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)
Dahlia poked her fork into a piece of honeydew melon but didn’t bring it to her lips. “Fair enough. I can’t stand cheats, either. How’d she do it?”
“Poisoned his whiskey. Nothing easy, either—a drug that took three days to kill him, all the while making him so sick that he couldn’t get out of bed. She, meanwhile, kept on playing throughout. She was what the media termed a ‘knockout blonde.’ ”
Dahlia whistled. “I think she fits the definition of ‘tough broad’ like in those vintage movies Jacques likes to watch. Can I ask what it was like? Being in her mind?”
Adam stiffened, his protective urges rising to the surface. He knew he should keep his mouth shut—his grandmother would rise from the ashes and slap him upside the head any moment now, but he couldn’t stop himself. Not when Eleri’s face had been a mask of blood so recently.
Then Eleri shot him a look as he went to part his lips. And he wanted to grin. Yes, she was his mate all right; they might not have bonded yet, but she’d known exactly what shit he was about to pull and had called him out on it without saying a word. He shut up…and imagined a lifetime of such piercing knowing between them.
Fuck, he couldn’t wait to live life with her by his side.
There’s no coming back from this, no future road.
Adam’s falcon released its talons inside him. He’d meant what he’d said; he wanted her exactly as she was, exactly as the years had shaped her to be, not some image of perfection—and he planned to make her see that, understand that.
Mates were for always, through every season of life.
“Not all Js like to talk about the minds in which we’ve walked,” Eleri told Dahlia. “But I don’t mind answering about the poker player—her mind was pristine, a house with not a single item out of place.
“She didn’t have obsessive thoughts about murdering and torturing people, would’ve never committed murder if not for her addiction to the game. Even the torturous murder of her former partner was, to her, a fair punishment. She didn’t revel in it. To her, it simply had to be done.”
Dahlia narrowed her eyes as she chewed, swallowed. “That’d be me,” she said at last. “If I were to murder my hypothetical cheating partner. Gotta be done. Nothing personal.”
“No, you have too much passion in you,” Eleri responded. “You’d go into a frenzy. No premeditation.”
Only Adam saw the wistfulness in her gaze, heard it in the voice that seemed to give away nothing. Far from judging her, Eleri envied Dahlia for her ability to feel with such violent depth.
“Well,” Dahlia said after a pause to drink her iced tea, “I did track down my ex and sat there on his balcony at midnight deciding whether or not I wanted to rip off his balls with my talons, so yeah, it’s possible you’re right.”
“Use a knife. Talons would make it obvious it was you.”
Dahlia almost snorted the tea out of her nose.
Grinning, Adam slapped her on the back.
When his second recovered, she said, “You and me, Eleri. We’re going to be best friends.” She glanced at Adam, then at Eleri again, but whatever suspicions she had, she didn’t voice them.
Instead, having finished her meal, she got to her feet. “Time for me to take a short flight to wind down, then rest up for an afternoon shift. We’ll talk about the exact knife later.” A wink aimed at Eleri.
After they were alone, Adam touched his mate’s booted foot with his own. “You like her, don’t you?”
Eleri was overwhelmed in ways she’d never experienced. By this place full of sunlight and warmth. By the man whose legs now bracketed hers, and whose big body sat in a relaxed sprawl that did nothing to hide his deadly core. By the falcons who sunned themselves only feet from her.
By this glimpse at a life she could’ve had.
“Yes,” she managed to say through the emotional deluge strong enough to penetrate the gray wall. “She reminds me of a friend of mine. He can be hot-tempered, too, but he’ll never let you down, always have your back.”
“Bram Priest?”
Chapter 26
Bayani: Ran the sample through my fancy new gadget and got exactly nothing. That’ll teach me to shop late at night and fall for Internet ads about mobile geological survey devices with cutting-edge “diamond laser” tech.
Saoirse: Don’t worry. I tried to see if it’d hold against the shield disrupter we use to test the capacity of our aeronautical shields. I now have a lot of sand in the machine.
Bayani: Why are we like this?
Saoirse: We’re scientists.
—Messages in the Why Is the Canyon Weird investigation group (circa fall 2082)
Eleri stared at Adam. “How do you know Bram?”
“He came to grab your evidence—and threatened me with grievous bodily harm if I’d done anything to you,” Adam drawled with a grin. “You should give him a quick call so he doesn’t come after me.”