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)
Good thing the two coming over had those goggles. Most changelings didn’t need anything like that even in low-light conditions, but the goggles would give them an extra clarity to their vision in this level of intense darkness.
He put the headlights on low as they moved down the long drive.
“Did you call your clanmate a koala or did I mistranslate?” Words so tense they hummed . . . and yet she’d been curious enough to ask the question.
Yakov relaxed into his seat. “No, you didn’t mistranslate,” he said. “I was insulting him.”
“Why would calling him a koala be an insult? As far as I know, most beings like koala bears.”
“That’s exactly it.” He pointed a finger at her. “Koalas are not bears. Koalas are marsupials. Yet those furry gray Aussies go around acting like bears. It’s not on.”
“Is there a rivalry?”
“Nah. Koalas are pacific vegetarians. One time a bear I know tried to pick a fight with a koala family—you know what those marsupials did?”
He saw Theo shake her head in his peripheral vision.
“They invited him to a tofu dinner and gave him a handwoven shawl as a gift! Then they plucked their cub out of the carry pouch they wear in human form and asked him if he wanted to hold her! She smiled and goo-goo-ga-ga’d at him! He had no idea what to do with himself!”
Yakov threw up his hands for a second, while maintaining full control of the vehicle. “That’s no kind of bear behavior! A man should be able to pick an honest-to-goodness fight with another!”
A strangled sound from Theo that he wanted to imagine was a stifled laugh, but knew he had to be imagining it. Especially when she went silent and still as they reached the gates a minute later.
Once he stopped, Theo got out to unlock those gates.
Leaning back against the grille of the vehicle, Yakov frowned. “I don’t want our people trapped inside if something goes wrong at night.”
Theo looked over, her face all angled shadows in the falling dark, a sudden evocative echo of his dreams. “You’re right,” she said as his bear’s fur bristled at the memory of Theo bleeding, dying while he lay helpless. “But we need to secure the area for their own safety—the current deadbolts can be pushed back as you did. Do you have anything suitable?”
“I might.” Heading to the back of the all-terrain vehicle while fighting off his urge to bundle her up and keep her safe, he lifted up the back hatch and looked through the toolbox that came standard-issue in most clan vehicles.
“Yes, here it is.” He grabbed the heavy weight of metal chain. “It’s meant to lock the tires if we ever run into an issue with the vehicle’s computronic security, but it can be used as a secure lock on the gate. Moon and Elbek will have the override code.”
After placing the chain in front of the vehicle as Theo opened the gates enough for it to exit, he stood and just watched her. His instinct was to assist, but he had a feeling Theo needed something on which to expend her energy. And for now, all she had were the gates.
So he just watched her move, this woman who had haunted him for years—and who was even more compelling in reality than she was in his dreams. That woman had been a fantasy. This Theo was real in every sense of the word.
Potent. Angry. Beautiful.
She wasn’t graceful, however, though she moved smoothly enough. It was the contained explosion in her. It added a taut edginess to her motions—and it made him wonder what exactly it was that had birthed that blinding rage in Theo Marshall. Because no one was that angry without cause.
One thing he knew for certain now: none of this was an act. Theo was too expressive to hide her thoughts well. Her only obvious Psy trait was the fury of her need to contain her anger. Any bear in her position would’ve torn up a room by now, probably broken a chair or three.
Not Theo.
A thread of scent on the night air. Rough brown. And there was the second. Warm umber. Clan. Both of them.
Maybe his twin alone would understand Yakov’s shorthand descriptions of his clanmates. He and Pasha had always seen scents in color. Apparently, their parents had only discovered their little quirk when they’d one day described their papa as sparkling red and their mama as juicy orange.
It had taken the two of them much longer to understand that their playmates didn’t see the world of scent in vivid color. But, because they were bears, their quirk had always been treated as a joyful gift. Friends often asked them to describe what their scent was in color.
Today, Yakov’s senses were dazzled in a deep, dark green with hidden undertones of ebony and sparks of flickering ruby. And that was just the first layer of the scent of Theo Marshall. A meld as secretive as the woman in front of him.