Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Getting out and locking the truck, he pocketed the keys and lithely jumped over the mound—
On the other side, he sank into the pack up to his knees—and for a moment, he just stayed there, in a snare of snow. As he looked up, he studied the piercing sky, then he measured the pine trees standing so docilely in the cold.
Once again, he could have shifted or dematerialized.
He didn’t.
As he pulled up one of his boots, and forced his leg down again, he wanted the exhaustion that was going to come with trudging through the acreage. Maybe it would help him finally sleep a little.
Starting across the wintery landscape, he felt like there were miles to go, especially with his bad ankle—
Right on cue, his brain kicked up a memory of Apex, walking through the blizzard toward the garage, emerging from the buffered, blustery night in all that black leather.
Like a stalker.
Then again, the male had been tracking Callum ever since he’d come back to the Adirondacks, a shadow cast by the past that fucked him up at the weirdest moments, the memories the kind of thing where he would be minding his own business, chopping wood, clearing snow off one of the main house’s flat roofs, making a meal . . . and an image of the vampire would slice through whatever he was doing and take over, an opaque shield that he couldn’t see through, couldn’t get around, couldn’t burrow under.
And now that he’d actually seen the male in person? It was worse—
Apex’s voice was the same. Deep, with a slight rasp, his accent characteristic of vampires.
And he was always frowning. Still.
“I didn’t feel anything,” Callum said into the cold, still air. “Not a thing. I did not feel . . . anything . . .”
Except he was lying.
He had felt too much. Which was why he’d had to come here.
To the prison.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Back at Camp Ghreylke, Mahrci sat at the foot of the bed she’d been sleeping on top of for the last couple of days, her bare legs dangling off the end, her socked feet turned in as they always had. In her cupped hands, her cell phone was like a grenade with the pin still in, the kind of thing that wouldn’t explode as long as she didn’t turn it on.
Apex was right. Her father was going to show up here if she didn’t do something.
What the hell had she been thinking, coming up to his property here? Then again, he had so many estates, apartments, and buildings, it was nearly impossible to keep track of what he owned, and he didn’t come to Connelly even in the good months. As usual, the acquisition and the transformation of the property had been what had interested him.
Not the enjoyment. Never . . . the enjoyment.
The arrival of her unanticipated roommates was a reminder that, however far she could go, there was no escaping her reality. Not with Whestmorel as her father.
Not with the male he wanted her to get mated to.
Not with what she had done.
Taking a deep breath, Mahrci hovered her thumb over the button on the side of the iPhone. Then she pushed the thing in harder than she had to, and set the cell aside on the flannel duvet.
Looking around, she had no emotional reaction to the space. She had picked this room only because it was the first one she had come to as she’d bottomed out on the underground level. Like all the other daytime suites her sire had insisted on building, as well as the house above, everything was done in interior-decorator-Adirondack, the colors evergreen, crimson, and gold, the woodwork left natural, the furniture made of polished logs and branches with the bark still on them. Yes, technology controlled the temperature, the Wi-Fi, and the lighting, but every effort had been made to hide the screens and even the ductwork.
No expense had been spared, even though he didn’t care about the property.
And in this respect, she was just like his real estate portfolio. His art collection. His cars.
Well, she didn’t have a monogram branded on her butt like a head of cattle. And considering everything, that was kind of a surprise.
Putting her hand out to the side, she palmed the phone, and turned the goddamn thing over. As the cell connected with the Wi-Fi, calls, voicemails, and texts came in, the banners running like water—
Until things were cut off by a phone call coming through.
Closing her eyes, she swiped her finger across the screen and put the unit up to her ear—
“No voicemail this time? Is this really you, Mahricelle?”
The long vowels, clipped consonants, and high altitude attitude went through her nervous system like a charge of electricity, and she straightened her spine and set her shoulders back.
I can do this, she told herself.