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)
“I’m sorry,” he said roughly as he removed her shoes so she’d be more comfortable. “I was a complete asshole. You know why, don’t you?” His breath hitched in his chest as he spoke the truth for the first time. “It wasn’t just grief at the loss of my parents. It was grief at losing you.”
Trauma upon trauma at the worst point of his existence. “I can forgive the kid I was—he was messed up, angry, and grieving before he ever met you. But the way I’ve been since you walked back into my life? I hope you kick the hell out of me in return. I’m pretty sure Jacques will do it for you once you tell him what a shit I’ve been to you.”
He wanted his best friend and his mate to meet, to like each other, to gang up against him when he was an ass. He wanted to introduce Eleri to his sister, to Amir and Malia and Tahir. He wanted to tell her all about his parents and grandparents. And he wanted her embedded in his clan, surrounded by people who’d die for her and whose loyalty she never, ever had to question.
“No matter what happens from this point on”—he cradled her face—“I’m yours. And I will fight for you. For us. I will be your safe harbor as I should’ve always been.”
Because he wasn’t fucking ready to just accept that his mate’s death had been preordained by the psychic butchers who’d gone in and eviscerated the heart and soul of the girl who’d wanted to bandage his hurts so many years ago.
His falcon released a battle cry.
Chapter 22
Break-in at the Daniel home. Nothing appears missing, except for a fresh quart of milk that the intruder emptied and left on the kitchen table. Mrs. Daniel thinks he also helped himself to cookies from her jar. (She showed me the crumbs around the jar.)
Mr. Daniel thinks it’s “punk-ass teenagers” doing it as a dare. Likelihood of that being true is very high.
I did a walkaround regardless. No broken latches or locks, and the Daniels say they leave their door unlocked more often than not, so the intruder must’ve just walked in.
—Report logged by Deputy Jocasta Whitten, Raintree Enforcement (12 December 2083)
The intruder sat in the sleeping family’s home as the first brush of dawn kissed the sky outside, calmly drinking a cup of coffee he’d made using their fancy coffeemaker. They’d start waking in the next fifteen minutes. First mom and dad, then the adorable two point five kids.
He’d looked in on the point five. Cute kid. A few months old it looked like, but he was no good at judging the age of babies, so who knew? But it had been awake and kicking its legs in the crib when he’d glanced into the nursery. He’d have had to make a run for it if the kid had started bawling—he didn’t hurt babies; he wasn’t a psychopath. But the baby had just gurgled baby nonsense at him.
Adorable.
Smiling back at the little chubster, he’d started up the mobile of sea creatures above the kid’s bed, after making sure the sound was off. The baby had grinned and stared up with big blue eyes.
The intruder had padded away from the nursery and down the stairs as quietly as he’d gone up. He was hungry, but there was no time to make a good breakfast. The coffee, however, was excellent—rich but not bitter.
It calmed his racing mind, allowed him to think. He’d been running on too little sleep of late, burning the candle at both ends, as that old-bat neighbor of his liked to say; she was always watching, that one. Tiny pinprick eyes in that wrinkled-up prune face. She was lucky he’d shaken off the urge to strangle her and just taken to drugging her nightly milk toddy while she was upstairs changing into her nightgown.
No point drawing attention to himself by having a murdered neighbor. Old bat would drop dead soon enough anyway. But he was making mistakes in other ways. If he hadn’t been, then Eleri Dias wouldn’t be at the inn, wouldn’t be poking around town. Even these break-ins on home soil were careless.
He’d started them in an effort to stave off the whispers in his head.
After all, he was no ordinary serial killer driven by impulse. He had a plan, had a timeline. Yes, he hadn’t expected the J who was his playmate in this game to track down his home ground so quickly, but she was here now.
No point avoiding it.
Better if he used it, ramped up the game.
The whispers were eager now, his entire body humming.
He tapped a gloved finger against the bone china of his coffee cup.
She’d spent a bit of time with Adam Garrett. The falcon leader had visited her at the inn. Most people probably wouldn’t have noticed, but he wasn’t most people. He’d made it a point to notice.