Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
“We typically ask our new members to wait until their trial period is over before we take that step….” The elder trailed off, his eyes darting back and forth between mine and whatever he kept eyeing over my shoulder. “I don’t believe you have much longer left. When you’re ready, choose the days and times that you would want to meet with interested parties, and we have a schedule where they can sign up.”
This suddenly felt very, very real and very, very unreal at the same time.
“Like how mealtimes are scheduled?” I asked in a dry voice.
He gave me a tight little nod.
I’d always said they’d thought of everything here.
“What do you think about that? Do you have a problem waiting for that period to be up?”
The hand on my back fell away. It’d been so steady there for a minute that I’d forgotten Henri was still touching me. My spine suddenly felt lonely and cold.
But too freaking bad.
I picked up my speared sausage and bit into it. Only after I swallowed it did I say, “Sure. That works. I think… I think I’m going to wait until then. The three months, I mean. I’m about halfway through. It should be here around the corner, right?” The weak smile that took over my face fell off as quickly as it had arrived.
The suspicious old man pushed up his glasses, but he nodded.
Child?
Are you there?
I woke up with a gasp—a wild, sucking gasp that had my heart beating like crazy in the confines of my chest. It felt like I’d just gone down a steep drop on a roller coaster, except I was in bed with Duncan snoring away by my feet.
It hadn’t been him. It hadn’t sounded like him. That… that voice had been louder and too clear. Way deeper than my donut’s.
But it had definitely been male.
Had I dreamt it? I tried shaking away the grogginess clouding my brain. I didn’t think I’d been asleep long.
I’d heard it though. I knew I’d heard it. It hadn’t been a dream.
“Hello?” I asked out loud, more hesitantly than I should’ve been considering I usually thought so highly of myself for not being scared of things.
The only answer I got was in the form of Duncan’s snores getting even louder. There was no voice coming from under the bed or in the closet. Not out loud, not in my head, like how Duncan and his mom could communicate.
Nothing.
Shoving the covers away, I stood up and slipped my feet into my shoes before opening the door. Duncan still didn’t stir, so I turned and took the staircase, trying to listen. My gut said I hadn’t imagined it.
The hallways were just as empty as I’d expected them to be at this time of night. Agnes had to be dead asleep, and I didn’t expect Franklin to be roaming the halls either. At the front door, I threw it open.
“Hello?” I called out, looking around, for a sign? For red eyes? For someone randomly standing there? For something. “Hello?” I was louder that time.
“What was that?”
I screeched, flinching so violently I almost pulled a muscle in my abs, as I whipped around, ready to fight for my life… only to find Henri standing in the doorway, looking sleepy and grumpy.
And only wearing sleep pants.
Loose sleep pants. There wasn’t a shirt in sight. Just… muscles.
Lots of muscles.
Broad, bulky pectorals that had chest hair sprinkled across them before tapering into a flat, hard stomach with another sprinkle of dark hair there too, his waist thick but firm—
Quit it.
I snapped my gaze up to a safe zone. “Did you hear that too?” I asked, a little high-pitched from him surprising me, not from his chest hair. “Or am I going crazy?”
His eyebrows came down on his forehead as he frowned. There was a crease across his cheek from a pillow that was way cuter than it had any business being. It made him look so… normal. “I heard… something.” Those clear, bright eyes flicked down to my pajamas—a faded T-shirt that barely reached the tops of my thighs.
Oops. I’d been too distracted to put shorts on.
His jaw tightened before he lifted his eyes and asked in a slightly funny but sleep-rough voice, “You all right?”
“I’m fine.” A shiver came out of nowhere, racking up and down my spine. “You heard something then too? Because I still feel like I’m imagining it.”
He dipped his chin even as his irises roamed from my face down the rest of me one more time, lingering low for longer than I would’ve expected. I didn’t need to touch my legs to know there were goose bumps up and down my thighs. “Sounded like someone talking in my dreams.” He frowned even more. “You scared?”
I shook my head, thought about it, then shrugged.
It was one thing to have Duncan talking to me telepathically, but a stranger?