Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 53433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 214(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Okay. Okay. There was no way I’d give up. Not now. Not ever. Someone took Draco. Someone knew where he was. There had to be a way to locate him.
“I’m flying to San Francisco,” I said.
“Why?” Ansin asked.
“King was the man who could find anything or anyone. It was his specialty. Maybe he left behind a few tools in his warehouse.” The arsenal was all mine now anyway. It was worth a try.
I found Ansin sitting in the living room, staring out at the blue, blue ocean, a tall glass of whisky in his hands.
“Hey.” I sat next to him.
“Did Mr. Spiros get home all right?” he asked.
I’d walked him outside to his car. “Yeah. I guess. He looked pretty pissed off, though.”
“To be expected after being worked over like that.”
“Can I ask you something?” I turned to face Ansin. “When you’re standing over a man and beating him with your fists, what’s going through your mind?”
“Why do you ask?” He took a large swig from his glass.
“I’m just trying to figure you out.”
Ansin chuckled. “Good luck with that.”
“I’m serious. How can you be so…humane and compassionate one second and then act like a violent, uncaring monster the next?”
“That’s like asking how God can create life and then take it away.”
“Except, you’re not God.”
“Indeed, I am not.” He raised his glass to the sky.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I pushed.
He turned toward me. “I will answer you honestly if you tell me why you wish to know. And no lying. I want the truth.”
I didn’t have a solid answer. “I guess…part of me wants to trust you, but the other part can’t ignore your ruthless nature. Especially because it sometimes comes across as completely random.”
“So you want to know if there are rules for when I compose myself in ways you find offensive.”
I nodded. “Sure. I guess.”
“And you think if you learn these rules, you’ll be able to understand me, perhaps even trust me. Because then I will behave in a way that feels predictable to you.”
“And that, too.”
He stood and walked over to the small bar in the corner and poured himself another glass, filling it almost to the top. He drank it all down and then placed the glass on the bar. “Well, I’m sorry to tell you that my rules will never inspire trust.”
“All right.”
He turned to face me. “I see the world in black and white. I either care about something, or I do not. If I don’t,” he shrugged, “then I don’t.”
“So you can beat a man and feel absolutely nothing.”
“I never said that,” he replied.
“Then?” I asked.
“I felt something.” He walked over and sat next to me, legs spread, one arm behind me over the back of the white sofa. Ansin always took up space, like he owned the whole fucking world. “I felt the need to know if he had something to do with Draco being taken.”
I frowned. “You were thinking about my baby while turning that poor man’s face into ground beef.”
“I assure you, he is not poor nor innocent. Very few men in this world are. But to answer your question, I was thinking of you.”
“Me?” That could be taken either very badly or very disturbingly.
“I thought of what you must be going through,” he elaborated, “and I thought about what I would do to protect you from ever feeling that way again.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to process. His words sounded an awful lot like him being my protector. “I thought you said you wanted us to be equals.”
“Equal to each other, yes. But I never said I wouldn’t end anyone who hurt you.”
I didn’t see him doing any ending. I saw him giving up. “What if Draco had been yours?”
“There would be no limit to my wrath if anyone so much as lifted a malicious finger in his direction.”
So he’d go full-blown scorched earth for his own kids but not mine. At least I knew where he stood. I nodded slowly.
“Frankly, this never would have happened if Draco were mine,” Ansin added.
“What are you trying to say?” I didn’t like the undertones of blame.
“King should have trained you before Draco came. He should have moved every fucking mountain on earth to ensure you were prepared. Instead, he worried about the family he’d fucked up, who died because he lied and cared for his power more than them.”
That wasn’t the reason they’d died. King had been trying his best to rein in Ten Club. In the end, though, he made mistakes, and he paid dearly.
Ansin reached out and pressed his hand to my cheek. Like before, the warmth of his palm sent a calming wave of comfort over me. Was my reaction genuine, or was this another trick of his?
“Jeni, I am not going to dance around the subject. It is not my style. I want you. I want to fuck you. I want to protect you. I want you to be the most powerful Seer ever to walk the earth so that you know, without a shred of doubt, that you are with me because it is what you want, not what you need. But if you were mine, no one would ever hurt you again.”