Series: The Un Series by Izzy Sweet
Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Unable to move even one hand from her, I lift my foot and open the door with a solid kick.
The door flies off the hinges and skids across the pavement right as a large black SUV skids to a stop in front of the house.
I don’t hear a heartbeat or smell the sweet perfume of blood pumping through a living being’s blood, beside my beloved’s.
All I can smell is an acrid stench of vileness that I must of ran through at some point.
Mentally shrugging to myself, I say, “These men are my brothers. Mother should be at our safe house. She’ll want to meet you as soon as possible. The way humans consider it, she’s not really my mother, though. She didn’t give birth to me or turn me. She’s Asher’s bonded.”
I have no clue why I’m running at the mouth. It’s not like it means much to her. But she’s trembling in my arms, and I want her to feel safe.
Andrei hops out of the back of the car and holds the door open for us.
“I will protect you from the Order,” I vow. “But we have to get away from here quickly.”
Carrying her to the SUV, I nod to Andrei, and notice Maddox is in the front with Caden.
Thank the gods they didn’t allow that doofus Ambrose to come. The last thing I need is him freaking her out even more.
“No, no, no,” she murmurs over and over.
Quietly humming to her, I slide my body into the backseat. Andrei, my coven brother, shuts the door quickly behind us and races back to his side of the car in a blink of the eye.
Hopping in, he taps the back of Caden’s seat. “Move it. Father wants us home as soon as possible.”
The SUV peels out and we’re pushed back into our seat.
By luck, my soulmarked is forced deeper into my arms.
Her plush body feels right in my embrace. Even if she has a bit of the stench I was smelling earlier.
Racing out of the distressed landscape of dilapidated homes, boarded-up corner stores, and stop signs with bullet holes punched through them, I stare into the dark night surrounding the car and feel true worry for the first time in centuries.
Worry.
Is it my own or hers?
I gently push against the bond we both share, but I’m still hesitant to push too hard.
The damn thing is still too fragile. Maybe it will strengthen when we’re both finally whole?
Very gently, I nudge my nose into her hair and just rest it there for a moment. Closing my eyes, I try to tune out the world around us. Try to remove all the fears and worries.
I need to relax as much as possible.
Gently probing against the bond, I feel it almost respond to me before resisting. Like something is blocking my love, care, and feelings for this woman.
She’s my everything, and I need her to know it and feel it.
I can give her some of my love, but only the vaguest of wisps slip through.
Is she blocking me? Is she so traumatized that she’s able to block me out almost entirely?
The angry beast inside me wants to rage against that possibility. Rage against another roadblock standing between us.
Keeping myself calm, I open my eyes and take a deep breath of the world around us.
The stench is still here in the car with us. So acrid I can barely stomach it.
Three days ago, when our souls first connected, I threw up for the first time as a vampire.
And now I’m on the verge of doing it again.
We vampires do not get sick.
We don’t catch the flu, colds, or diseases.
But here I am, my stomach knotting up as I try to keep my last blood meal from spewing all over my beloved’s back.
I sense a hard thump from Maddox before he elbows Caden hard.
“For fuck’s sake, Maddox, just speak,” I snap in annoyance.
A middle finger is waved at me from the front.
Caden chuckles. “I don’t suppose I need to tell you what that meant.” The front windows of the SUV roll down. “But we both want to know if you two rolled around in a puddle of something rotten?”
“No,” I grunt, and snuggle the quivering woman in my arms more tightly. “It’s been a long fucking ordeal. Just get us home.”
“Okay…” Caden drawls out like he doesn’t believe me.
We ride on in silence, each of us in our own thoughts.
My brothers are on edge. Tension has been building since our sire, Asher, found his own soulmarked.
Me being the next to find one and so quickly has rattled us all.
Soulmarks simply do not appear so closely together in time or space.
They are a rarity.
Yet, here we are. Two in the same city within days of each other.
In all my centuries of being a vampire, I’ve never heard of something like this happening before.