Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94076 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 314(@300wpm)
Except the past few minutes have proven I don’t know him. At all.
His body armor is even more intimidating up close. His arms are lined with gauntlets. Around his waist is a thick metal utility belt lined with slim canisters and pouches for weapons, and his hands are protected by thick Kevlar gloves.
I swallow, imagining the night he wore gloves to touch me. I wondered then how he had them handy, and now I know.
He lets me look my fill. “You found the center of my operations.” His voice is the barest murmur.
“Is that what this is?” My panic-laced retort echoes throughout the cave.
He tilts his head. “Hamish calls it my lair. What would you call it?”
“Evidence.”
He raises his brows. “Evidence of what?”
“Your madness. Your obsession.” I gesture to the suit, the platform, the screens. “Take your pick.”
“Oh, it’s not my obsession. My compulsion, perhaps. No.” He glances up at the screens reflecting our faces back to us. “You already found my obsession.”
It takes me a second to realize what he’s talking about. “The journals.”
“Yes.” He stalks forward, and I back away without thinking. “You were snooping, weren’t you? Trying to spy on me?”
I shake my head, but he’s inside my thoughts.
“Trying to find evidence of my crimes?” He keeps advancing, his gloved fists clenching.
It’s too much. Something in me snaps, a primal instinct to flee. I scramble backward, everything in me screaming Get away!
“Stop,” he commands, but my legs don’t listen. I slam into a console and duck behind it, dashing away before I realize there’s no more platform. I screech to a stop, but I’m overbalanced.
“No!” he shouts, too late. I’m falling into the abyss.
Rex
She teeters on the edge and drops. The moment seems to last hours but only takes half a second.
Fortunately, I’ve trained for this. My reflexes snap into play. I shoot a cable out of my forearm gauntlets and dive after her.
Inara’s eyes are wide and unseeing. The white robe flutters around her naked body. I clamp my free arm around her and feel the cable catch with the other as I swing us to a free platform.
The second I touch down, I scoop her up in my arms and carry her to an offshoot of Command Center and a table-like surface I use to lay analog maps and other ancient documents on the city Hamish digs up.
Inara’s limp in my arms, playing dead, but as I lay her down, she thrashes in a feeble attempt to fight me.
I wrap a gloved hand around her throat. “Stop fighting.” Her neck is fragile in my grip.
Her prey response kicks in, and she stills.
I lean over her. “You want to run from me so I chase you? I’m happy to oblige. But not here. You’re overwrought.” I’ve pushed her too far, and she’s panicked. I have to be careful to bend but not break her.
I stroke her jaw until the fire lights her eyes.
“You’re insane,” she spits at me.
“Perhaps.” I cup her face, so delicate, between my heavily armored hands. “But you share the same insanity, don’t you? The need to hunt. To make the world safe for innocent children. They sleep well at night because we are who we are.”
“I don’t want to be crazy,” she whispers.
“I know. But we didn’t choose this life.” I pull her close, needing her in my arms. Shielding her even as I expose her to all I am.
She shivers against me, her head bowed. She has to be freezing with her bare feet. The air around the platforms is warm from the electronics, but in a cavern like this, there’s always a draft.
“Are you going to kill me?”
I tip her face up so I can see her eyes. “Why would I kill you when I can make you mine?”
Inara
I stare at Rex. I still can’t reconcile the suave billionaire with this armored defender.
But my body knows it’s him. I scoot to the edge of the platform and let my hands trace the suit encasing his powerful form.
“If you wear this, how did you get the scars?”
“Earlier prototypes.” He takes my hand, kisses the palm, and replaces it on the firm plate covering his chest. “I was the main test subject. Wherever R&D needed a guinea pig, I volunteered. It drives Hamish crazy. But what did I have to live for? I had nothing, no one.”
He’s staring at me so intently. I keep studying the armor. It’s more like a fabric in some places and more like rubber in others. There must be steel underneath to make it bulletproof. It’s fascinating, but I’m more preoccupied with avoiding Rex’s gaze.
“You felt so alone,” I murmur, thinking of his boyhood journals.
“I did. But now I have you.” He brushes my hair off my neck. I shiver.
“I need to get you out of here.” He sets his hands on my hips, and I grab his forearms to forestall him.