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)
But those gifts she couldn’t grasp from destiny’s cold arms.
All she could do was hope that those who loved him would make sure he didn’t fall in the aftermath of her death.
“Eleri?” Adam’s body in the doorway, his hands on either doorjamb. “Ready to go?”
“Yes.”
• • •
Adam left her at the inn with a press of his lips to her temple that made her stone tears turn to stabbing shards. This man, good and kind and with a heart as huge as the sky that was his home, would forgive her anything. And she was about to brutalize that heart. Because if she didn’t, she’d destroy it, destroy him, and devastate the clan that looked to him as their strong, loving center.
Acting on autopilot, she checked her files were updated and loaded to the correct systems. She didn’t bother to remove her security devices after all, and in doing so was able to bring her departure time forward by at least forty-five minutes. She wrote her letter to Adam, set the time-delay email.
And was done.
You promised you’d never lie to me.
She rubbed a fisted hand over her heart at the words she knew he’d say to her if he knew her plans, the ache a dull throbbing. And she was glad she couldn’t feel the full strength of it, because this, it was bad enough. “I’m sorry,” she said aloud as she went to walk out the door.
Her phone buzzed.
Glancing down, she saw it was Adam. And the same instincts that had led her to this town turned her blood to ice. “What’s happened?” she said as she answered, her nails cutting into her palm and her mind a glacial field.
“Malia’s been taken.” His voice was clipped, hard, determined. “Left the Canyon at eight to attend a breakfast picnic with her friends. An hour into it, they turned around and she was gone. We tracked her scent to the parking lot.”
This is because of me.
If anything happened to Malia…“Send me the location. I’ll meet you there.” And hope she could hold back Exposure long enough to find the beautiful, bright girl raised in happiness who’d never touched darkness until Eleri led it straight to her.
• • •
“She’s on the way,” Adam said to Dahlia, who stood at the top of the path that led to the grassy picnic area in Raintree. The best tracker in the clan due to her unique genetics, the wing-second had already flown a wide circuit and failed to pick up any trace of Adam’s niece.
Rather than wearing her out by having her flying aimlessly, Adam had asked her to return in the hope that all of them working together could narrow down the search area.
Another member of his clan was keeping watch on the site from above.
Detective Beaufort and Deputy Whitten had been on shift at the time of the call and were already doing interviews with everyone who’d been in or around the park at the time, with Hendricks scheduled to join them after he’d caught a few more hours of sleep post his recent night shift.
Enforcement and WindHaven had already blasted Malia’s name and likeness across the state. They all knew that no child of WindHaven would just take off, wings or not. It was one of the first things the clan taught their fledglings—to have wings is freedom, but with that comes responsibility, and of the latter, their Mali had an inordinate amount. She was the quintessential big sister, the organizer among her friends, the girl with a seven-year plan for college and beyond.
Never would she worry her family and clan this way.
Amir’s wing swept by to the east. Adam’s brother-in-law was terrified but determined, as was Saoirse; they’d both taken to the air the instant they’d heard that Malia had gone missing.
Following his gaze, Dahlia said, “All I need is a hint of a scent and I’ll track down that murderous fucker.”
Because everyone agreed this was the Sandman. Raintree hadn’t had a kidnapping in decades upon decades, and for it to happen now, while Eleri was on the trail of a serial killer she believed resided in this town?
Not a coincidence.
Adam’s mouth tightened. “We need to keep you fresh,” he said. “Go to the Canyon, handle things there. I’ll call you the instant we have a direction.”
Everyone else who could search in the air was up there, including juveniles supervised by adults they’d promised to obey. Adam hadn’t been about to force Malia’s friends to sit on their wings when they were smart, strong young people who knew how important it was they do this right.
But there were others who couldn’t fly, or who had to stay put to take care of their vulnerable. The flyers, too, would be returning to regroup and refuel. One of their senior team needed to be at home base. “Wake Pascal and Maraea if I call you.” The two wing commanders had gone to sleep just thirty minutes earlier and didn’t even know of the emergency.