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)
Oh, right. Guess he was naked.
“Dog bites are dangerous.” Apex knelt down. “You have to keep after them.”
Callum hissed as the warm towel with the suds brushed against the teeth marks on his ankle.
Apex’s eyes flipped up. “Sorry.”
It didn’t hurt, but Callum was not interested in explaining that he’d jumped for another reason: No one had touched him in any way in a very, very long time. Matter of fact, it had probably been Apex himself, back in . . .
The strangled sound that rose up Callum’s throat, that came up from the past, was just barely caught and held—and like a wild animal, it tried to get free.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said roughly.
The vampire stopped with the cleaning. But didn’t look up. “How can I not.”
“You don’t start.”
“Too late for that, isn’t it.”
Rubbing his eyes, Callum tried to find a change of subject, something else to say. Words failed. Then again, he never allowed himself to think about the past or the vampire who had both kept him alive . . . and driven him away from that old, crumbling sanatorium—
Goddamn it, the soft stroking on his ankle made him want to scream.
Apex was just so gentle with the soapy corner of the hand towel, the blood turning things rose-colored in a bad way—and what do you know. Suddenly, between one blink and the next, they weren’t here, in this pine-scented outbuilding, on this rich male’s estate. The calendar was set back to another lifetime, and they were in a different place.
He was coming around from a coma, his body’s pain signals overwhelming so much of his brain . . . except for one thing: Awareness of how this fierce vampire took care of him.
Callum moved his foot out of reach. “That’s enough. It’s good.”
Apex sat back on his heels, and the silence that crashed down had Callum looking at the open doorway and wondering which one of them was going to use it first.
“Do you have any Polysporin? Neosporin?” Apex asked.
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“I’ll deal with it later.” When the male didn’t move, he tacked on, “You can go—”
“I’d wondered if you were dead,” the vampire said. “All these years. When I didn’t hear anything about you.”
Callum held out his arms. Turned this way and that on his hips. “Still alive.”
In the sense that he had a pulse and lungs that went in and out.
“Have you been back to Deer Mountain a lot?”
He shook his head. “No.”
Apex glanced away. Then nodded as if coming to some kind of conclusion. “Here.”
The hand towel with its diffused bloodstains was held out, and Callum took it because he figured it was the quickest way to get the male to depart.
“Mayhem’s with me.” Apex got to his feet. “If you want to avoid him also, you’ll need to give a pass to the big house for that reason, too.”
“I never go over there.” He thought of the generators. “Unless I’m required to.”
“Okay—”
“When are you leaving?” Callum blurted.
The laugh that came back at him had an edge. “When my job’s done. That okay with you?”
The male didn’t wait for a reply. He just went back over to the stairs, his powerful body moving like he was stalking something. When he hesitated on the threshold, Callum kept his mouth shut so he didn’t press for details. Like, was this a kitchen installation that was going to take months? A roof repair that would last a week? A boundary line assessment of some kind that could be done in twenty-four hours?
If it was that last one, he could make that work. With the others? He was seriously thinking of handing in his resignation now.
Apex looked back over his shoulder, those unforgettable, jet-black eyes narrowing. And then he just descended the steps without another word.
When the door at the bottom was opened and then closed softly, Callum let his head drop.
I’m sorry, he mouthed, even though he didn’t know what exactly he was apologizing for. Fate was a cunt, for sure, but that was hardly something he was responsible for.
Looking at the hand towel, he ran his thumb back and forth over what was still warm and a little frothy.
Funny, what you couldn’t get out of things.
What stains were permanent.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Four Lakes Estates
Caldwell, New York
As Tohr re-formed out in the middle of a fucking blizzard, he got attacked by snow, his eyes blinded, his cheeks whipped, his clothes flapping against his body. With a quick pivot, he put his back to the storm, but he couldn’t say that improved things very much.
All he got was the kind of spanking even Vishous would have turned down.
However, the change in direction did give him a good look at Rhage, and a moment later, Qhuinn, who had both dematerialized out to this enclave of newly built mansions with him.
With the three of them on-site, he led the way forward even though he couldn’t see much, and had to put his forearm up to cut the onslaught. Courtesy of the nor’easter, whole sections of Caldwell had suffered power outages, but over the roar of the storm, he caught the steady whrrrrrrrrr of big-ticket generators burning through all kinds of fossil fuels.