she looked down and brushed off her skirts. “I should get home.”
Clouds blotted out his private horizon, but he walked back with her and picked up her basket. “Will you come tomorrow?” he asked, even though all he wanted to do was grab hold of her and make her stay.
Not rational, that wasn’t rational. It would also scare her.
A look from below her lashes as she accepted the basket. “Evening picnic?” It was a husky question. “It’ll be dark, but I can borrow a string of charged solar lights from my friend. And you can try my mushroom tart.”
He nodded. He’d have said yes to anything she suggested. “What shall I bring?”
“Just yourself, cutie.” That tilt of the head again, her smile secretive. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” A quicksilver movement that caught him by surprise, her lips brushing his jaw in a fleeting kiss before she was gone in a waft of the most delicate perfume, a wild creature he couldn’t hold.
Shaken, he raised a hand to the place she’d touched, hovered over it. He didn’t know what was happening to him, how she’d walked right inside his defenses and made a place for herself … but it was done and he wasn’t sorry. What he had to do now was figure out how to make her stay even after she knew all he’d done and all he was: a predator whose mind ate the souls of others, leaving them empty, dead husks.
Chapter 5
Your neurological profile remains unchanged from earlier scans. The abnormal variation in your pattern appears to have settled into its adult form.
—Dr. Jamal Raul to Ivan Mercant (2 January 2071)
ARWEN WAS WAITING outside Ivan’s cabin when he reached home early that evening, having called up Flint for a couple of hours of extra hand-to-hand training. Not a fight this time, rather a slower exploration of the differences between Psy and changeling in this context. The often amused wolf had been as interested as Ivan, the two of them oddly well suited as training partners.