Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Daddy kissed her cheek. “You panicked when I carried you outside. Was it louder out there?”
“So loud, Daddy. Like ten thousand people screaming.”
“People?” Damon asked.
She shrugged. “And twigs and every animal in the forest. And everyone nearby who was talking.”
The men all glanced at each other. “No one was nearby talking, Baby girl,” Daddy told her. “Some other Alpha Protectors were keeping watch over us, but they weren’t talking.”
She frowned. “I’m sure they were.”
He patted her bottom. “Okay. Well, you can’t hear any of the noises in here, right?”
She smiled. “No. It’s so nice.”
“I’d like to step back out of the room. Do you think you can focus on what you hear so you can tell us, Little one?”
“I’ll try.”
“I’m going to take you outside for a minute, too, so you can compare. Then we’ll come back in here, okay?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Does it hurt?” he asked before opening the door.
She thought for a moment. “I guess it sort of hurts. It’s more like annoying. I can’t focus or hear what I need to hear because of all the other noise. Imagine if you were in a building and the fire alarm went off beside your head. You would feel a sort of pain and cover your ears. People around you might be shouting over it, but you would only see their lips moving. Annoying.”
Daddy listened closely, his brows furrowed. “Okay, you squeeze my hand tightly if it’s too overwhelming and you want me to bring you back in here.”
She nodded and braced herself for the onslaught of noises that were about to assault her. The moment Ezra opened the door, she winced, but she took a deep breath and tried to focus. Think. Listen. She knew this wasn’t normal. She’d never heard of something like this happening to anyone before, and it would seem neither had anyone among the Alpha Protectors.
She looked around the room and thought about what she was hearing, itemizing as many individual things as possible. It was so hard to separate them because all the noises were on top of each other.
When Gavin moved to the front door and glanced at her, she nodded. She could do this. It wasn’t going to kill her. It was just so weird.
The second he opened the door, her breath hitched. It was so much worse outside. For a moment, she thought perhaps she was hearing every single sound on Earth at once.
She gripped her Daddy’s hand where he held it against her front, but she nodded toward the clearing in front of his house. Again she tried to itemize the sounds and voices. She closed her eyes. It was much harder outside because nothing was muffled.
When she was ready, she squeezed her Daddy’s hand, and he turned to hurry back into the house and through to the special room.
Chapter Eleven
Gavin hated the tension on his mate’s face. It was impossible not to internalize her stress. When her heart rate increased, his did also to match. Everything that happened to her physically happened to him.
To a certain extent, the alignment of their bodies was normal. All mates fell into sync with each other. Alpha Protectors and their mates formed even stronger bonds than citizens in the valley. But Gavin wasn’t sure his friends and relatives experienced this same level of synchrony.
As soon as they were all back in the room with the door closed, Molly blew out a breath and shuddered. “That’s so weird.” She threw her arms around his neck. “Thank you so much for building this room.”
“You’re welcome, Little one.” He leaned her back so he could meet her gaze. “I’ll do anything for you, Molly. Always.”
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes, and she swiped them away.
He rubbed her back, not wanting to rush her. “Can you tell us what you heard, Baby girl?”
She turned so she could face the others at the same time. “The thing is I can hear everything. Even though you weren’t talking, I could hear the shuffle of your feet and the rustle of clothes as you each moved. I could hear each person’s breathing, the hum of the heater, and the sizzle of electricity. Every creak in the house. All at once as if there were a microphone blaring them all louder than they should be.”
Everyone listened intently, brows drawn together.
“And when we went outside?” Gavin encouraged.
“It increased a hundred times. Every animal in the area. Their natural sounds, the twigs they step on, the leaves moving in the breeze. It seems like I can hear the air itself. But also so many voices.”
Felix frowned. “I don’t get that part. Whose voices? No one is out there.”
“I think they’re far away. I can’t pinpoint anyone in particular. They’re distinct, but I don’t know any of the people. The only thing I think might give us some idea of how far it extends is that I can hear the collective hum of everything happening in the valley. Nothing specific, but I know it’s the valley because those are sounds I’m familiar with. Cars, horns, school bells. That kind of thing.”