Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107105 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
She climbed into his lap and put her head on his chest. His arms wound around her. It was breezy out there. His chest was cold.
“You should put a shirt on,” she rubbed her hands over the skin of his arms.
He shrugged.
She gave him a squeeze and absorbed the feel of him for a minute, then scooted up to reach for the mug of coffee at the other end of the table.
“Mm.”
It was good. She stared out at the water, watching the waves, shaking off the remnants of that dream.
Tristan was quiet, also staring out at that water.
“See, I bet the real event wasn’t nearly as bad as that. If you’d just let me stay I wouldn’t have had to conjure up the worst possible scenario in my warped brain.”
He closed his eyes and his face looked pained.
She felt pain coming at her.
She straightened up in his lap.
‘What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he lied.
“Tristan?”
He let out a long breath and his eyes opened, stormy gray.
“What?” she choked out, feeling impending doom settle on her like a shadow.
“You saw exactly what happened, by the sounds of it. I tried to shield you from that ugliness, my ugliness, but you dreamt it, anyway.”
Bile rose in her throat.
Oh god.
He lifted her up, put her on her feet, and backed away from her.
“You probably want some space,” he said quietly.
She stared, astounded.
“I can’t go far, can’t stomach the idea of leaving you unprotected but if you wanna go inside, I’ll hang out here. If you wanna see your brother, I’ll get you there, you can spend some time and I’ll stay out of the room. You don’t have to go hide in the bathroom, Kyla.”
The wind picked up and she shivered. She stared at him.
“What do you prefer? Tell me what you want? I’ll do it. As long as I’m not leaving you unprotected.”
She glared and then grumbled, “I prefer that you sit back down and let me crawl back into your lap so we can drink our fucking coffee and then maybe we can feed one another, if that’s okay with you. But maybe you should put a shirt on first so you don’t freeze to death.”
His look of surprise was actually cute.
He swallowed and sat back in the chair. She stormed inside, grabbed Tristan’s Oregon Walmart hoodie from the bag, and handed it to him.
He put it on.
She climbed onto his lap and put her arms around him, her head against his chest.
He let out a long slow breath. He was relieved. And surprised.
~~~
Things weren’t exactly normal the rest of the day. Things were quiet between them. But that was okay. Things had been rough so far and a bit of a whirlwind since they’d gotten back to the island so it was totally fine with her to be able to catch her breath.
She spent the morning in the gazebo drinking coffee and enjoying the scenery. He gave her space anyway. Or maybe he needed space. She wasn’t sure. When she moved outside, he was outside but not in her personal space. When she went in, he followed, but wasn’t in arm’s reach.
He made them some eggs and toast and then Sergey and Sam were there so she said good morning and then went inside and left them alone out there.
She came back out with a pot of coffee, two more mugs, and the milk and sugar, and then she went back inside and left them alone while she made the bed and did some Pilates and then took a bath.
By the time she was dressed, Tristan was packing up their belongings.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“Road trip. Constantin Center.”
“Yeah? Who?”
“All of us.”
“All of us?”
“Yep.”
“What’s the plan?” she asked.
“Well, I hate to tell you this but that looks like home base for a bit. I know… you’d rather stay here but there’s some stuff that needs to happen and that’s the best place we figure it can happen.”
She made a scrunchy face but nodded.
Tristan continued,
“We pull my father from that crypt. The other one in there is reportedly my great uncle, my grandfather’s twin brother; Lucian Kovac. This is the first I’ve heard of him but apparently in the good vs. evil twin line-up, Lucian was the good one. Says Sergey, anyway. But Adrian Constantin disagreed and he wasn’t lying to me so I’m not sure if the truth lies somewhere in the middle or what. Alexander and Constantin put them there and we’ll have to see what’s what.”
“Wow. Why didn’t he just kill them instead of putting them in the ground for decades??”
“Fuckin’ Adrian. He never killed anyone on purpose. He needed all the meat he could get for his fuckin’ experiments.”
Kyla shivered.
“We’ll all head there. Sasha is gonna work with whatever is there in the lab, continue her work with Adrian’s research as well as her own for Kyle’s blood, those patches, that steel for the daggers. The Constantin Center is now home base for the coalition. Makes sense. There’s equipment, lodgings, security. A few coalition members from Europe are heading there in a few days, too, to join efforts in the lab with Sasha.”