Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
This was happening a lot lately.
“I don’t believe you,” he heard himself say.
As he departed, he didn’t kill the messenger. He wanted the male to go back to where he’d come from, and take with him the fact that the ruse hadn’t been fallen for.
And there was a second reason to keep Whestmorel alive.
He knew how to get hold of the aristocrat.
If Lash was wrong, and this was an honest offer of treason, there would be time to reel it in. The most important thing right now was to find out exactly why his own energy was being drained, and deal with that first.
Then he could proceed.
With other things.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Lyric arrived first to her grandparents’ house, and the instant she walked through the front door, she could smell the death. As she breathed in, the surface scents were all the same, the floor cleaner, the Windex, the coffee, the shampoos, and that horrid medicinal tint, everything she was used to, but now there was a deeper undertow to the familiar, a musty calling card that, though she had never had it in her nose before, some ancient part of her was able to identify.
As she shot down to the kitchen, she stumbled to a halt. There were so many people in the house, clustered in the family room, gathered over the counter by the sink, seated at the table. Faces turned to her, and looked at her with love and sadness—yet she couldn’t place them even though she had known each all of her life.
Smothering a cry, she wheeled toward the first-floor bedroom, her sloppy boot falls echoing the chaos in her mind. She had known this was coming. They all knew this was coming. So why was this such a shock—
The door was closed, but she didn’t knock. She burst in, broke in, fell in—
Lyric pulled up short. Her granmahmen was lying back against the pillows, her eyes closed, her face drawn and nearly gray, the smocked front of her flannel nightgown showing only the frailest of breaths.
She was still alive. Barely.
Kneeling by her side on the bed, Rocke had one of her hands in both of his, his stricken visage pale and tearless, for undoubtedly he had no more tears to cry. And at the dying female’s feet, Lyric’s fathers were crouched together, Qhuinn holding Blay, who was just staring down—
Loud footsteps rushing in had Lyric glancing over her shoulder.
Rhamp all but mowed her over as he arrived, but she didn’t have the energy to bicker about being shoved out of the way.
Especially as her twin stopped short like he’d forgotten how to move.
Blay looked up. “Hi, guys. Come on in.”
As if they were young once more, they did as they were told, and shut the door quietly. But when they didn’t approach the bed, Rocke smiled and motioned at them.
“Get closer, so that she knows you’re both here. I have a feeling… I think she’s aware of us. All of us.”
Lyric took a step forward—and when Rhamp didn’t follow, she hooked her arm through his and brought him along. At the bedside, there was space to sit a hip down, and she took advantage of it, opposite her grandfather.
“Hi, Granmahmen,” she choked out. Then she looked at her dads. “What happened? What changed?”
Blay took a deep breath. “About fifteen minutes ago, her heart stopped while I was checking her oxygenation. It started again on its own. Then stopped a couple of minutes later… it’s just time. Ehlena and Doc Jane said they could try and give her stimulants, but…”
Through the lump in her throat, Lyric addressed her namesake: “We’re here, too, Granmahmen. Rhamp and I are here.”
She expected her brother to chime in. When he didn’t, she glanced at him. He hadn’t sat down, but rather was hovering on the periphery, his eyes on the wall across the way, his body tense as a statue.
“Rhamp,” she whispered. As he looked at her, she nodded at their granmahmen. “Rhamp’s here, too,” she said more loudly.
He shook his head and took a step back, his hand dragging down his face.
Lyric refocused on their granmahmen and saw more clearly what her frantic first glimpses had missed. The elder Lyric’s mouth was slack and blue-tinted, her sunken eyes ever so slightly open but surely not seeing anything, her hollow chest barely inhaling… barely exhaling…
“I love you,” Lyric said roughly as she stroked the thin white hair.
She thought back to just nights ago, when she had stretched out next to the female. Those moments had seemed important, then. Now? They were precious beyond any earthly wealth, for they were the last ones she was to have.
Sniffles percolated up, and she realized they were coming from her.
And then she looked at her granmahmen’s free hand as it lay on the flowered quilt, so still, the purple veins and white bones showing through the paper-thin skin.