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)
“That wasn’t the question.”
V reached down for his leather jacket, picking up the dead weight with his gloved hand. “I also can’t comment on Rhage’s calorie count. Simple mathematics states infinity has no limits, but he tests those boundaries on the regular—”
“Why is finding this prison camp so important to you?” Butch put both palms out, all calm-down-hothead. “I’m fine with it. Whatever you want to do is good and I’ve always got your six. But you’re pushing hard on this.”
V pulled his jacket on and went through his pat-down ritual. Ammo, check. Lighter, check. Hunting knife, check. Daggers—
Shit. He’d forgotten his dagger holster.
He took off the jacket and let it fall to his chair, the thing landing in a series of dull thuds as the poke-and-tickle of weapons inside of it settled. Reaching down for the black-bladed weapons he had made himself, he pulled the straps of their mounting onto his shoulders and around under his arms. The securing of the holster was such second nature that he didn’t have to look down. He could stare into his roommate’s eyes while he tightened it properly.
“I grew up in the war camp,” he heard himself say. “I didn’t choose to be there. It was a fucking horrible place. If what the Jackal’s told us is true—that a lot of those prisoners were tossed in prison because the aristocracy wanted them out of the way for their own goddamn reasons? Then that’s bullshit and we need to get the ones that aren’t criminals out.”
His roommate nodded. “Fair enough.”
V glanced back at his screens.
“That’s the point,” he murmured as he pulled his jacket back on. “It hasn’t been fucking fair, and what the hell good are we if we can’t fix shit that’s wrong.”
As he headed for the exit, Butch chuckled. “Look at you, caring about your fellow man. Vampire. Whatever.”
“Don’t get it twisted.” V held open the way out. “I still think people are stupid.”
“Oh, good.” Butch stepped through into the night. “Otherwise, I’d mistake this for an episode of Black Mirror.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Down under the decaying hunting cabin, Kane spent the daylight hours sitting on the floor, propped up against the wall, within view of the bed behind the sofa. With that couch functioning as a footboard, he couldn’t see much of Nadya as she slept, but going by her breathing patterns, he figured she must have gotten at least a little rest.
There had been no shut-eye for him, and the weird thing was, he didn’t feel tired. That buzzing under his skin, that seething, churning energy, was a constant, banked for now, but ready and hungry for… anything, really.
It was a reminder of how long it had been since he had had any level of health.
And he remembered the moment he lost it.
Putting his hand out, he looked at his palm, went back in time, and recalled pouring that drink at the libation cart in his study. Thinking back on it now, he couldn’t recall whether the sherry had tasted off. He’d been so consumed by Cordelhia’s impending needing, those hormones of hers calling a response in him that grew ever more distracting, that he hadn’t paid any attention to what had rolled over his tongue.
But it clearly had been poisoned.
He’d had that first glass.
Followed by the other.
After that…
Wincing, he rubbed his eyes as if he could wipe away the image of his Cordelhia up on that bed, her blood dripping off her lax hand, pooling on the floor. He’d had the same vantage point then as he did now, looking up to see the dead body.
And then he’d heard that scream.
Cordelhia’s mahmen in her fine silk-and-fur overcoat, standing in the open doorway of the chamber, screaming in horror—
* * *
“You have killed my daughter! My daughter is dead!”
Kane tried to get up from the floor. But as he pushed his palms into the finely woven carpet, his arms refused the burden of his torso and he slapped back down onto his face.
When he turned his head to the side… he saw the bloody knife in his hand.
His first thought was that it was not his hand. Then he thought it was not his blade.
And finally, he realized it was not a knife at all.
It was his letter opener, the one from his desk down in the study, the one made of sterling silver, which bore the crest of his bloodline… the one he’d been given after he’d survived his transition by his sire.
The dagger-shaped object had been missing for a couple of nights.
And now, it was back, and his hand was upon the bloody length, his fingers wrapped around the miniature sword’s hilt.
In the back of his mind, he noted that his beloved’s mahmen was still screaming, but he was trying to remember how any of this had come to pass—and grappling with the reality that if the female in that formal cloak and dress had thought there was any sign of life in her progeny, she would not be yelling incomprehensible things at him, but rather calling for help from the staff—