Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
The bomb hasn’t even fully detonated before he’s stepping slightly away to join his brothers.
“Ladies, meet your new Council,” Lucian announces. “The Slater brothers. Rook, Kane, and Calloway. I assure you, with them at the helm, you’re in good hands.”
Cal
With gentle hands, I unwrap the now-cooling cloth from Romy’s feet and replace it with another as she lies back on the bed upstairs—the one we completed our mating in just last night.
I wanted to leave and take her to a hotel, but when Hillary, Abigail, and fifty percent of the other women decided to stay at Lucian’s mansion, Romy said she couldn’t in good conscience go anywhere.
I, of course, understood the feeling.
The differences, however, are noticeable. The armoire is permanently moved and the shade lifted, and bright moonlight spills across the floor. Happy gabbing and consorting among the women is audible from the hall as they move from one room to the other, playing music and making calls on their newly returned phones.
Kylie, Rook, Kane, and Blair now occupy rooms here in the main house, and dinner tonight was shared and made with love by the whole group. Though, we vampires didn’t do any of the actual eating.
Contact with the outside world is restored, autonomy is back, and the vibes within this old, moody house are charging forward in a steep ascent.
It’ll take time for everything to be sorted entirely, and I’m not exactly looking forward to my new role as some kind of governmental figure, but I am thrilled to have the chance to be in control of my own life.
For Romy and Blair and Kylie and their relatives and friends to be at the helm of theirs.
Still, the condition of Romy’s feet burns in my chest, and the fight she was left to put up on her own as they ran for their lives courses through me in ways only a mated vampire could understand.
It’s my job to protect her. My job to provide care and ease and love. And tonight, I let her down.
“Hey,” she says, her voice soft as I spiral through thoughts of could’ves and would’ves on repeat. “It’s no big deal. I’m okay. You’re okay. Your brothers are okay, and so are all the women. I’d say that’s a pretty good outcome.”
I shake my head, applying an extra towel to the outside of her new dressing. “Never again will you know the fear you had here. Never again will you have to go it alone.”
She laughs, and my head jerks up from her feet to meet her eyes.
They shine with unshed tears and the kind of consideration I never dreamed I would have from someone. It’s special. Unspeakable, even. “Cal, I wasn’t alone today. Sure, I was running through some woods while you were here fighting, but I carried you with me the whole way. When I reached out, you answered.”
She shakes her head, and a small smile covers her pretty mouth.
“In the middle of, like, an epic battle, you were answering me.” She snorts. “Do you know how many men say they can’t answer a text during a simple meeting in the human sphere? How they don’t have time for a call between work and the gym?”
“It doesn’t scare you that I did what I did today? Scare you that I’m capable of it?”
Romy’s lips are soft as she purses them toward me. “That you killed for me after saying very early on that you would kill for me?” She sighs. “No. You said what you meant, and now I know I can count on your word.”
Climbing her body carefully, I kiss every inch of skin left exposed by her small shorts and cropped tank top. I create a trail from her legs to her stomach to her chest, and I don’t stop until I make it to her mouth.
“Who knew this outfit my mom forced me to bring would come in handy,” she teases in between kisses.
“I know a bonding is much different than a relationship usually is,” I say softly, my lips turning up at her amazing ability to find the humor in any of this. “It’s lightning-fast and leaves no room for negotiation.”
“Cal, let’s be honest. Our bond is the slowest in vampire history.”
“What?” I tilt my head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“I’ve been in love with you since I was ten,” she answers with a laugh. “Over a decade in the making? We have to have set some kind of world record.”
“I love you,” I say, kissing her slowly until she wraps her arms around me, and all the noise of this house and my mind fade completely away.
“I love you too, Cal,” she gasps, breathless from the kiss in a way that reminds me how precious her humanness is. It’s a gift. She is a gift.
The greatest of all.