Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113936 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
His head jerked to the left again, his instincts firing for a second time. He had the gun tucked into the waistband of the wolven’s pants, even though there was every reason for him to have it at the ready because if he was going to fight something, he wanted it to be close, and very much in person—
The wind changed direction and that was when he caught the scents of Apex and the wolven. They were on the property, but they were not near him, and that was fine.
Better that they stayed away.
The chain-link fence appeared about thirty feet later, and instead of dematerializing through it, he took some running strides and jumped onto the links, clawing a hold into them, yanking his body up. He made no attempt to be quiet about the ascent, the metal-on-metal clanging the kind of thing that surely functioned as an alarm.
Up and over, dropping down, landing on the boots in a crouch.
Now he took out the gun. This urge to punch and kick was all well and good, but not if it got him killed before he found Nadya.
The weight of the weapon was heavy in his hand, and he glanced down. “Magnum.”
The word came out of him, even though he had never seen a gun like this before.
“Callum.”
That was the name of that male with the white hair and the blue eyes. But how did he know this? He hadn’t read the wolven’s mind. Had he heard it spoken by somebody? Or was he phasing in and out of amnesia?
Now was not the time for this.
Jogging forward, he kept low and his eyes began to move in a pattern he recognized only because he didn’t control it any more than he did his arms and legs. His body, and all its components seemed like… something that had been aimed at the camp.
As a weapon would.
It was as this thought occurred that the great, gloomy monolith appeared on the horizon like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story, the center core anchoring two enormous wings of open loggias. The exterior was discolored from what had to be a hundred years of weathering, gray stains drooling down from the slate roof, the brick appearing wrinkled as a result of the vertical stripes. The structure was still solid, however, nothing listing or crumbling, proof that back then builders had constructed things to last. He had overheard that humans had first used it as a hospital for tuberculosis patients, the afflicted set out on the five levels of porches to take the air, the dead removed out the back via a subterranean body chute. After that era, it had housed the insane for a time, and then later, the site had been abandoned.
Assessing the front entrance, with its steps rising to a set of inset doors of considerable, if faded, majesty, he quickly moved on to the banks of windows on either side. The sashes were all down, but the occasional pane was broken, not that it mattered. All he had to do was get close, confirm the interior of one of those rooms, and dematerialize in, as long as there was no steel mesh. Or he could go off to the wings on either side. The open porches would be safe to re-form on and he could navigate downward.
Or maybe the roof was where he needed to start.
Except then what. Once he was inside, he had no idea where to go. Or where to locate Nadya.
Reaching into the banks of his memory, he tried to remember where the guard who had taken him from his bed had dragged him to. His awareness at the time had been hazy, and he had passed out, only to come to at the terminal of a long corridor. There had been guards, and Apex and the others, and—
A rustle of leaves behind him had Kane pointing the gun at the sound before he looked over his shoulder.
Apex was standing there, still in his dirty, bloodstained prison togs, the tunic and loose pants so worn and thin they were nearly transparent. As the wind blew in, the ghostly garments moved against his body, turning him into a specter, and this seemed logical. As aware as Kane was, he hadn’t scented the male. Or sensed him.
If it had been a guard, with a weapon, Kane would probably be dead.
“We go right in the front.” Apex nodded at the grand portal. “The rear is where the drugs come and go, and that’s where the guards will have to be. We took a lot of them out on the way to the exit, so the head of those males is going to have to prioritize her staffing. Besides, this whole level is blocked off. We’ll be safer.”
Between one blink and the next, Kane had an image of a tall, powerfully built female in a black uniform. He had no recollection of her face or coloring particularly, but the muscled body he could recall in detail—and he would recognize her scent anywhere.