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)
Now the facility was apparently back to a steady state of being empty.
At least that was what the departing seasonal staff of the Ghreylke estate had told him back in the fall, when he’d just had to ask.
But he’d never intended on coming for a visit.
Resuming his trek, he closed in on the towering center part. He wasn’t sure what his plan was, and didn’t decide, until he arrived at the entrance, that he had to go inside.
It was like poking an open wound to see how bad the infection was. You just had to mess with your injury.
The double doors were locked, and as he looked up at the facade, he realized strategic investments had been made. Though the surface appearance of degradation had been preserved, the place had been shored up with new windows, and security cameras were mounted all around the decorative frieze that ran between the second and third floors. The Brotherhood had to still own the place. God knew they possessed the financial resources to keep anything forever, even if there was no one inside—
When there was a buzz and a click, he frowned.
This time, when he tried the right side of the doors again, he was able to pull things open. Clearly, he’d passed muster with the security guard, even though he hadn’t been in the vampire world for how long now? Guess those Brothers had long memories—or databases full of identities.
Had they taken his mug shot when he’d been . . . recovering—
Okay, wow. Talk about your reno jobs.
Back when the hospital had been a going concern, more than a hundred years ago, the first floor of the core had clearly been a check-in and waiting space, and courtesy of some serious effort, it was once again sparkling clean, the floor polished, the walls freshly painted, and the ceiling patched.
No furniture, though. Also no people.
As he wandered around, motion-activated lights came on, but he didn’t need them. There was plenty of daylight streaming through the triple-paned glass, and as he went farther in, everything continued to be well maintained.
The next thing he knew, he was down a hall and standing in front of a door that made his blood run cold.
He was exactly where he didn’t want to be.
Except this was the reason he’d come, wasn’t it.
The scene of . . . the crime that had been perpetrated on him.
When Apex and the others had decided to overthrow the head of the guards and free the prisoners, he’d joined in on the attack on the latest in a series of despots. Why? He was used to fighting and he liked it. As a wolven, combat was a way of life, whether it was defending the clan’s territory from other wolven or killing poachers before they killed members of the clan. Besides, pain had never scared him, and he was fast on his feet—and his paws.
Not fast enough that night. Not that time.
In a trance, he put his palm flat on the door. On the other side? The private quarters of that female who had tied him down and used him until he had separated from his own flesh.
Images filtered through and registered viscerally in his body, hands touching him, rolling him over facedown, a male body mounting his own.
In a sickening rush, he remembered that female watching him as he was fucked . . . before she turned him back over and threw a leg across his hips to ride him.
After a while, all he had known was whether his face was in the mattress or he was staring up at the ceiling.
Eventually, he hadn’t even felt any physical sensations anymore.
It was as if a hole had been dug with each session and his soul had sunk further and further down, away from the corporeal world.
Into a prison inside of himself.
At some point, he’d lost consciousness. And he only knew that because, eventually, he’d woken up.
A scent had been what had brought him back.
“Apex . . .” he whispered.
The vampire’s presence had been his beacon to return to the physical world, and he’d followed it back for reasons he hadn’t understood. And at first, he’d refused to open his eyes—because he wouldn’t have been able to bear seeing the male he had been so attracted to.
Lying there on that bedding platform, he’d gotten stronger with the passage of days, his body rebounding thanks to the nourishment Apex had forced down his throat. And that hadn’t been the only thing provided to him. His wounds had been carefully looked after, his base bodily functions attended to with diapers, his skin ever so gently cleansed and rebandaged on a regular schedule.
As he’d noted the contrast with the way his body had been treated by that female, that was when the first claw of sorrow had dug into him.