Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
But what else could he skim from her in this brief contact? What else was she thinking even subconsciously that Graves could learn? No wonder he was so powerful, if he could gain access to people’s minds.
Graves released her a moment later. The light and fire and smell dissipated all at once. “Ah, it looks like some of our information was out of date. But our pathway is still clear.”
“Thank you,” Kierse said to Mafi.
She just nodded gravely. “Be quick. He intends for tonight to be a slaughter.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
They left Mafi at the entrance to her rooms and wound through the labyrinth of hallways with practiced ease, bypassing patrons and security. Kierse stayed close to Graves’s side, recognizing the layout of the passageways as they got closer to the vault.
“I’m surprised Mafi let you read her,” Kierse said. “She seemed particularly upset about it in the past.”
“She had every reason to be. I didn’t hold her trust well in the past,” he said. They turned down another hallway.
“What else did you get in that touch?”
He frowned. “Enough.”
Which was why Dr. Mafi hadn’t wanted Graves to read her in the first place.
“I have never been more thankful that you cannot read my mind.”
“Again, I don’t read minds,” he said in exasperation. “She practically shouted the blueprint over to me. It threatened to give me a headache. The other stuff was what I already knew. Sometimes when people try so hard not to think of something, all they do is think about it.”
Kierse shivered. “No wonder everyone is terrified of you.”
“Hence the gloves,” he said, showing her his bare hands. “Around this corner.”
She peered around the next corner and saw two vampire guards standing in front of a door. “We have arrived at our destination,” she told him. “It’s the only guarded door. It practically has a sign on it that says, Steal from me.”
“You have a twisted mind.”
“Says the man who reads minds.”
He shrugged. “I come by my powers honestly.”
“As do I,” she said as she retrieved a knife concealed in her corset. “How should we do this?”
“You take one. I’ll take the other.”
She took a deep breath. She knew she could take down a vampire. She’d killed Orik one on one in a darkened alleyway by hitting into slow motion. She didn’t want to burn out her reserves before she even got to the vault, though. Thankfully, she didn’t need to kill these vampires. Just knock them out. Maybe head-on wasn’t the right call.
“I have another idea.”
“Which is?”
She twined her hand around his waist and glued herself to his side. “Remember what you said to me at Imani’s? I’d have to play the part of your pet?” She gestured to her outfit. The white lingerie that screamed Red Velvet girl.
“I adore your mind,” he rumbled with affection.
Graves waited for her cue, and then they turned the corner with Kierse slumped against his side. His hand brazenly cupped her ass as he staggered forward, apparently drunk. He swayed with the force of his act while she giggled nonsensically beside him.
“Hey, you there,” the first vampire said. He was a beefy sort. Tan skin, dark eyes, and more muscles than brains. “No guests down this hallway. Go back to where you came from.”
Graves kept walking and flicked his pin at them, his British accent growing thicker and more imperious. “I am a Man of Valor. I can . . . do what I want.”
The guards rolled their eyes, relaxing at his inebriation. “Sir, we’re going to have to ask that you find a room.” Their eyes lingered on Kierse now, assessing her scantily clad form, the pulse of her blood through her veins. “Take your . . . companion with you, and all will be well.”
As the first guard stepped forward to intercept them, they moved as one. Graves went for the beefy guard as she intercepted the second. He was slighter than the first. But he had keen, hungry eyes, and they were squared on her.
She darted forward, throwing a knife from her corset toward his jugular. The guard backpedaled, narrowly missing her deadly aim. He was fast. Vampire fast. She had to be as fast or faster to survive this. And in heels at that.
He came at her then, raising a baton and striking toward her head. She grasped another knife from her boot as she ducked and dodged his swings. He had a longer reach, and she needed to get in close to use her knife. She was really missing her gun right about now. Too bad they wouldn’t have fit in her outfit.
The guard brought the baton forward, nearly smashing into her face, and she said, “Fuck it.”
Time slowed to a crawl. Her magic buzzed all around her as she actively engaged it. A swirl of golden light that only she could see swam around her.