Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
He frowns slightly. He wants me to be earnest. He wants this moment to matter. And it does. So I stop being an asshole.
“I would marry you even if I wasn’t currently imprisoned, Armand. You’re the only person who has ever made me feel loved. You are my safe place. That’s why I don’t mind being down here. Whenever I am with you, I know I am going to be okay. I don’t have to want to spend the rest of my life with you, I know I am going to.”
“You are perfect,” he says, cupping my face in his hands. “And you are mine.”
We breathe in the moment together.
And then I have to break the silence, because I have a question that has to be answered.
“How do you know I didn’t kill the detectives?”
“That’s a long answer. I can give you the short version: I found out someone else killed them. But it’s related to the next thing I have to tell you. Some of your family are arriving soon.”
“They are?” I pause. “They’re already close and they’ve been killing people, haven’t they.”
“Yes. And you’ve already met one of them.”
“I have?” I narrow my eyes a little, thinking… and then it hits me. “Not Volkov. Tell me it’s anyone but Volkov. Tell me it’s someone I ate. Tell me it was Duplante.”
He winces as I talk.
“I’m sorry, but it is Volkov.”
“Fuck. No. I’m related to that guy? Why?”
“I don’t know why,” he laughs. “If it helps, I don’t think he’s a close relative. A second cousin or something like that. I am guessing. He may be even more distant. Everybody coming is a distant relation, I think. Your immediate family…”
“Died because of all the killing, because that’s what happens when you’re a violent, murderous creature. Eventually, the murder comes for you.”
“Something like that.”
I throw myself back on the bed. “Can I not meet them? What if they’re all like him? Can you not tell them I’m serving time in your fuck dungeon?”
“Nothing is ever as I expect it to be with you,” Armand says with a smile. “You don’t have to see anybody you don’t want to see. Not Volkov, not any of them. I’ve offered them a place to stay, but I will banish them if you like.”
“Banish them,” I laugh. “No, don’t do that.”
“I think your entire extended pack have fallen on hard times. There’s a reason they couldn’t come for you in that orphanage. The part of the world you come from has been at war for a very long time.”
“So they sneaked a therapist here?”
“Volkov is the alpha. When I put the call out, he heard about it. Also, when you pay ten million dollars for a shifter girl in an orphanage, people hear about it. I think he came out of curiosity. And when he realized who you were… he started putting events in motion.” He lies down next to me. “I think he was going to kidnap you, but thought better of it.”
“He was going to kidnap me?”
“That’s my guess. He didn’t say that. He did say something about trying to take you to live with his pack, but I think that might have been bluster. I don’t think there’s anything left.”
“So we’re all ending up here, in your pack. A whole pack of murderous shifters. Are you worried?”
“No more than usual. Are you ready to be released from captivity and welcomed into the bosom of your family?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll stay here for now. You can stay down here as long as you like. I’ll keep you safe from yourself and everybody else.”
He wraps his arms around me, and makes a nuzzled apology in my ear.
“I’m sorry, Beatrix. I’m sorry for all this shit. If I had just left it alone, Volkov wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t have gone to Bordeaux, there would never have been a file, no bad dreams. I could have made this so simple, but I fucked it up for both of us by trying to dig because I had this stupid obsession with whether or not anybody else had ever been with you. I’ve blamed you for all of this, but most of the time it was me putting you in situations you should never have been in.”
“So I’m down here because of you. Not because of me,” I say, trying not to be too smug, but being a little smug anyway.
“Maybe you should have been down here all along. Maybe down here isn’t so much a place as it is a state of being. Locked away, just you and me, focusing on ourselves, not worrying about our pasts, or what people want from us. And maybe I should worry less about what you do in the world. Maybe murder is a viable way of handling people who are problems…”