Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
The entrance opened.
A man with white hair, white skin, and eyes the color of eggshells looked at him. “What the fuck are you doing—we’re late. He hates when we’re late.”
The accent was British aristocrat. The vibe was sociopath. And the narrowed stare was suspicious.
The old Evan would have stuttered. New Evan’s voice was level as he caught the door and held it open. “I was told to get clothes and weapons first.”
“You better be fast.”
“I will be.”
The other slayer took off and Evan watched him go. Then he entered the apartment. The first door revealed a bathroom that had a dry toilet with a crack in the bowl, a tub with primordial sludge in its stained belly, and a mirror that reminded him of what the inside of the elevator in the office building had looked like, all frame, no reflection.
Just fragments left of what had once been whole.
He kept going.
Door number three was the winner. The size of the boots lined up against the wall told him it was the right place. Small. A woman’s—
Where was his sense of smell, he wondered as he glanced over his shoulder. Surely this place stank like a mosh pit, but his nose was fine?
Whatever.
In the closet, he found a gun safe the size of a refrigerator, and as he confronted the old-fashioned rotary dial, his plan threatened to fail when no number sequence came to mind. But then he saw a key pad and the combination appeared to him.
As he entered the digits, his hand did not shake—and he had a thought that he should be trembling. He should be majorly freaked out at the fact that he was about to steal weapons from someone who was obviously a killer.
And use them against members of his own family.
But he didn’t feel anything other than a focus rooted in rage.
The instant the lock tumbled, Evan yanked the handle and opened the safe. An interior LCD light came on and the display was more guns than he’d ever seen in one place. He didn’t know which—
His hand reached forward and chose two nine millimeters. Then it grabbed magazines. Everything went into the pockets of his stained jeans, and before he closed the safe back up, he took two suppressors.
In the second bedroom, he found clothes that fit him, as well as holsters.
When he stepped back out, he was better prepared than he’d ever been allowed to be, and he felt strong in the way he had as he’d run over here.
He went to the camouflaged door to the tunnel.
And as he entered the steel passageway, he hoped that thing with the scarred face was still in the basement at the other end.
He was going to need to practice first, and that enemy of his was going to be a good way to learn fast. Fortunately, his body seemed to know what to do in all kinds of situations.
Killing surely was no different.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I’d give you my jacket, if it fit.”
As Nate got off the bed, he shook his head at Nalla’s offer and finished buttoning up his leathers. Then he gave the waistband a yank to get everything in place, and went across to assess the window situation. The daytime shutters had all risen, and as he threw the latch and opened the closest sash, he got a blast of cold air—and the sight of an old maple tree.
He kept his cursing soft, and glanced at the reflection of what was behind him in the panes of glass.
He should have known—or at least noticed.
This had been Rahvyn’s bedroom.
There had been no cluing into it when he’d entered. For one, he hadn’t been up here for thirty years, literally. Not since he’d put some furniture together with that female. And since then, all of the stuff they’d set up had been replaced, another reason he hadn’t recognized things when he’d come in.
And then there had been that whole chestnuts-roasting-o’er-an-open-fire thing.
Turning back to the bed, he looked at Nalla. She was sitting up in the messy covers, her hair falling over her shoulders in waves of blond, red, and brown. Her cheeks were flushed and her fleece was disarrayed. Between one blink and the next, he pictured her underneath him, tilting her head to the side, offering him the vein he’d taken so roughly.
“I’m fine,” she said as she brushed at his bite marks.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, of course.”
As he gathered up his weapons, and started putting his holsters back on, she cleared her throat. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything.” He cinched up his gun belt. “Name it.”
Her eyes traced his bare chest, lingering on the forties strapped under his bare arms. “I might want to get a tattoo. Will you introduce me to your guy?”
Nate stopped for a second. Then he found himself glancing down her body—and thinking it was a crying shame they’d been interrupted. Or… maybe it had been for the best, actually. He was in over his head—and out of time.