Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Lash turned around to the other slayer, the one who’d stayed out of it. That lesser had his eyes locked on the floor, and he just shook his head back and forth, staying exactly where the fuck he was.
“That’s right,” Lash snapped as he marched back into the hall.
Putting his hands on his hips, he glared into the tub and wished he could drain them all over again—
Creeeeeeak. Click.
He looked over his shoulder. The demon, who’d remained oblivious to the drama, had stepped back out of the storage room and was standing with her fine ass to the closed door, her hand still on the tarnished brass knob.
Her eyes lifted and seemed to meet his own. “I know you’re here,” she said softly. “I don’t know exactly where you are… but you’re close. I bet you can even hear me.”
Those black eyes, dense and bottomless as a well, roamed around.
“You’re a fucking pussy, not being able to handle me. A spineless coward.” She smiled in a nasty way. “But you already know that, which is why you’re hiding now.”
Fury tightened his chest and shot down into his throbbing cock.
Just as he was about to reveal himself so he could tell her he wasn’t afraid of a fucking thing, much less a female—she up and disappeared, only the scent of her purple perfume lingering in the dank, nasty air.
“Goddamn it,” he muttered. “Goddamn… you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As Lassiter re-formed in the training center’s corridor, he told himself that technically, he hadn’t asked Rahvyn to do anything. Sure, he’d pointed out that one thing, about Wrath’s destiny being the species’, but that was hella different than a flat-out entreaty.
Like… Will you please use your whatever-the-hell-it-is and pull Wrath out of whatever mortal injury is going on?
Now, that was tampering as well as putting her in a totally bad situation. And he himself certainly wasn’t getting overtly involved. No matter how dire, how tragic, how sad and unfair, he was resolved to stay out of—
Rahvyn arrived beside him, and he willed her to look at him. She did not. She stared at Vishous, who’d come back down here first. Then she walked forward, to the exam room door the brother was standing beside. As he opened the way inside, she stopped dead.
“Shit,” Lassiter said under his breath as he peered over Rahvyn’s platinum head—
“George? Wait… what?” he blurted.
He glanced at V, but just got a shake of the head in return. So when Rahvyn entered the exam room, Lassiter took the brother’s arm and pulled the guy away from the door as it shut on its own.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
V took out a hand-rolled. “The dog’s got cancer.”
“This is about George?” As he got a level stare in return, he put his palms up. “I thought Wrath was the one who needed help—”
“You mean Wrath isn’t in trouble if that dog dies?”
Lassiter went silent and then turned to the closed door. “What about your sister, Payne. She healed her hellren’s horse, right? And—”
“The last time she used her gift, she was down for two months. I wasn’t sure she was going to recover at all—and that was even after we took her up to our mahmen’s Sanctuary—sorry, your Sanctuary. The next time, it will probably kill her. So not an option.”
He thought of Nate. “You want Rahvyn to—”
“The King can’t lose that dog. Remember how we found that pesky evidence of a lesser induction downtown last night? Lash is going to walk right in his father’s footsteps, mark my words. Now is not the time for the species to lose our leader.”
Lassiter had a sudden image of Wrath sitting at the head of the mansion’s mile-long dinner table, Beth to his left with L.W., Tohr to his right, the golden in his lap—so the King could hand-feed choice pieces of roast beef to the dog.
“I thought it was Wrath who was hurt,” Lassiter repeated numbly.
“It will be. And you’re right, where he goes, we all go. This war with the Lessening Society? It’s entering its second phase, and my gut says it’s going to be worse. We’re going to need everybody on deck, especially Wrath.”
“Have you had a vision?”
“No, but you want to do the math when civilians start dying? How about if another round of aristocrats get murdered? The King’s democratically elected now, which means all that power that is supposedly absolute, ain’t so absolute anymore.”
As the brother exhaled off to the side, Lassiter closed his eyes. “She says she’s not doing it again for anybody or anything—”
Up along the ceiling, the inset fluorescent fixtures started to blink—and then everything went pitch black.
V’s voice was close to reverent in the dense darkness: “Thank fuck—”
There was a sudden boom! and an explosion of light inside the exam room that was so bright, it bled through the tight seal of the door, creating the outline of a rectangle. And then the glow slowly faded, the electricity coming back on with a whirring sound as the HVAC restarted.