Total pages in book: 34
Estimated words: 32307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 162(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
At least, that’s what he told himself.
Kaira mumbled. Her eyelids flickered. When she finally managed to open them all the way, her eyes remained unfocused.
The truck came to a rest in the garage. The men in the front got out.
“What’s happening?” she asked so softly he wouldn’t have heard it were it not for his preternatural abilities.
“You’re at my home, Kaira. Fear not. I won’t hurt you.” He slid with her across the seat.
Her gray eyes fought to focus, and her gaze landed on his. “Promise?”
Sitting on the edge of the back seat, legs halfway out the door, he paused. He didn’t know whether to be more amused that she thought extracting his word would protect her if he intended her harm, or that even as she lay semiconscious in his arms she found the strength to talk and the will to negotiate.
Either way, he found her more than a little endearing.
“I promise.”
She stared at him a long moment as if weighing his words against whatever expression he wore, and then she drifted off once more.
Henrik felt the weight of another gaze on him and looked down.
Jakob stood with his hand on the door, holding it open. “Sure that’s a promise you can keep?”
Henrik ignored his brother, hoping with everything he was that he could keep his promise to her, no matter what it took.
Or what it cost.
Chapter 6
Kaira surfaced into consciousness like she was swimming in mud. Everything felt slow and heavy. She forced the ten-pound weights of her eyelids open. Dim lighting cast a low glow over what looked like a hospital room.
She pushed herself to sit up, and a twinge in her left wrist drew her gaze. An IV. She traced the line to the pole standing bedside. Just fluids.
“How are you feeling?” came a deep voice.
Kaira’s head wrenched to the right as her heart vaulted into her throat. Henrik sat in a chair by her elbow. He’d been so quiet, she hadn’t even realized he was there.
“How long did I sleep?” she asked around the cotton in her mouth.
“About five hours.”
She studied him for a long moment. He’d cleaned up. A pair of jeans and a navy turtleneck stretched taut to accommodate the breadth of his shoulders replaced the ruined clothing he’d worn before. Her gaze traced up to his face. It was the first time she’d seen his hair out from under the black knit cap. Most of it was thick and long, but the hair behind his left temple was thin, revealing a patch of his scalp.
He tilted his head in a way that hid the baldness from her line of sight.
She met his observing gaze and gasped. “Your eyes.”
He sat forward and clasped his hands where they hung between his knees. The closeness gave her a wide-open look at his once again nearly colorless eyes. Still as penetrating and intense, though. “You never answered my question.”
Why did his eyes keep changing? Last night, when they’d appeared a bright, deep blue, he and his men had seemed awed, definitely happy. Now, the set of Henrik’s big shoulders made her think he carried a burden nearly too great to bear.
She frowned. “What question?”
“How do you feel?”
“Oh.” Kaira conducted a mental rundown from her head to her toes. “Better than last night. Tired. Achy. I think the fever’s down.”
“We didn’t want to treat you beyond the fluids for dehydration until we had a better sense of what was going on. Our doc specializes in patching up wounds and setting bones, when need be, but since we don’t get sick, your situation is outside his area of expertise.”
“‘We,’ as in…vampires.”
He gave a single nod. “That’s right.”
His matter-of-factness made the room spin a little. How was this possible? Kaira ducked her chin, which made her realize she wore a johnny over the smooth fabric of the gown she could still feel against her skin. They’d covered her. Last night, they’d protected her. And both Henrik and Jakob had been more honest with her than they had to be.
“May I have some water?” she managed just to have something normal to think about.
Henrik was on his feet before she’d finished enunciating the last word. He crossed to the sink in the corner and was so tall he had to bend down to fill the cup at the faucet. How old was he? Looking at him right now, except for the white hair, she would never guess from his height and the athleticism of his movement and his upright, commanding bearing that he was older than his twenties. Thirties, maybe.
“Um, not to be rude, but how can vampires exist and nobody knows?”
He returned to her and handed off the drink.
His body was nearly mesmerizing to watch. Quick. Efficient in movement. Confident. There was something totally magnetic and appealingly masculine about him.