Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 336(@200wpm)___ 269(@250wpm)___ 224(@300wpm)
I watch Lucy glance around the room, as Oracle comes back into the room. His normally somber features have changed and now he’s actually smiling. Ettie focuses on me.
“Who is Lucy?”
“My mate,” Oracle says, proudly.
“The smartass with great hair and killer legs sitting in that chair right there,” I tell her, waving my hand in Lucy’s direction.
“You think I have great hair?” Lucy asks, finger combing out the braid she twisted in it earlier.
“Come on now. You know you’re like a walking pin-up,” I say, shaking my head.
“She’s right about that, Butterfly,” Oracle says softly.
“Wait. You can see Oracle’s mate?” Ettie asks, her mouth hanging open in shock. “The Luciana he’s always talking to?”
“Yeah, you can’t?” I ask Ettie. Just one more thing to pile on my already heaping dose of crazy.
“Grace can see her,” Oracle says. He says it proudly. His happiness is as clear as day.
Ettie shakes her head. There’s no laughter in her eyes. No hints that she’s teasing. “No, Grace. No one has ever seen Luciana, at least not anyone…”
“But me,” Oracle says.
I stand up, walking towards Lucy. Her eyes sparkle with mischief. “I’m tired of all the games,” I mumble. I turn to look at Ettie. “There’s no way that you can deny that you can’t see her. She’s right here.” I slap my hand down onto Lucy’s shoulder, but instead of my hand stopping, it passes through as if she’s not there.
“What the…What’s going on here?” I murmur.
Lucy smiles at me. “Grace, it would appear that you’re one of those supernatural creatures you don’t like.”
“Beings,” I snap, making her laugh.
I wish I felt like laughing…
27
#7
(STARK)
One Week Later
Three in the morning and I’m just now walking into the compound. It has been long few days of patrols and yet we don’t have any new information. Scar has been quiet since trying to make Endy and Jacob attack. We’ve been waiting. We all know that he will take his revenge on the pack, but so far nothing has happened. I don’t like it. We’re sitting around, twiddling our damn thumbs, instead of attacking.
We’ve been alternating patrols around compound’s perimeter and that of Endy’s pack’s territory. If Scar is trying to get close to us, he’s been very careful. We haven’t caught a hint of him.
I take myself to the main room, plopping onto the same small couch as before. You don’t know the meaning of hell until you’ve lived in the same house as your mate for a week, not touching her, kissing her, or even seeing her. I haven’t even heard her voice. But her scent, her intoxicating scent, is a torture all its own.
I miss Grace. I miss her more and more every day. My heart breaks that I can’t storm into their room and make her listen to me. I can’t do that though because it’ll chase her away and as long as she’s here, she’s safe from Scar. I feel like I’m walking on a double-edged sword and each day it begins to cut me deeper and deeper.
Grace doesn’t even leave her room, except to go with Ettie and Oracle to the lab. She refuses to talk to me or even acknowledge I’m here. Ettie won’t tell me anything other than that she’s agreed to say until the threat is gone. Ettie insists Grace needs space right now and that I need to be understanding. That leaves me fighting my own instincts to be with here. My only solace in it is that I’m not hurting her.
“I thought I heard you come in.”
I look up to see Jacob standing in the doorway. His face is pale, slightly gaunt with dark circles under his eyes. It’s not surprising. He and Endy have been through hell ridding themselves of the blood Five poisoned them with.
“You’re looking better, Jacob.” He actually does. Down in the lab, he was touch and go for a bit. I wasn’t sure if either of them would make it.
“I feel like hell,” Jacob says dryly making me laugh.
“So do I.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard about Grace rejecting you,” he says as he leans on the doorframe as he crosses his arms.
“Are you here to agree that I went about it wrong? Say I told you so?” I ask bitterly.
“Nah, man. What’s that old saying? Life plays the tune and we just dance?”
“Yeah, but I’m tired of dancing to a tune I can’t hear,” I grumble.
“Fate is a fickle bitch, and it doesn’t let us out alive. You know that. Is there any way to make your mate see what she means to you?”
“I don’t think so. I fucked up, even if it was for the right reasons. My hands were tired. If I had told the hospital the truth, I wouldn’t have been able to protect her, and she was too vulnerable for that. I could smell Scar close by,” I tell him, running a hand through my hair. “If I had told her the truth including the fact that she was running from me, I’d have lost her completely. Then, Scar would have gotten his hands on her. I thought if I could just spend time with her, she would see how much I cared for her and how good the two of us are together.”