Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
I’d just been joking earlier when I thought Things Going Wrong was the story of my life.
I was never going to joke about that shit again.
Struggling back up to standing, I stumbled around the side to grip the handles just as The Defender dropped his head forward to hang loosely. As fast as I could, I turned and pushed the wheelchair forward. I was pretty much bent at the waist, pushing with every single ounce of my strength, heading for the ramp that was fortunately right there. When I was close enough, I started running toward it to build up momentum.
It only barely worked, and my hamstrings were on fire as we did the turns and made it to the door. It only took a second to punch in the code. Then I huffed even more to push him through the doorway and into the kitchen, grateful I hadn’t set the dead bolt there. I’d beat myself up later for forgetting, for being lazy. Setting the wheelchair against the wall right beside the door, I kicked it closed harder than I needed to. I flipped the lock, even though I realized that wouldn’t do shit against someone like him.
I wasn’t going to worry about that. Not yet. I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen anything. Definitely not a pale purple twinkle that had to be a star.
Running into the living room, I grabbed a throw pillow and then went back into the kitchen, tucking it in behind his head to support it a little.
Finally, I dropped back to my knees, back to struggling to catch my breath. I’d thought I was in better shape than this. Then again, when the hell had I ever trained to push someone this heavy around?
Never, that’s when.
I was going to need to go to a chiropractor. Maybe get an X-ray.
After a moment, when my chest was still rising and falling like crazy but I could actually breathe through my nose almost steadily, I lifted my head and planted my palms against my thighs. Then I shuffled around.
In front of him.
The Defender’s head was drooped, but his frame wasn’t shaking as badly as it had been.
Maybe that wasn’t a good thing though.
Setting my hand over his wrist, I snuck it under and pressed my fingertips to where his pulse would be and waited.
A thump.
One second, two seconds, three… one too many before another.
One, two, three, four, more and more, and then another thump.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I choked. I hoped that was normal. I mean, he wasn’t human-human, so his heart shouldn’t beat the same way, right? Easing my fingertips away, I sat back on my heels and finally got a good look at him.
The familiar suit was mostly torn away from his body. A lot of tan chest was exposed; his bottoms clung to his legs for dear life. The entire right side of his cape was gone, like someone had ripped it right down the middle out of anger.
That wasn’t terrifying.
Okay. No reason to worry about that. Lifting my gaze—
Oh.
It suddenly made a lot of sense why his face was so blurry in pictures and videos. It almost didn’t seem possible to me either to be seeing what I was seeing, and I was looking at him, face-to-face. I had to blink twice for my eyes to absorb him. Maybe camera lenses couldn’t handle what they focused on. What he really looked like.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Primordial was beautiful, and The Centurion looked like he could have been some kind of sun god to an ancient civilization. He was unbelievably handsome.
But The Defender…
He was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen.
Gorgeous wasn’t the right word to describe the smudged, dirty face. Thick, dark eyebrows highlighted a smooth forehead and sharp, lean cheekbones. His hair was so dark I wasn’t sure whether it was brown, black, or a shade in between. His perfect nose, rectangular jaw, and the fullness of his mouth tied all the pieces of him together into a package that was almost too fucking much. He was rugged and elegant at the same time.
He was big. Not hulking. Not bodybuilder sized, just… muscular but proportionate. Like a light heavyweight boxer that wasn’t actually light weight.
The most surprising part about him though was his bright red, almost sunburnt cheeks.
His eyes opened, and I stopped breathing.
The Defender’s irises glowed purple like stained glass held up against the sun.
Not blue, not gray, purple-purple. Violet maybe. Intense and bright, and 100 percent not human.
I felt like a deer in the headlights as that intense focus settled on me.
“Are you okay?” I asked like an idiot once I’d snapped out of it, like I hadn’t just seen him struggle to simply move. “Should I call an ambulance? I don’t know if I can get you into my car, but I could probably drive you to the hospital, even though I’m sure the military or someone would come pick you up in a helicopter. Or… or The Primordial would come get you. Or The Centurion.”