Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
It’s a minor irritation at most—I can easily set my shield to ignore any pings by unknowns for a period, Pax said. Hopefully that’ll send whoever it is off elsewhere. I’ll let you know if it goes any further. You have two more hours in flight?
Yes. I’ll report back once I’ve been to the facility.
Upon landing, she decided to make that first visit right away. According to the city’s sunset clock, they still had at least three hours of daylight left, she wasn’t tired, and she needed to know what she was facing.
She didn’t, however, know if her assigned partner was available—and though technically, she was within her rights to go to the facility on her own, Pax had made it clear that this was a question of politics as well as accountability.
“Our grandfather did a lot of damage,” he’d told her. “We have to be cleaner than clean if we’re to dig the family out of the mud. I have no desire for Marshall to become a backwater family—and I refuse to let Grandfather’s actions define us for generations to come.”
Having had firsthand experience with certain members of their family, Theo thought Pax was on a fool’s errand. “Our family is tainted from the inside out,” she’d said. “Even you were ready to cross some dark lines before.”
Before he became aware he suffered from Scarab Syndrome.
Before an empath connected to the SnowDancer wolves became his only link to sanity.
Before his protectiveness toward Theo reasserted itself as a driving force in his life.
Pax was still far better—far cleaner—than Theo, but that didn’t mean he had no skeletons in his closet. And Theo wanted him to face those skeletons. Secrets that dark needed to be exposed to the light or they turned toxic and poisoned a person from the inside out.
Theo knew that better than Pax ever could.
Her twin hadn’t flinched at her blunt words. “I know. But that doesn’t mean we can’t be better. It’ll take time, but we’ll be better.”
Strange as it was, she thought her ruthless sibling might even believe that. She didn’t. The rot in their family hadn’t started with Marshall Hyde. Back in her late teenage years, she’d dug into their family history in an effort to find a hero on whom to focus, some member of her family who’d done good instead of evil, who’d chosen compassion instead of cruelty.
But theirs was a line of darkness.
She’d gone back, so far back, and all she’d found was a thirst for power and for cruelty. They’d been conquerors who’d crushed uprisings, doctors who’d done horrific experiments in the name of progress, CEOs who’d wiped out entire towns in their hunger to be the best and the only.
Marshalls were evil.
At the end of her research, she’d sat there shivering in the small room that was her own . . . and she’d felt a whisper of a touch that was of her twin. Not the instinctual bond nothing had ever broken, but a more conscious attempt at telepathic contact. She’d rejected it not because she didn’t trust Pax—that had never been the issue between them—but because she’d come face-to-face with the fact that she was just one more cog in the machine of evil.
Just another ugly Marshall.
But Pax thought they could be better. And . . . her brother was dying. There was no cure for Scarab Syndrome. This attempt to bring the family into the light might be the last thing he ever asked of her.
Theo’s chest hurt, the pain sharp and hard. She’d tried to make herself stone long ago, and she’d succeeded with everyone but her twin. The far better half of their pair. Any lines he’d crossed couldn’t compare to her crimes.
Not willing to look head-on at a loss that would signal the end of her own life, too—for there was no reason for her darkness to exist if Pax was gone—she exited the plane, then slid her phone out of the pocket of her calf-length skirt. She paused on the way out of the passenger area to send a message to Yakov Stepyrev.
Her phone rang in her hand mere moments later, the same name on the screen. “Theodora Marshall speaking.”
“I figured you’d want to check out the site,” said a masculine voice in accented English that held an undertone of warmth. “I’m your ride. Look out for a big furry brown creature as you exit.”
Theo blinked, took the phone away to stare at it, then said, “I have your ID photo. Unfortunately, it only features your human face.”
A pause from the other end before he said, “In which case, look for my ugly mug when you leave the secure area,” in a voice that held a thread of something she couldn’t quite pinpoint.
Shaking her head at the odd interaction, she slipped her phone back into her pocket. She’d undertaken basic research on bear changelings during her flight—most of it via the digital archive of a magazine called Wild Woman. She’d learned that while bears were intensely territorial, they were also considered one of the most good-natured of the changelings—as long as you didn’t attempt to harm them or theirs.