Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
“We told you, Sunshine. It’s for your own good. We’re just trying to keep you safe.”
The eager look clears, and Aurelia yanks her face away. “You cannot be serious.”
“Fuck it,” I say, setting down the crossbow since she won’t shut the fuck up. It draws her gaze again, and I see her interest in the weapon. She’s curious about it, and God help us all if she ever figures out how it works. “You want to know what your real issue is?”
“Thorin, don’t,” Khalil’s pussy-whipped ass warns.
I ignore him. “You keep waiting for us to give you a good excuse for why we’re doing this. There is none. There never will be. We do it because we want you and because there’s no one to stop us from taking what we want. As long as you keep trying to get away, we’re going to keep tightening your leash until you give us no choice but to strangle you with it. This is your home now, wolf, and the three of us are where the rest of your life starts and ends. It’s up to you how much of it you enjoy, but the tracker stays on until you convince us we don’t need it.”
Aurelia falls quiet, and I consider it progress.
A week and a half ago, she would have screamed obscenities and insults, but she’s finally learning that nothing she says will suddenly turn us into good men. We’ve been nothing but honest about who we are and what we want from her. She just chooses not to listen.
Just as we chose to live in the wilds because redemption was the last thing we were looking for.
There’s no saving us.
There’s no saving Aurelia, either.
Aurelia doesn’t talk back, but not a minute later, she starts fucking with that damn tracker again, and even Seth looks exasperated with her. She yanks and tugs and grumbles her frustration when it doesn’t budge. If she could bend that far, I have no doubt she’d chew her own leg free.
“Aurelia,” Khalil says without looking up from the wolf he’s carving into the left half of the block. “Go make me a sandwich.”
Her head pops up, and she stops trying in vain to get the bracelet off—to get free of us. Quietly, she stands and leaves the room. I go back to lubricating the crossbow rail, and Seth returns to his book the moment we hear her working on Khalil’s sandwich in the kitchen.
“You know she’s going to spit it in,” I warn Khalil without looking up.
After blowing away some of the loose shavings from his carving, he says, “I know.”
Five minutes later, I’m switching the crossbow out for one of the handguns when Aurelia returns with a plate and glass of milk.
“Mmm,” he hums. “Look delicious, baby.” he lies. “Thank you.” Khalil takes the plate and glass and sets them on the coffee table before pulling her onto the recliner with him.
“What are you making?” she asks as I clear the chamber before taking the handgun apart.
Sneaking a peek at them, I see Khalil frowning down at the carving like it perplexes him. I’d guessed what it was the moment he started carving. “I don’t know yet.”
“Well, if you sell this one, can you please trade it for a decent conditioner? My hair can’t take much more of this two-in-one nonsense you barbarians use. I may have to shave my head.”
I pause at that.
Khalil’s clearly been talking if she knows how we pay for most of our supplies. We sank all of our money into this place years ago and now save every penny of the wages we get from SAR missions in case we have to run again.
When our gazes meet over Aurelia’s shoulder, Khalil shrugs, not even bothering to try to deny giving into his inane need for pillow talk.
“I’ll think about it,” he says before going back to his carving.
It leaves Aurelia’s mind to wander. “So, what do you guys do for fun around here?”
Seth grunts but doesn’t look up from his fantasy book when he answers. “This.”
Aurelia is back to looking horrified. “What, like every day?”
“Only when the weather is bad,” I answer. “But yeah, pretty much.”
“But this isn’t fun. It’s…it’s inhumane. You don’t even have WiFi. Don’t you get bored?”
“Yes, wolf. We get bored. Sometimes downright feral with cabin fever, but that’s only been an issue of late. For the first year, we were too busy learning how to hunt and survive to be bored. And then we started building this cabin somewhere between the second and third year. I wish I could say it went flawlessly, but it didn’t, and it ate up four more years. Learning every inch of this mountain forward, backward, and sideways took another three.”
“Okay, well, that’s eight years. You said you’ve been out here for nine. What did you do with the last year of your life? How did you pass the time?”