Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 37136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 186(@200wpm)___ 149(@250wpm)___ 124(@300wpm)
“You mean after Maddox.”
Will turned on Henry with a vicious blue stare, his jaw clenched. He spoke between his teeth in a low growl. “Don’t fucking say his name to me. I don’t ever want to hear that fucking name again.”
“Easy,” Henry said. “We’re making an escape. Not getting into a fight.”
“Exactly. Let’s head to the second location. Gideon will have trackers on us soon enough, and I don’t feel like fighting a whole horde of vampires on our own. We need to get out of here. Now.”
There was a car parked out back, the keys to which were in the apartment along with money and whatnot. Vampires could track fleeing wolves, but they weren’t nearly as good as following moving vehicles.
As soon as they got in that car they were free, and they wasted no time in getting in the car. Will’s thoughts were focused on getting away. As far away as possible from vampires, and one vampire in particular.
Henry insisted on driving. Will let him. The pack master liked to be in charge, even moreso now than before. It was one thing to cage a wolf who had lived much of his life in prison, but something else completely to be a pack master with authority over an entire pack of wolves and find yourself behind bars. Henry had struggled with the humiliation of captivity. Will was far too familiar with humiliation to be concerned by it.
The second location was out of the city, way into the woods. Wolf country. Will felt better the further they went and judging by the way Henry’s grip on the steering wheel loosened up, so did Henry.
“How badly do you think he was hurt?”
“Gideon? Bad, I hope.”
“You think she killed him?”
“I’ve got my doubts about that. Gideon is the definition of un-killable.”
“Nothing is un-killable. Like, what if you put him in a meat grinder. Would he be coming back from that?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said.
“What if you nuked him, would he survive that?”
“Maybe?”
“What about a mom zombie? A mombie?”
Henry glanced over at him. “You shouldn’t be so flippant about this. What we just saw and experienced was nothing short of a miracle. A dark, concerning miracle.”
“Yeah. Right. Miraculous. I guess you’d know how to pick between horrors as to what parts are miracles. How is Gideon any less of a miracle than mombie?”
Henry gave him another sharp look. “You’re going to call her that from now on, aren’t you.”
“Hell yeah, I am.”
“You should take this seriously.”
“I discovered the woman who birthed me and dropped me in a dumpster has been in my life for months, and nobody fucking told me until after she was dead. The brother I didn’t know I had was murdered and turned into a vampire by the guy I thought I loved. How fucking seriously do you want me to take this, exactly?”
Henry nodded. “We’ve had a hard time. You’ve had a very hard time, specifically. Take it however you want. I used to think I had all the answers when it came to you. I don’t think that anymore. You are more than I ever imagined. I thought you merely belonged to Ivan’s bloodline, but now I am certain that there is a deeper magic in your genes.”
Anybody else might have taken that as a compliment, but all Will heard was that he was too much even for a pack master. He was betrayed by Maddox, abandoned by Henry, and haunted by the remnants of what had been his mother. The urge to flee was growing stronger by the moment. He did not merely want to escape. He wanted to forget.
“We’re almost there,” Henry announced as they turned off the main road and into a forest. They drove along a poorly maintained forestry trail for a good thirty minutes before the light from a fire drew them to the second rendezvous.
Henry put the car in park, and together they got out. In human form they both suffered the temporary blindness of the night. Something was moving out there. Something large and impatient, something…
“HENRY!” Lorien came flying out of the darkness of the forest, his hair streaming behind him, his usually somewhat sneering and composed expression a mask of absolute relief and joy.
Will watched impassively as the two embraced with intense passion, having been kept separate for months on end with no prospect of release. He felt a pang of misery and perhaps even jealousy that risked verging on something truly dark.
“Hey.” A gruff voice came through the night.
No romantic display awaited Will, but he was not left entirely to his own devices, and that was a relief.
“Good to see you again, son.”
Ivan greeted Will wearing flip-flops, short shorts, and nothing else. He was cooking a pair of mismatched hands over an open barrel fire. The scent of fresh human meat being seared made Will salivate. He had once recoiled from the prospect of eating men, but now it seemed to be the least of his concerns. Survival demanded he be as fully monstrous as he could.