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)
At least the lights up ahead were a good thing to triangulate toward.
Only a couple of yards later—thank Lassiter—he stepped into the lee of a three-story house that was the size of a college dorm. Letting his arm fall to his side, he caught his breath and blinked his lashes clear.
Holy new-built, Batman. The mansion had to be ten thousand square feet, maybe fifteen, and size was the only thing the architect had gotten right. The place was a bad replica of an antique brick Lord of the Manor palace, the proportions of window levels, the Corinthian columns of the entrance, the angles of the roofline, all wrong.
Except they weren’t here to pick on the owner’s taste.
Up at the pretentious front entrance, a maid in uniform was shivering under the great lantern that hung from the portico’s ceiling, her black dress and white apron offering no protection against the cold. To go along with her proper dress code, her salt-and-pepper hair had been pulled back from her makeup-less face, but the bun wasn’t neat. Flyaways were fuzzed out around her lined forehead, as if her obvious distress had created its own static electricity field.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God . . .”
She was forcing out the words through her rattling teeth, and as Tohr mounted the steps, he noted she’d left the door partially ajar behind her.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said in a low voice.
Her eyes stopped bouncing around and focused on him properly. “I’m not going back in there.”
The gentlemale in him made him want to take off his leather coat and put it around her shoulders. But there were weapons in it, and weapons all over him. The female was not going to want to see that—yet more to the point, he had no idea what they were walking into or whether he was going to need to fight.
Well, he knew some of what was waiting for them.
“Is there anybody else in the house?” he asked.
He needed to know her answer, but the conversation was also a distraction as he turned her around and eased her over the threshold. He did not want her leaving the premises, and he was also worried about her needing medical intervention if she stayed out in the blizzard much longer.
“N-n-n-no. No one else . . .” Wide, frightened eyes locked on him. “At least . . . I d-d-d-don’t think so.”
As his brothers brought up the rear and closed the door, he glanced around and noticed first all the security cameras. Then the interior sank in. Like the outside, the black, white, and gold foyer was grand in scale, almost-right in execution—and totally tacky with too much try-hard art, too many silk flowers, too much color. As if the owners just had to buy things.
On the left, there was a parlor, and a library was to the right. Out to the back, there were more rooms, but they were all obscured by archways, doors, and hallways. And finally, in the center of it all, a bifurcated staircase angled up to a second floor, then kept going to whatever was on the third level.
Lots of scented candles everywhere. But somewhere, not far off . . . he could smell the blood.
Rhage and Qhuinn fanned out, but didn’t go far, leaning into spaces, checking out things while staying close.
“I want you to tell me where he is,” Tohr said quietly. “And stay here.”
The maid’s stare shifted to the staircase and her wrinkled hand went to the starched collar of her uniform. “H-he’s in his suite. I-I . . . each night when I come in, I refresh the flowers throughout the first floor, and then I go up to change his sheets. H-he’s supposed to be leaving for the rest of the week, so I’m the only one who came in to work.” She snuffled and took a tissue from a pocket. “I f-f-found him . . . on his bed.”
“Okay, I’m going to go up there.” When she grabbed on to his sleeve, he patted her arm. “It’s okay. Both of my brothers will stay with you here—”
“But what about you,” she said desperately. “It’s horrific, and what if there is . . . somebody still here?”
“Don’t worry about me. And don’t worry about you, either—my brothers are with you.”
He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze and then nodded at Rhage and Qhuinn. And as he took the stairs two at a time, he was touched by her concern. But after centuries of the war with the Lessening Society? He was intimately familiar with death in all its forms. Mortal threats as well.
Not that he needed to spell that out for her.
“It’s to the left,” the maid called up. “His suite faces the garden. The view . . . is the best in the house.”