Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry.” I block her way with my arm. “Who are you and why are you even here?”
“I’m Isabella. I own this place.”
“No. You don’t. Paul owns this place.”
“Well, he gave it to me.” She tips her chin up and scowls, like she’s daring me to contradict her. “He said it would be mine. And you”—she pokes me in the chest—“are going to fix it up. In two weeks. And the rest of it better be ready by Memorial Day.”
She tries to push past me, but this time I grab her arm. “I’m not gonna ask you again. Who. The fuck. Are you?”
“I’m carrying his baby, OK? That’s who I am.”
I release her arm and she leaves, slamming the door behind her.
So that’s what he’s up to.
He wants another child.
Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. He does this every once in a while. Of course this girl is not pregnant with Paul’s child. She’s carrying a child from one of his slaves.
This rental cottage place is a bribe. She gives Paul a child and plays house with him until the child is old enough to move up to the compound to be groomed for his role in life—which is safeguarding Paul’s supply of new, young blood.
Which will come from the new feeder.
If I can find her, since even Paul is now admitting that her scent has gone cold.
I look around again. But this time, my mind is calculating what needs to be done here.
Fuck that.
I go back to my room, take a good long look at the bathroom, then get in my truck and drive three hours to the nearest real town with a Home Depot. I buy tools, and tile, and everything else I need to change that bathroom into something I can get naked in.
Then I hit up a mattress store.
And when I get back to White River, I start tearing shit apart.
CHAPTER ELEVEN - SYRSEE
We should definitely have sex first.
Blood lover.
Blood lover.
I must’ve heard Zusi or Tristin say these words because the phrase is running through my head on a near-constant basis. I try to drown it out with music and earbuds, and it goes away for a few hours or a night, but then, the next thing I know, it’s back.
And they are purple words. This didn’t make sense to me at first, but when I hear the words in my head, I see them in front of me too. They shimmer and are surrounded by the same haze that comes with a dreamwalk.
I looked this phenomenon up. Seeing letters and numbers as colors. It’s called synesthesia and about four percent of the population has this unusual extrasensory sight. But the website also says that most develop synesthesia in childhood. And that’s not how it presents for me.
This is new.
I could ask Zusi and there’s a fairly high probability that she’s heard of this, but there’s a part of me that’s afraid that this new skill is due to the shock of ice magic my grandma gave me when she died.
If that’s what it was.
I’m not sure it’s magic. When I was growing up in the Guild, magic was, of course, forbidden. I didn’t care because I don’t know how to do it. But if I told Zusi about all this, she would probably have a duty to tell the Guild what was happening.
I appreciate them. I really, really do. They raised me. They sent me to college. They gave me a job in their spectacular library. They’re taking care of me still.
But I am a Black witch with Black blood running through my veins and that means, despite the fact that they have cared for me for decades, I am still their mortal enemy. I am not a threat to them right now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be. And if they knew that my grandma gave me some kind of gift in the moment of her death, they would have questions.
Questions I wouldn’t be able to answer.
Questions I would not want to answer.
I don’t tell Zusi about the magic, or the purple words. Because if I do, it will change things. It will change the relationship I have with the Guild, which includes Zusi, and this terrifies me. They are all I have. They are my only reason to live. I have no purpose in life without them.
So I just try to put the blood lovers out of my mind.
This is our last day at the beach. We’ve been here the required two weeks and both Tristin and Zusi are convinced that the threat is over.
I would agree, but in addition to the blood lovers thing, I’ve also been having weird dreams about the hunter. Not a dreamwalk, either. Just a regular dream.
And it’s weird because I don’t know what he looks like, but I absolutely know it’s him.