Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“Come on, come on, close—”
Pop!
The breach was less a proper explosion, more a firecracker, but it got the job done. One side of the boarded-up doorway went loose, the panel flopping free of its hinges and falling out to the sidewalk like a dead body landing on a bounce.
“Oh, God, close, close—”
The elevator’s doors were tentative as they emerged from their sheaths, and he planted his palms on them and tried to get them to hurry—
Over at the lobby’s entrance, a figure stepped into the opening that had been created by force, tendrils of smoke swirling around its legs. The size of the entity alone would have scared Evan. The fact that his internal senses began to scream turned whoever it was into a serial killer with an axe over his shoulder.
As the doors got closer and closer, the massive male was like a spotlight in Evan’s face—and he knew he would never forget what this particular enemy looked like, from the scar that ran in an S-curve down his face and distorted his mouth, to the skull trim and all the black leather.
Their eyes met, and Evan felt a sucking sensation, as if the elevator had already started for the basement: All at once, like it was a resurfaced memory rather than a conclusion he was coming to, he realized he was involved in something bigger now, something that, though he had just fallen into it, had been going on for millennia.
A war, with things that looked human, but were not.
Like he was no longer human.
Evan broke out in a cold sweat as he realized that the black blood in him carried with it information and… some kind of legacy.
“I’m going to kill you, lesser,” the man in the doorway growled. “I’m gonna fucking k—”
The elevator shut with a thump, and the descent to the lower level began.
Evan backed up until the panels of broken mirrors caught him, and he splayed his arms out as if he were about to get attacked.
If that creature out there found the basement stairs?
He was going to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In the bedroom at Luchas House, Nalla stared into Nate’s eyes as he looked at her over his shoulder. Though his pupils and irises were her focus, she saw everything about his face: From his long lashes to the curve of his skull, the line of his full lower lip to the thrust of his jaw.
And she wanted to tell him to be serious. That when she’d suggested taking off his clothes, it had been for a medical reason.
Or okay, fine, a comfort one. Immortals like him—what the hell?—didn’t have medical problems.
But out at that fire, after he’d burned a sweatshirt that she knew damn well had something to do with another female, they’d crossed the line that distinguished friends from lovers.
Acquaintances from lovers, more like it.
So “naked” meant different things now… and she didn’t believe what he’d told her about changing his mind about timing.
Yet as he stared back at her, he wasn’t stepping off from what he’d said. There was no Ha-ha, I didn’t mean that like it sounded. No Just kidding. No Wow, this is awkward.
Because he did mean it, he wasn’t kidding… and this was awkward.
But this was also something that had been started out in that forest—and needed finishing.
“Okay, let me help you,” she said in a husky voice she didn’t recognize.
Except then he shook his head. “Nah, I can do it.”
Like she’d called his bluff or something?
As she tried to figure out what was going on between them, Nate eased onto his side, his torso shifting stiffly, his jaw locking in pain. And now he was sitting up and gingerly peeling the burned leather and the fragments of his t-shirt from his shoulders and arms. She could only stand by and watch for so long, even though as she went to the bed, she wasn’t sure how to make it easier on him. She settled for helping him get his holsters of weapons off.
Oh… God.
He had been burned on the front and the back, probably because he’d been hit by some blowback accelerant during the explosion, and then he’d rolled in the snow and spread it and the flames around while he’d been trying to get things extinguished. As a result, the damage was widespread and shocking, the ropes of muscle over his bones exposed, the latter showing through bright white against the pink and red—yet his skin wasn’t so much healing as regenerating before her very eyes, his epidermis reknitting so fast she could track the change by watching his tattoos reemerge: The ink that was permanent reappeared along with the skin, the swirls of the patterns becoming visible once again as the third degree burns became second degrees, and then firsts, and then…
“You’re…” she breathed.
Instead of finishing whatever the hell was going through her head, Nalla reached out and touched his shoulder. When he hissed, she jerked her hand back.