Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“Yes, I’ve noticed.” He planted a soft kiss on her mouth and swept his hands up her arms. “I was passing your street. I decided to stop by.”
She narrowed her eyes, skeptical. He never simply stopped by. And, considering how busy he was, she wouldn’t have expected him to ever take the time to do so.
A sneaking suspicion slithered through her mind. “You came here to check that I wasn’t packing all my stuff to hightail it out of Devil’s Cradle, didn’t you?”
After a brief moment, he inclined his head. “It occurred to me that you might prefer to leave now that your secret has been exposed to myself and the other Ancients.” He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. “Of course, I would have had to stop you.”
Wynter fought a smile. He wouldn’t find it so easy to detain her, but she’d let him think otherwise. “If I snuck off like that, I would have been leaving partial rights to my soul behind.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. People have done such a thing before. Mostly if they broke a rule and didn’t wish to be held responsible for it. In fact, Bowen and Annette left without notice only recently—Azazel and I suspect they might have committed some crime. You’ve not noticed their absence?” Whatever he saw on her face made him squint. “What is it?” he asked.
Damn, this news probably wouldn’t wash down well. “They didn’t actually leave willingly.” Far from it. “See, Annette killed me,” she blurted out.
His brows snapped together. “Excuse me?”
“She came to the shed where I work and skewered me from behind with a sword.”
His eyes flared, and his mouth set into a hard line. “Did she now? When?”
“Not long after you killed her father. Bowen rushed in, saw what happened, and talked of covering for her and … well, I didn’t like it much. So when I woke up, I dealt with them.”
“I can still feel her soul; she’s not dead.”
“No, I, uh …” Wynter rubbed at her earlobe. “I kind of stuck them in the netherworld.”
Taking a moment to digest those words, Cain did a slow blink. His creature stilled, surprised. “The … the netherworld?”
“I didn’t know where else to put them,” she burst out in her defense. “I couldn’t kill them for obvious reasons. But they’d seen me rise from the dead, and I couldn’t risk that they’d go blabbing about it. They’re not exactly trustworthy people, and they wouldn’t have done me any favors.”
For long moments, Cain could only stare at her. His woman never failed to take him off-guard. Never. “How, exactly, did you put them in the netherworld?”
“I’ve been able to open a portal to it ever since I first became a revenant. I don’t know if it comes with the revenant package or it’s simply because my soul is undead and so I therefore have a connection to it.”
Of all the scenarios he’d considered when he tried making sense of why he couldn’t properly touch Annette’s soul, this hadn’t been one of them. His monster was thoroughly impressed by Wynter’s ability. Cain, however, didn’t like the thought of her having any such connection to a separate realm—it felt too much like she wasn’t fully in this realm. “You made it look like she’d left?”
“It wasn’t hard. She’d already packed up her stuff and stashed it in a car she’d parked outside of the town’s boundary. It was just a matter of moving said car so it looked as if she headed off somewhere.” Wynter bit her lip. “You mad?”
“At you for what you did to protect your secrets? No. Particularly since Annette took it upon herself to end your life, forfeiting her own. But I am angry. Angry that she dared put her hands on you. Angry that I didn’t foresee she’d do such a thing. Angry that I’m only learning of it now.” He didn’t bother asking Wynter why she hadn’t told him before today—the answer was obvious. “I will explain to Azazel about Bowen. He will understand; there’ll be no reprisals.”
“Bowen was one of his aides,” she reminded him.
“Not a prized one. In any case, Azazel wouldn’t punish you for protecting yourself. That was all you really did. And I wouldn’t dare allow it if he tried, so there’s that. Can you bring both berserkers back out of the netherworld?”
“Only if they haven’t died there. A soul can’t, obviously, but a living being can. I can go look, but it might not be so easy to find them—”
“Then leave them where they are.” Cain didn’t want her roaming around that realm when he’d have no way of getting to her if need be. He didn’t trust that Kali wouldn’t decide to keep Her there. “I would only seek to punish them anyway. They’ll suffer plenty in their present location.” He’d heard enough about the netherworld to know that there was nothing pleasant about it. “Are any other residents roaming there?”