Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 147673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147673 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 591(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“All hells! I can’t see well with all this rain. Can you come down and have a look?”
“Sure,” Bast said, resigned to his fate and just plain sad. He didn’t know where to go from here. Asking Laurent to bring the flashlight closer, he dug his hands into the chilly mud and touched a branch. In the hole that kept being disturbed by wet dirt rolling down into the pit it was impossible to tell what was really hiding under their feet, but as he pulled and the piece didn’t outright crumble like a stray piece of wood should have in this climate, his mind did a backflip and made him freeze as pieces of a puzzle slotted into place.
No. This couldn’t be right.
It couldn’t be.
But Laurent had been so certain of this particular spot. As if he really knew, not just suspected what could be hidden beyond the rock.
Frantic, Beast swiped his hands over the smooth surface, uncovering the pale, elongated shape. It was sinewy from dirt, but when he closed his hand around it and pulled once more, the bone emerged, splashing his face with dirt.
Beast felt his blood pulsing all over his body, even in his throat, and very slowly, he looked back at Laurent.
“Should we keep on digging?” Laurent whispered, rubbing layers of mud away and revealing more of the skeleton that Beast could suddenly see. After discovering a single bone, the shapes of the bumps in the dig were clear as day, with the slope of the skull looming left of Laurent’s boot. The boy was swiping the water and mud off the bones, his glasses not only wet but also foggy. Beast was beginning to realize that even after the surgery, the unmarked grave was likely only a blur for him.
All of a sudden, Beast wanted to take Laurent far away from this horror.
He dropped the bone and pulled him back, closing the smaller body in his arms. “No. No,” he said, frantically wondering if another member of the club hadn’t buried someone out here. But no, they wouldn’t have. They wouldn’t have hidden a body so close to home, not on the property.
He closed his arms tighter around Laurent, breathing so heavily the hyperventilatory rush was starting to get to his head. “Laurent...you’re not insane.”
Laurent’s arms slid around him immediately, and as expected, Laurent’s hoodie was so utterly soaked it could provide no warmth. “Is it Marcel’s body?” he whispered shakily, kneeling with Beast in the shallow grave over mud-covered bones.
Beast put his chin and exhaled, unexpectedly moved by the discovery. He had seen men die, but this was something completely different, which came with its own set of questions. “It is a body. You were right.” Slowly, the weight behind this truth sank into Beast’s flesh, and he pushed Laurent away to look at him, wet glasses, hair sticking to his cheeks, and all. “Is the... is the brand on your neck...?”
“The devil left it on me. He saw what I did, and he granted my wish. I wanted to live in a world where I could be free to support myself, free to love a man. And he brought me here.”
“To me,” Beast said, slowly moving his hands down Laurent’s arms, completely out of his depth.
“I know how it sounds.” Laurent sniffed against Beast’s chest. “I really do, but this house, this land belongs to infernal creatures, and he can do here as he pleases. Isn’t the brand on my nape evidence as well?”
“My father has one, too,” Beast whispered, glancing back to the body. They couldn’t just leave it uncovered until morning. “Do you know why? Did he also travel in time?”
Laurent went still but eventually looked up at Beast, his face both wet and muddy, eyes barely visible through the glasses. “No. But he does something for the devil. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it has something to do with the house.”
Beast swallowed hard, gently petting Laurent’s hair. “I’m sorry. I—this is just so unbelievable,” he uttered, watching Laurent in a new light altogether. He had gathered legends and gossip about magic and strange things that happened in the area, and yet when the truth had been given to him on a platter, he refused to believe Laurent. He’d been an idiot.
This was what he’s been searching for all along.
Laurent pulled off his glasses and put them in his pocket, shivering all over. It was time to leave this shallow hole filled with mud and bones. “I know. I was never one to be superstitious. I didn’t seek this out either. I killed Fane in that house, and the devil appeared on his own. He spilled out of the mirror, like steaming tar. I was so frightened, yet I wanted to live.”
“I know, baby, I know,” Beast said, hesitating. He wanted Laurent away from this rain, but the hidden grave couldn’t just be left like this. He excused himself briefly and covered the skeleton with some of the dirt before whistling at Hound and pulling Laurent close again.