Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
He took her mouth again. This time he was all Master. His lips commanding. Demanding. Possessive. Rough. A takeover. This time there was the roar of flames rushing through her veins to center in her sex, building a wildfire so fast it threatened to burn her from the inside out. She didn’t care. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for the wild ride that always ensued when Master kissed her. The ground disappeared, and then the world, until there were only the two of them.
“Absinthe, I think it’s time you began working on cleaning up Master’s record,” Czar said. “Knock it off, you two. You can take your honeymoon after we rid the world of a monster.”
Czar’s voice was very clear in her ear. So was the laughter from the other members of Torpedo Ink. Master lifted his head slowly. He didn’t seem to care that everyone heard his declaration. He took his time. His eyes searched her face.
“You hear me, princess?”
She ran her fingers lightly over his bone structure. All those sheer planes. All those hard angles that made up his beautiful, masculine features. So tough. Scary tough. Only not to her. Never to her. “I heard you loud and clear, Kir. We go home alive. Both of us. And for the record, I heard you too, Czar. Thank you.”
Master continued to look into her eyes and then very slowly he smiled. When that smile reached his eyes and lit them up, turning them a shade of turquoise she’d never seen before, her heart turned over. Melted.
He went to his knees, sobering, that gorgeous smile fading. He stood, pulling her up with him. She always marveled at how strong he was, how easily he just tugged her weight around. She might be on the shorter side, but she had weight to her. Muscle. She was fit. Solid. Master could easily pick her up, and he did it often.
“Stay close,” he ordered.
She got that from the last few times they’d gone places in the dark together. Practices. The real deal when they’d helped Reese. She knew what was expected. More than anything else, everything he’d said to her, she wanted him. Keeping close meant she could watch over him. She wasn’t going to take the chance of losing him. In the short time she’d been with him, she’d come to understand just what mattered to her. It wasn’t keeping her husband so he would kill for her. She didn’t want him as her weapon. She wanted him forever as her man.
If she could have, she would have put her hand in his back pocket, but suddenly, they were all business, moving like silent wraiths down the hillside and entering the vineyard that separated them from the house where Walker Thompson thought himself so safe. She was used to military operations, and at first, she thought this one was carried out as a mission would be—but it wasn’t. She began to realize they were more like a very efficient pack of wolves hunting together. They spread out and surrounded their prey.
The outer perimeter was guarded by four roving patrols, two men with two dogs each. The men patrolled in a circular route that allowed them to cross paths every so often, but because the area they were assigned was so large, it took time before they actually saw one another.
Ambrielle didn’t understand how the Torpedo Ink members could slip up on the four crews right under the dogs’ noses and kill them, but they did it with seeming ease. They worked in silence, rising off the ground right behind the guards and driving knives into the backs of their victims’ skulls with the dogs right there. The dogs were taken to one of the guardhouses and left with a command to stay while the Torpedo Ink members continued their forward assault.
The vineyard held several men with automatic weapons. These men seemed to be randomly placed in groups of two, staggered throughout the small acreage. She didn’t have time to do more than catch a glimpse of them because they were already being taken down by the time she even spotted them. Master didn’t even slow down. There were no stops or starts. They just kept moving forward in that silent, stalking way that was more predator than human. It was as chilling as it was exhilarating. They were a machine, flicking hand signals or tapping a code out, but never making a sound. The enemy never saw them coming. They didn’t leave evidence of their passing, other than the kills they made.
There were alarms on every door and window of the main house. The alarms didn’t seem to slow them down either. She saw Mechanic move up to the front along with his brother, Transporter, and then the Torpedo Ink members were slipping inside the beautiful home through every conceivable entrance, both upper and lower stories.