Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
The curdling dread she was trying to hold off with rational thinking returned to her the closer she got to the carnage, but not because she was worried something violent had happened to her male.
Quite the contrary.
She stopped at the pool of blood, and smelled the copper.
It was definitely a human who had done the leaking. But there was something else… black streaks and smudges. On the concrete wall, on the floor by the sanguine pool.
Lowering herself onto her haunches, she swiped her forefinger through some of the strange inky substance—and she didn’t need to make it all the way to her nose. That was the source of the stink.
Wrinkling her nose, she manifested a damask napkin out of thin air, and then decided she needed something stronger. A restaurant-type wet wipe appeared on cue and opened its foiled packet for her, the damp square just what she needed.
As she wiped the nasty off her finger, she reminded herself again that if Lash were just a doormat, they would never last. This, though, was more than a little defiance.
She thought back to the word that had appeared on her wall, when the Book had been engineering this result with the spell it created for her.
OMEGA.
Her eyes focused on the human blood. There was so much of it. Quarts of the stuff.
“Jimmy? Where you at, my man?”
Looking up, she got a stiff-angled view of a security guard stopping dead as he saw the candles lining the corridor. Then he glanced down at her, focused on what she was kneeling by, and went straight-up horror movie drop-jaw. As he sputtered and flapped one of his arms like he’d gotten a bee sting on his wrist, she recognized him. He was one of the younger ones she fucked with when she was bored, making disembodied footstep noises around him and sending drafts his way just to freak him out.
When he started to fumble with the communicator on his shoulder, she rolled her eyes, willed him into some amnesia, and sent him away. She’d have preferred peeling his skin off and leaving him all anatomy-chart on the floor next to what was no doubt his buddy Bobby’s hemorrhage, but right now she didn’t need the hassle of a bunch of cops showing up and going Karen on this situation.
Humans were so reactive to dead bodies.
Just as she was trying not to come to a conclusion that seemed unavoidable, a glint of silver caught her eye. In the midst of the blood puddle, a metal wedge nearly the size of her palm caught the candlelight, and she had to stretch her arm out to reach it.
It was the security company’s shield, torn off a uniform.
As she wiped the blood off with her thumb, she shook her head; and then she tossed the thing over her shoulder. The Lessening Society had never interested her. That shit had been between the Omega and the vampires, the war that had waged for centuries having nothing to do with her shit. Still, from time to time, she had run across the undead, soulless soldiers who had been initiated into the order.
That was the sickly sweet smell. She just hadn’t recognized it at first.
And this was where one had been inducted.
Devina rose to her full height. Then she closed her eyes and put out her hand. When a tickle registered on her palm, she popped her lids. The lock of blond hair was tied with a tiny black satin bow.
She’d cut it from her lover’s head when he’d been sleeping, and as she’d done the snip-snip, she’d had a flare of conscience—not because she’d arguably violated his privacy, but because the spirit of the spell was being tainted by her insecurity.
After all, if this was her true love, why would he ever leave her.
Now she felt like a fucking genius.
Pinching the fibers between her forefinger and thumb, she held the bundle to the dull ceiling light, the strands like spun gold.
They would show her where Lash was.
And when she found him?
They were going to have one hell of a marital moment. A little push-and-pull was fine, but taking off on her? Unacceptable.
Unless he was buying her a present, of course.
That human he just turned better be carrying a fuckload of shopping bags.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath, stood at the entrance of his fucking home with his shitkickers planted and the wind coming up the mountain blowing his hair back like he was Cindy-goddamn-Crawford from the eighties. In a ring in front of him, the Brotherhood was lined up and ready to fight, the scents of their aggression thick in his nose.
Along with their rank-and-stank disapproval that he’d crashed this party.
Like he cared.
What was tickling his whole asshole, to borrow the phrase from Hova, was the arrival of the two males who’d triggered V’s monitoring system way down at the bottom of the mountain. The security sensors had picked them up immediately, and Wrath had overheard all kinds of chatter describing their Mini, their slow ascent up the drive, their disembarkation from that stupid pocket rocket of a toy car.