Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
He shook his head. “Nah. Been quiet all night. Lights went out in the house at about ten-thirty.”
“You check?”
“Did a sweep of the exterior of the house every fifteen minutes. Just like you instructed.” He grinned like I was ridiculous.
“Appreciate it,” I grunted.
“Anytime. You know we’d have your back even if you weren’t stepping up for us.” He lifted his chin to give his gratitude for what I did at Kent’s place.
“One less monster roaming the earth, the better.” Felt no shame in claiming it.
He let go of a low chuckle. “That’s the way we see it, though my gut tells me Kent isn’t gonna be pleased about it.”
In thought, his head drifted to the side. “Doubt much he’d show up here, though, as isolated as it is.” Then he grinned. “Besides, pretty sure it’s going to be Silas who gets pressed.”
His tongue swept his bottom lip, and something hard filled his voice. “Though I think that’s exactly what our Pres wants so he can finish the job.”
“Elena hurt?”
He barely shook his head. “Don’t really know. Silas has kept her hidden at the clubhouse. Locked up tight so no one will get to her. Refuses to let any one of us in there, either.”
“Hope she’s good.”
“Think she’s gonna be, thanks to you.”
Changing the subject, I jutted my chin at my cabin. “Thanks for being here.”
“Any time, man, any time.”
He looked around the forest, lifted his face to the sky as he took one last drag of his cigarette, before he stubbed it out with the toe of his boot. Smoke billowed around his head as he raked a hand through his longer hair. “I’ll let you get to it, whatever that is.”
Gravel crunched under his boots as he wound around me and swung onto his bike. The engine roared as he kicked it over. He gave me a salute before he backed out and started down the lane.
Far slower than I’d taken it on my way here.
I watched until the taillight disappeared in the foliage and the sound of the engine became a dull reverberation.
Hit with an urge I shouldn’t entertain or succumb to, I hurried up the porch steps, guts tangling with the need to see Daisy.
With it, a gust of wind blew through. The tops of the trees swayed and howled against the darkened swath of sky.
I wasn’t sure what I felt in the middle of it.
Something that slowed my steps and had me shifting around to peer into the nothingness.
A ridge of protectiveness sharpened my spine, and prickles of awareness lifted on my skin.
I’d been through enough in this life that I’d developed a sense.
This thing inside me that warned when there was trouble.
It crawled over me then like the scattering of a million bugs.
Throat growing tight, I pulled my gun from the holster hidden at my back, took it between two hands, and cocked it.
Drawn, I looked back at the house, a thirst so great to rush inside and see that they were whole and safe.
But I could feel evil crawl across my flesh from somewhere in the shadows. Wickedness that curled and snapped in the distance.
I had no other choice but to check it out.
I eased back down the steps and began to slink toward the line of trees where I felt it radiating from.
The moon filtered down, enough that the sky wasn’t completely darkened, but the second I stepped beneath the canopy of the trees, the light became a hazy vapor. It made it difficult to see more than ten feet ahead.
The forest was dense, and the bushes and vines that grew from the damp floor seemed to come alive at this time of night.
The thin trunks of what felt like a million pines and the heavy, thick trunks of the oaks blurring together to obscure my vision further.
Everything seemed to move. The forest becoming animated.
Heart thumping like a bass drum, I eased deeper into its dusky depths, my ear tuned to every noise and movement and creak of the forest.
Nothing seemed out of place, but there was still something that drew me further.
A claw that hooked into my chest and lured me forward.
The need to protect that little family was so intense I could hardly breathe.
Those breaths were shallow and jagged as I increased my pace. A severity took me over as I hunted through the maze. The intensity growing with each step.
Urging.
Pressing.
I began to run.
Branches scraped my arms and whipped against my face, pinpricks of pain biting into my skin.
I shoved them away, my eyes racing and rushing as I attempted to discern where the cruel energy was coming from.
A brutal volatility that swilled in the air and whisked through the trees and sent my feet clambering through the forest.
Faster and faster.
Blood sloshed through my veins, and I kept an arm up to protect my face as I barreled through the fog.