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 took a rough breath. “Talk about him as much as you want, Eleri. I didn’t understand what I was asking when I told you never to mention him.” He could damn well fight his instinctive anger if it would help his mate come to terms with her own grief and pain at the loss of the man who had saved her in so many ways, who had protected her when Adam hadn’t even realized the danger.
“I don’t think Reagan ever forgave himself, either.” The Canyon rustled around them in a soft wind. “And he made sure I would never, ever be put in the same position. Because I can do what he can. I can bend memories.”
As Adam’s chest compressed and compressed in a punishing tightness, he waited for her to reveal what horrors she’d covered up with that gift. But no matter what, he wasn’t letting her go.
Not again. Never again.
Whatever happened, whatever she’d done or the mistakes he’d made, they’d figure it out hand in hand.
“Reagan realized it during the WindHaven case, when I was able to sense his bending of the memory.” Eleri’s tone was hollow. “He told me never to reveal my ability to anyone else. With that, he gave me the only freedom he could in a world under Silence, under the Council.”
Once again, Adam thought, the man he had vowed to hate had saved his mate. To say that his emotions toward Reagan Marke were complicated was a vast oversimplification.
“Your parents’ murderer had influential friends,” Eleri continued, as if now that she’d begun to speak, she couldn’t stop. “Js aren’t ordered to bend memories for anyone but the powerful. Reagan didn’t know who those friends were, but the orders came from people he couldn’t disobey and live.”
“Wealth and family,” Adam gritted out. “We dug deep, found links to two Councilors, both of whom are now dead but were in power at the time.”
“Did you ever find out why he did it?” she asked, her hand pressed over his heart in a way that already felt familiar. “We never knew. Reagan didn’t see that in the memory.”
“A reason formed of evil and avarice.” Adam told her all of it.
How the Psy had wanted a piece of land his parents owned; like many winged changelings, they’d invested in a small plot where they could rest up on long flights and that would give them an anchor point in another region. It had required the permission of the changelings who otherwise controlled that region when it came to their kind, but most changelings were accepting of lone or pairs of winged changelings who wanted to have a temporary home.
His parents had loved their little cabin on the plains and had often flown there to spend a week or two at random times. Adam had grown up going there with them—first in a vehicle because Adam couldn’t fly that far even if Saoirse could, then later as a fledgling who’d had to take many rest breaks.
Each and every trip had been an adventure, his father showing him his favorite landing spots, his mother digging up a high-energy treat from her seemingly endless supply of caches across the route, and Saoirse teaching him sky games.
“Asshole thought he’d be able to annex that land after their deaths by legal maneuvers he’d set in play,” Adam added. “He was so arrogant that he didn’t do even the most basic research into changeling ownership structures, had no idea that all that belonged to my parents also belonged to our clan. It’s the changeling way.”
They could own things on their own; there was no rule against it. But most changelings were community-minded by nature and made certain that should anything go wrong, the clan would be able to assume control over their assets. In turn, a good clan, a clan that looked after its people, never took advantage of that faith.
WindHaven had held the property in trust for Saoirse and Adam. “Fucker discovered he couldn’t outmaneuver an entire pissed-off clan with more than a few lawyers in it.” Angry pain that was talons raking his insides. “He killed my parents for nothing.”
It was Eleri’s turn to hold him, her thin arms tight and strong as she let him bury his face against the side of her head and just breathe. “My grandmother executed him,” he told her, his voice a rasp. “I fought for the right but she told me I was too young to be stained by blood, that this was her task as both my wing leader and my mother’s mother.”
Adam hadn’t been able to fight Aria’s right, not when she said it like that. “But she allowed me to bear witness, allowed me to watch her end him.” She hadn’t been frail then, Aria, but she hadn’t gone alone—that would’ve been stupid, and his grandmother had never been stupid.