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)
Oddly, he pictured none of the people who technically came under the heading “Nearest and Dearest.” Instead, he saw a female with the grace of a ballerina and the knife skills of someone who’d worked in a meatpacking district for decades.
Ah, the romance.
“End things in a real way, make the peace, and then you can go.” Rahvyn leaned forward on her hips. “But I will know what you do, so make it count.”
With that, she disappeared with that sparkle of fireflies which were not fireflies.
Nate stared at where the female had stood. Beside him, the bonfire was slowing its roll, the flames not so tall, the heat not so great, the crackling not so loud.
In another hour, it would be embers.
By dawn… nothing but ash.
After decades of wanting what he was being offered, you’d think he’d be relieved. Resolved. And God knew he was used to the physical pain of dying. He’d done it often enough. As for talking to his parents? He imagined they would like to hear that he was sorry about the way he’d been behaving.
All he could think of was saying goodbye to Nalla, though.
At least her father was going to be thrilled.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The following evening, after Nalla had taken over the preparation of First Meal for the Luchas House residents, she put her nicely cleaned parka on and stepped out one of the kitchen’s rear French doors. The night was even colder than it had been, no doubt because the sky was crystal clear, the heavens above alive with stars winking in their alignments, the Milky Way just beginning to appear in a glowing swath.
The moon was still on the rise, its perfect crescent making her think of the way Uncle Rhage had taught the young how to hold it in their palms when it was full: Back when everybody had lived together in the mansion on the mountain, once a month he’d insisted on the kids coming out with him, all those hands of different sizes extended toward the lunar face, giggles and gasps of awe rising up like offerings unto the Fade.
She’d only been four or five at the time, but she remembered so much so clearly.
And those had been such good times, she thought as she made sure the door was closed properly behind her. Made all the more special because no one lived up there anymore.
She started off across the terrace, and then went out over the lawn and into the snowy meadow that extended back to a far-off tree line. The going was slow, her boots punching through the icy top layer to find the cushion beneath the crackle.
She’d ended up staying the whole day and she was glad she had. She hadn’t been able to sleep, but the insomnia had been easier to bear in an anonymous place where her father wasn’t down the hall. She’d borrowed a phone and texted her parents to let them know where she was, and there was no way they’d believed her explanation that she was needed at work. But they’d given her the space, maybe because they needed it, too.
What was Nate doing, she wondered. Probably out in the field.
Part of her day had been spent wondering if everything in that alley had actually happened as she remembered it. The other part had been wasted on one-sided conversations with her father.
Now she was out here, and what do you know. The fresh air wasn’t doing anything to clear her mind, and for some reason, she kept thinking about the way it had been back when the Brotherhood and its families had all been living together at the mansion.
It had been a while since she’d thought about that palace surrounded by mhis, with its entire staff of doggen, all the art and antiques, and the red-carpeted, gold-leafed staircase that had descended to that mosaic depiction of an apple tree in full bloom. Even though she’d been pretty young, she could still remember how the place had smelled, the lemon floor polish and the fresh bouquets, the distant whiff of silver polish, and on the second floor, the laundry soap that she’d been told was handmade just as it had been in the Old Country.
She was sad that the younger kids, like Lyric and Rhamp and L.W., had no memories of being there.
As she pictured the mansion in her mind, she couldn’t help but consider the way the adults had changed. Nothing had ever been said or explained, but overnight, all of the Brothers, as well as the other males and the females in the household, had become grim—and they’d stayed that way. Over the years, the gravity had been less up-front, but the shift in emotions had remained. There had been times when she’d wanted to ask her parents about it—and why they had all moved to town—but she’d always faltered over the wording of the question.