Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
The irony of that was not lost on her. She had been afraid of Taurex. She had looked into those golden eyes and begged him not to hurt her. But when her children were in real danger, he was the one who had come for them.
Terra wiped her cheeks and looked upward through the windshield at a narrow strip of blue Florida sky between the downtown buildings.
“Thank you,” she whispered. She wasn’t entirely sure who she was talking to. God, certainly. Maybe the Monstrum Goddess Taurex believed in too, though Terra wasn’t exactly sure how that worked theologically and she was far too overwhelmed to worry about it right now. “Thank you for sending him,” she added softly.
Then she started the Honda again. This time she obeyed the speed limit—mostly. Her heart was still pounding, and she knew she wouldn’t truly believe her children were safe until she had Cody and Lisa in her arms, but the cold fist of terror that had been gripping her insides was finally loosening.
There would be questions later—a lot of questions. How had Taurex known where to find them? Why had Orlov been in the same building? And what had Taurex meant when he said Orlov would never bother anyone again?
But she would deal with all of that later, Terra told herself. Right now, only one thing mattered—her children were waiting for her.
And somehow, impossibly, so was Taurex.
38
TERRA
The rest of Terra’s trip to the Montana Building existed afterward only as a series of disconnected flashes in her memory. She remembered parking the Honda badly, half over the line in the garage, and vaguely remembered someone calling after her when she rushed past the front desk, but everything else had blurred beneath the pounding need to see Cody and Lisa with her own eyes.
Taurex had told her they were safe. She had heard their voices. She knew, rationally, that they were waiting for her upstairs, but the terrified mother inside her refused to believe any of it completely until she could touch them herself.
The golden elevator seemed to take forever despite the fact that it was probably the fastest one Terra had ever ridden. She stood with both hands clasped tightly in front of her, staring at the glowing numbers as they climbed while her heart hammered so hard against her ribs that she could almost hear it. When the doors finally opened onto the private penthouse foyer, she rushed out before they were completely apart and barely remembered punching in the access code before the enormous doors opened.
“Mom!”
“Mommy!”
Two small bodies came flying toward her.
“Oh, thank God!”
Terra dropped to her knees just in time to catch both children as they slammed into her. She wrapped one arm around Cody and the other around Lisa, dragging them so tightly against her chest that she knew she was probably squeezing too hard, but neither child complained.
“Thank God. Thank God. My babies!” she whispered over and over.
The tears came immediately—hot and unstoppable—sliding down Terra’s cheeks as she buried her face, first in Lisa’s hair, and then against Cody’s shoulder.
She touched everything she could reach as though she had to reassure herself that they were real—the backs of their heads, their shoulders, their little arms and hands. Cody was saying something about being okay while Lisa was crying into Terra’s blouse, but for a long time none of the words registered. All Terra could think was that they were here. They were alive. They were warm and solid in her arms, and no one had taken them away from her forever.
“I thought I lost you,” she whispered brokenly, kissing Lisa’s forehead and then Cody’s cheek. “Oh God, I thought I lost both of you.”
“We’re okay, Mom,” Cody told her, though his voice trembled.
“The Bull-man came,” Lisa added tearfully. “He saved us.”
“I know, baby.” Terra kissed her again. “I know.”
She didn’t know how long they remained kneeling there together, tangled in one another’s arms in the foyer. It might have been thirty seconds or five minutes. Time had stopped making sense somewhere between the text message Orlov sent her and Taurex’s phone call, and Terra no longer cared. She only knew that gradually the frantic pounding of her heart began to ease and the world outside the little circle of her children started coming back into focus.
That was when she became aware of Taurex.
He was standing several feet away in the doorway that led into the main living area, giving them space. His enormous body seemed to fill the opening, and his horns framed his head against the pale walls, but there was nothing threatening about him. He was simply watching the three of them with a solemn expression in his golden eyes, and something about the way he stood there—silent, patient, asking for nothing—made Terra’s throat tighten all over again.