Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 126(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25186 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 126(@200wpm)___ 101(@250wpm)___ 84(@300wpm)
Honestly, I hadn’t told Celeste, but I’d had my feelers out, trying to see if I could locate him before everything came to a head. Killing him would have started a war. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time an assassination led to one—a well-learned lesson of what not to do when trying to avoid a fight.
Besides, I was confident that I could have “convinced” him to walk away from my consort and take the coven. However, it eventually became clear that he was staying on the coven’s land, hiding behind their protection like a coward.
Celeste was the most powerful witch in her former coven, but with the elemental event intensifying their sorcery, they might be able to detect her cloaking enchantment.
We’d only been asleep for a few hours when Celeste’s phone started vibrating, waking us. She reached out and grabbed it, then groaned and tossed it back in the nightstand. “Seriously?” she grumbled. “They can’t keep their harassment to the hours when they know I’m awake?”
Her parents. They were seriously grating on my last nerve.
When her cell vibrated again, I leaned over her, snatched the device, and shut it off completely.
A minute later, my phone began buzzing. “For fuck’s sake,” I muttered. I rolled onto my back and picked it up, frowning at the unknown number on the screen.
I sent the caller to voicemail and was about to turn the device off when the same number popped up again. Celeste turned over and snuggled into me, her sleepy gaze peering at my screen.
“What the heck?” she hissed, sitting up, her whole body going rigid.
“You know who it is?”
She nodded and murmured, “That’s my dad’s number.”
My eyebrows shot up. In the months we’d been together, she’d had plenty of calls from her parents. But not once had they reached out to me.
“Do you want me to answer it?”
She bit her lip for a second, then put out her hand, palm up. Reluctantly, I gave her the phone. I’d really been hoping she would finally let me handle them.
Celeste pressed the accept button before putting the call on speaker.
“Dad?” she answered hesitantly.
He sounded unsure when he confirmed, “I-yes. It’s me.”
“Okay. Um, why are you calling Ren?”
“Because you won’t answer our calls,” he snapped.
I opened my mouth to tell him to go fuck himself, but he sighed and spoke again.
“I'm not calling to fight with you, Celeste.”
I sat up and shuffled back against the headboard, then grasped my consort and put her on my lap so I could wrap her up in my arms.
She practically collapsed against me, some of her muscles losing their tension. She was clearly befuddled by her father’s intentions. “Um…okay. I’m glad. But then what are you calling for?”
“It’s the winter solstice,” he muttered so quietly I almost didn’t hear him.
“I know, Dad.” She sighed. “If you’re calling to try to convince me to return and marry Arthur then—”
“Look,” he interrupted. “I…I’m not going to pretend that I’m happy with your decisions. But that doesn’t mean I want you to get hurt or be forced into something that will make you miserable.”
“Thanks…I think.”
“Despite what you might believe, I love you.”
Celeste’s eyes became misty, and she swallowed hard. “Me too,” she whispered.
“And…your mother loves you, too.”
I barely refrained from snorting with derision but must not have been as quiet as I thought because, with a hint of defensiveness in his tone, he added, “In her own way.”
“Mm-hmm,” Celeste hummed.
“The coven is strong today,” he said, changing the topic. “They…they know where you are.”
It was my turn to go stiff as I listened intently to what he said next.
“Since you’re normally asleep at this hour, they are coming to take you. Counting on you being unprepared and not alert.”
“When?” I growled. “When will they be here?”
Her dad was silent, and my hands itched to wrap around his neck so I could squeeze the answer out of him.
“When, Dad?” Celeste pressed.
“An hour, two at the most.”
I immediately reached out to my family, but most of them were asleep, so I knew I’d have to go wake up Cian or the twins and send them out to gather everyone.
A knock on my bedroom door made me frown until Aura telepathed me.
Is everything okay? I feel your distress.
Like witches, many vampires possessed unique gifts. Aura had what could almost be described as an overdeveloped sense of empathy. She picked up on emotions and had a sixth sense about when someone needed her.
Celeste’s coven is coming for her. Will you wake Cian and Abel? I need you three to teleport to the rest of the family and let them know.
Of course.
“I have to go,” Celeste’s dad mumbled, his voice lowering even more. “Don’t let them corner you in the house.”
Then he was gone.
“Son of a bitch,” I swore as I shifted so I was fully sitting up. “They’ll have to do more than catch us off guard during our day sleep if they want to have an edge over us.”