Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
And she tried to remind herself that they hadn’t spent all that much time together anyway—although that didn’t hold water. They had had a lifetime in a matter of nights—and those memories of being with him were going to have to last her until she went unto the Fade.
Time to focus on her job, she thought sadly as she went to the first of the sleeping berths in the row on the right.
“You’re looking much better,” she said to an elderly female who’d had pneumonia. Then she made a note on her med chart. “The penicillin is doing its job, and I’ll be back before dawn to give you another dose.”
As she went to move away from the pod, a frail arm reached out and myopic eyes tried to focus on her. “Thank you.”
Two words. Two syllables. And yet a wealth of meaning that even the glymera couldn’t match with all their money and possessions.
What was left of the glymera, that was.
“You’re welcome,” Nadya murmured. “You just rest. I’ll be back.”
It took her a good hour to work her way around all the patients’ check-ins. When she was finished, she returned to the desk Mayhem had set up for her at the far end, from which she logged doses and kept track of symptoms and vitals. As she sat down, Nadya frowned.
Another pebble was on her master ledger.
It was small and round, and of a pink tone this time. As she put it in her palm and rolled it around, she loved the smooth surface. The veining. The fact that it clearly had been chosen with care.
Then she looked to the little dish by her lineup of antibiotic bottles. There were five other little stones, of different sizes and colors, like flowers that had been picked from a riverbed.
She had no idea who had been leaving them, but when she was at her most pathetic, she fantasized that it was—
“Hi.”
* * *
As Kane spoke up, he wasn’t sure what the reaction from Nadya was going to be. And as she looked up at him with a gasp, he told himself he should have given her more time. She had been working so hard, saving lives, easing pain, doing what she had been born to do, that she no doubt hadn’t had a moment to reflect on the way they had left things.
Then again, how arrogant of him to assume he was even on her mind.
When this purpose of hers was so important.
Dearest Virgin Scribe, she was so beautiful, her brown hair pulled back to the base of her neck, her simple tunic and loose pants in green a ball gown to his eyes. She was glowing with health, her eyes sparkling—and yet warily on him, although whether that was because she couldn’t believe he was in the flesh or something else, he didn’t know.
“You’re alive,” she whispered. “I thought you were…”
“I’ve been around.”
“No one has seen you. I’ve asked… where you were.” She cleared her throat. “But I guess you’ve had things to do—”
“I had some work I had to do on myself.”
“Oh.”
He wanted to explain to her that, after his viper side had come out as it had when they’d come to save Callum and Apex, he’d known he had to understand better, and make peace with, his other half. He had to learn how it worked, and who was in charge—so he was sure that people he cared about were safe.
Given the power of that bite, he had to protect those around him who mattered.
Especially… her.
“And how did the work go,” she asked.
“Good. Very good.” He thought back to Callum telling him he didn’t need a weapon. The male had been so very right. “I’m really good.”
“Well. I’m glad.”
“You’ve been working hard, too.” He glanced around at the prisoners’ berths. “You’re… doing what you’re made to do.”
“I think so.”
There was a long silence, and then he rushed the story out, talking faster and faster, as if she wouldn’t listen to him for longer than a minute or two: “Cordelhia was in on the plot to frame me. I just want you to know that. She knew what her brother planned and it was to get rid of her twin who was, in their eyes, a disgrace to their bloodline. They solved a problem that was no fault of that sister’s by killing her and sending me to prison for two centuries. I’m telling you this not so you feel sorry for me, but so you know that there is no way I’m ever going back to Cordelhia. Ever. I was in love with an illusion set up and reinforced by the class I was in. I excused her behavior, which was about tolerating me, rather than wanting to be with me, at the altar of the modesty a female of worth was supposed to have. I do not love Cordelhia, I never truly did, and I never, ever will forgive her.”