Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
He pressed the wad to her nose. “You told me this wasn’t dangerous.” An accusation.
“He’s in there,” she managed to get out, then took over holding the tissues. “I don’t know why I’m bleeding.” She turned to let Naia scan her. “I was just listening really hard.”
Adam’s jaw was a granite line, his hand still tight on hers—and his eyes pure falcon. “Eleri.”
“I’m sure,” she said, hearing the question in the crack in his voice. “But I don’t know how to get him out. He’s in two pieces and neither piece is…complete enough to take action.”
“Fuck,” Adam said at the same time that Naia’s expression dropped.
But the healer said, “No damage beyond a few burst blood vessels,” to Eleri before swallowing hard. “Nothing you did had any effect?”
Eleri went to reply, sucked in a breath.
The spreading ripples. Invisible droplets falling onto the pristine surface.
“Wait, wait.” She pulled away her hand with force, forfeiting the precious contact with Adam. “Don’t touch me until I say so.”
She put her hand back on Jacques. Nothing. Silence. Glass. “Now.”
Adam’s fingers sliding through hers.
The pond rippled, that faint shout spearing through.
“It’s you,” she whispered. “He’s reacting to you.” And though she wanted this to be her gift to Adam, she knew she wasn’t the expert in guiding lost minds to the surface, far less a mind cracked in two.
She looked at Sascha. “Try your empathy again, but this time while in contact with Adam. I’ll retain the contact, too.”
Giving an immediate nod, Sascha held out a hand across Jacques’s body, and Adam took it. Then the empath placed her fingers against Jacques’s neck on the opposite side from Eleri. Her intake of breath was audible…right before those eyes of darkest obsidian filled with multihued light.
Eleri had heard that empathic eyes could do that, but she’d never thought to see it in person.
“Come on, Jacques.” Adam’s rough voice, his big body all but vibrating as it pushed half against Eleri…until she felt held against his wide chest.
Sascha broke contact with Jacques. “I can sense him, but he didn’t react to any stimuli.” She looked at Eleri, who’d also lifted her hand from Jacques’s neck. “What did you feel?”
“A reaction every time Adam was in contact with me, a distant shout.”
Sascha frowned. “Can we try again? Perhaps he’s just tired after the first attempts.”
Nodding, Eleri touched Jacques as Sascha did the same. And heard his shout; if anything, it seemed stronger, more resonant. “I hear him,” she said to Sascha.
“I can’t. But…you’re not reading him with your high-level psychic senses. You’re using the most instinctual part of you, a part that’s never supposed to be revealed or used because it’s too close to your vulnerable psychic core.”
What a strange irony, that the thing that was killing her might save a life.
“What do I do?” she asked the empath. “I don’t know how to pull him out.”
Adam made a rough sound in his throat next to her. “You’re bleeding again.”
“Don’t stop me,” she ordered before he could pull her away. “It’s like a thread that gets stronger the longer we maintain contact.”
“Which will be useless if you collapse.” Adam hauled her away. “Sit fucking down.”
The next thing she knew, she had a chair behind her and was crumpling into it, her vision blurred. “Oh.” She was bleeding badly enough from the eyes that it had impacted her vision. “I don’t feel anything,” she protested. “No pain.”
“Be quiet,” Adam snapped, while dabbing at the corners of her eyes with unexpected gentleness. “You don’t just bleed out of your fucking eyes because everything is all right.”
Naia ran the scanner over her again, deep grooves around either side of her mouth. “I’m seeing too many broken or damaged blood vessels for my liking, but no neural damage.”
“There isn’t any,” Eleri said, and, when no one would listen to her, grabbed Adam’s wrist, the bone and muscle of him her anchor. “Please. He’s trapped. I need to pull him out. I can’t leave him in there.”
Chapter 21
5 a.m. Eleri, what’s with the silent treatment? I know you’re awake. You’re always awake at the ass crack of dawn.
6 a.m. If I don’t get a reply soon, I’m calling the Bates Motel you checked into. Oh sorry, the Raintree Inn. (Are you sure the innkeeper is actually alive and her son doesn’t have her preserved in the basement?)
7 a.m. Bram says he’s going to see you today. I told him to make you call me before I go all lunatic redhead on you.
—Saffron Bianca to Eleri Dias (today)
It was the most emotion Adam had seen from Eleri since she’d come to Raintree, and even then, it was a muted thing that told a story of destruction he refused to accept. But that she was fighting through it to help Jacques, it meant something.
“Naia scans you the entire time,” he said. “Jacques won’t thank me if we kill you getting him out.” His best friend was a protector, and he’d expect Adam to make sure no one hurt themselves in an effort to save him.