Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Unsettling noise registered.
Long, groaning, reverberant booms traveled through solid matter. Earthquakes.
I’d only ever read of earthquakes. Never before had I felt one.
Calling out to the dark, I reached for my mate. “Cyderial?”
“You are safe here.” Light flashed on near the door, low and gloomy, to illuminate General Murdoch. Dressed for battle, armed with extremely dangerous weapons.
The fact that he was anywhere near where I lay vulnerable and pregnant with the daughter he craved made it clear I was anything but safe.
Calculating my odds of making it out the door before he might strike, I showed him my teeth. “Where is Cyderial?”
Maintaining his distance, Murdoch sat back in his commandeered seat, relaxed as he gave me a devil-may-care grin. “Leading the charge in the North Quadrant. Your mate ordered me to assure you that he will return before heat might set in. I am to watch over you”—his eyes darted down to my abdomen hidden in blankets—“and her in the meantime.”
That was an inadequate answer!
“Charge against what?” Eyes narrowed, I dipped a toe out of the bed, then another, until I stood free of tangling blankets, at best advantage to defend myself from an assault. Naked, swollen belly and scarring shoulder, wild tangles of dark hair streaming free around me, I demanded, “What the hell is going on?”
He looked upon me with something far removed from lust. An examination that was almost clinical, while also drinking in every last bit of flesh as if memorizing the whole of me.
But it was my torso that drew his lingering gaze. As if he could already see her, the speck that she was, growing in my womb.
When at long last his eyes traveled up from my belly to meet my furious gaze, he lost his grin and let me see how dark he really was on the inside. “I swore myself to your mate. Lower your hackles and put away your claws. What you carry inside you is more precious to me than you can imagine.”
“She belongs to me!” I shouted, distrustful down to my bones.
His menacing grin returned. “Only until she is twenty-two. That is the pledge you made. The rest of her life, she will be mine.”
“Get. Out.”
The ground shook, really shook, and I almost lost my footing.
But I was caught—by a male who moved so quickly I had not even seen a blur. A man who dared put a hand to my belly once I had been braced. A man I struck with every bit of strength I could muster.
Stumbling back, General Murdoch only then seemed to realize what he had done. How far he had pushed me. And how near he was to being gutted when my talons continued the assault, slashing where he was weakest.
My wrist was caught, then the other, Murdoch growling lowly, “You need me alive, Lorieyn. I am valuable to you. I will protect you while we are at war.”
None of this made sense. Where was my mate? “Let go!”
Taking a wise step away from where I panted and plotted his death, Murdoch set me free and put his hands before him in supplication. “Key filtration towers were sabotaged in the night; fog is pouring into the city—forcing the panicking humans into a bottleneck at strategic locations we can control. The gates were opened, and vorec have been allowed to roam the streets.”
It was unspeakable, my face going pale. “Millions will die.”
“But not all of them.” The agitating, smug male took another step back, gesturing to the cabinets where clothing was stored. “We will spare many to assure a city of this size will not fail. Farmers, workers—”
“Slaves?” The humans would become the hybrids’ slaves, and I was struggling to wrap my head around why.
But the why was within me, wasn’t it? Right there, a little blob of cells I had been afraid for.
And my mate had seen it.
And he had acted… immediately… to protect us both.
My beastly mate was gathering heads to put on a plate… to lay at my feet.
Dropping my face to my hands, I let out a sigh, trying to make sense of how things could have escalated so quickly.
Seeing I would make no move to cover myself, Murdoch did so for me, draping something over my shoulders as I tried and failed to properly process the rest he had to share. “In the North Quadrant, your mate is assuring that key government officials do not survive to see the dawn—fog or no. By midday, the broadcasts will be sharing the hybrid narrative, directing survivors to safe locations so we might sort through them.”
What was I to say to genocide? How was I to face a dark, unsettling fact that I felt some relief to find a bad world was being unmade?
Another boom shook the building, the male urging me forward so he might seat me in a chair in case I lost my footing again. “Navigation was disrupted. Hovercars are crashing into buildings and one another; visibility is almost zero in the fog. There are fires, and shortly, there will be famine. The water supply is no longer safe for human consumption, though it is safe for those of us who are of this world.”