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)
A female vampire’s fertile time was a torture. The cravings to be serviced by a male were so overpowering and debilitating that unless you were prepared to be with one for a good twenty-four hours straight—and run the risk of pregnancy and the birthing bed’s high death rates—your only option was to get sedated and stay secluded until the whole two or three nights passed and your hormones reregulated.
“It seems like it just happened.” Bitty stared at the area rug under the coffee table without seeing much of the braid of muted colors. “Then again, it always feels that way.”
“I’ll be there for you. So will Doc Jane.”
“Thank you, Mom.”
As Bitty looked up with worry, Mary wrapped her in a hug, and after the female pulled back, she smiled a little.
“So… there’s someone waiting outside for you. He wants to make sure you’re okay, and I have a feeling he’s not going to be satisfied until he sets his own eyes on you.”
“Oh.” Bitty ran her hands over her hair. “Really?”
“Really. But I can also tell him to come back after Doc Jane assesses you. She’s finishing up a consult at Havers’s and then she’ll be here.”
“I’m fine. Honest.”
And she really didn’t want to have the doctor tell her what she and her mom had just guessed. That was not an argument she was going to win, though.
Mary got up from the edge of the couch and stared down with her hands at her hips, just the way she’d done when Bitty was younger and she’d been sick.
“You sure you feel well enough to go out there?” came the demand.
Taking a deep breath, Bitty felt a flutter in her chest as she nodded—maybe a little too enthusiastically. With a shift of her legs, she planted her feet on the carpet, and was slow in getting up just in case her balance was bad. When she reached her full height, she gave it a moment—
“Yup, good to go.” She smiled at her mom. “I’ll just, you know… I’ll see him by myself. If that’s okay.”
“Sure thing. I’m right here if you need me. And your running shoes are over there.”
As Bitty put on her Brooks, she ducked her head—so her big, giant, tomato-red blush didn’t put her mom under a damn heat lamp—and then she tried to not look like she was straightening all her clothes, down to her frickin’ knickers.
“I won’t be long,” she said.
“I’ll wait here—you two take your time.”
Bitty hesitated.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” came the gentle reassurance. “And you don’t have to explain anything. You’re an adult now and you’re allowed your privacy.”
“So you aren’t going to tell… Father?”
Mary covered her heart. “Girls unite. I won’t say a thing.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Technically, there wasn’t anything to tell, she reminded herself. L.W. had given her a coat, not an engagement ring. Still, it all felt live-wire fresh, fraught with peril, super exciting. And there was something about sharing a romance with her mother that seemed natural, but admitting it to her father felt…
Well, she just got a case of the sheeps about that kind of conversation.
Pulling a pivot, she tried to be calm about the whole walking out to the front entry. When she came to the door, she hesitated before she opened it, her hand gripping the copper latch and staying put, her breath getting tight in her lungs, that flutter thing turning her heart into a strobe light in the center of her chest.
It was like leaping into a lake on a hot summer night. At some point, you just had to leave the dock planks and fly.
Or you were never going to know the joy of the plunge.
Closing her eyes to make the leap, Bitty yanked open the door, and the way the cold air hit her made her gasp. And then she was extending her running shoe over the threshold, and thinking of the Resolve2Evolve tagline: Be Alive, Do More, Be More.
Boy, had that message been received, and she did feel more alive, and she was going to be more, with L.W.—and oh, God, she just wanted to feel that warmth again. Not from his jacket, though.
From his body—
All the way down at the end of the walkway, standing in the snow by the lantern, the male who was waiting for her turned around and looked up to the porch.
Not black hair, braided down the top of the skull. No harsh brows and stark looks. No tattooed neck or black diamond earrings.
Blond hair. Brilliant, Bahamas-blue eyes. And a worried, hesitant expression.
“There she is,” Rhage said tenderly. “My girl.”
The disappointment was… crushing. And to cover it up, from her father, from herself, Bitty rushed forward, skipping down the little set of stairs and racing down the shoveled walk. Before she was really in range, she leapt into the air, throwing herself forward, knowing that she would be caught and held, captured by her father and kept safe from gravity’s pull and the hard, unforgiving ground.