Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 620(@200wpm)___ 496(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Taurex went still. Apparently there were no thoughts one could hide from a Goddess.
“I understand, Goddess,” he said.
“Do you?”
Her tone was gentle now, but there was something inside it that made him feel like a youngling being corrected by an infinitely patient mother.
Taurex swallowed.
“Yes, my Lady. I will protect myself as well.”
“See that you do.”
“Is Terra with them?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
Something about those two words chilled him.
“Not yet?”
“The male intends to draw her to him.”
Taurex felt his blood turn cold.
“Then I have to reach them before she does.”
“Yes.”
He thought of Terra facing the man who had stalked her, photographed her children and put his hands on her against her will. Of course she would go to him if he had Cody and Lisa. Terra would walk straight into the Seven Hells themselves for her younglings.
And Orlov knew it.
“Please, My Lady, tell me if there is anything else I need to know,” Taurex said urgently.
For a moment, the Goddess said nothing, and Taurex had the strange sensation that She was looking at him—not at his body but through every layer of him, seeing his grief and his love and all the things he had tried unsuccessfully to bury beneath work.
Then Her voice filled him one final time.
“Do not concern yourself with whether Terra will choose you when this is over. Do not concern yourself with Bonds or mating or what you believe you have lost. Go because two frightened younglings need a warrior, and because the woman you love needs help whether she asks for it or not.”
Taurex closed his eyes briefly.
“Yes, Goddess.”
For one instant, the Goddess remained, and he felt as though warm arms were enfolding him in a comforting hug.
Taurex lowered his head.
“Thank you, Goddess.”
A warmth unlike anything physical moved briefly through his chest.
“Go, warrior.”
And then She was gone and the shuttle suddenly felt very small and very quiet.
Taurex sat motionless for perhaps two heartbeats before all of his training took over. He made a call to the Monstrum Mother Ship and informed them that he needed the fold in space redirected to Earth’s orbit instead of to Mars. Then he engaged the new flight path, pushed the engines to maximum safe output and raced toward the fold.
His grief was still there. Nothing had changed between him and Terra. She might still want nothing to do with him when this was over, and Taurex would accept that if it was her choice.
But none of it mattered now.
Cody and Lisa were in danger. Terra was in danger. And somewhere on Earth, Viktor Orlov believed he could take the woman Taurex loved by using her children against her.
Taurex’s nostrils flared as a low growl filled the shuttle.
Orlov was about to discover his mistake.
“Hold on, younglings,” he murmured as the stars ahead of him began to bend and the fold point opened like a dark wound in space. “I am coming.”
Then Taurex drove his golden shuttle into the fold and headed for Earth.
34
TAUREX
The coordinates the Goddess had given him led Taurex straight toward downtown Tampa, and the closer his shuttle came to the glittering cluster of towers rising beside the bay, the more puzzled he became. He checked the navigation system twice, certain he must have entered something incorrectly, but the glowing marker remained fixed on the same location.
When the sleek Montana Building finally came into view beneath him, its glass exterior reflecting the early evening sunlight in long sheets of gold, disbelief gave way to a cold, simmering anger. The children weren’t being held in some abandoned warehouse or remote compound on the edge of the city, as he had imagined when the Goddess warned him they were in danger. They were here—inside his own building.
“What in all the Seven Hells?” Taurex muttered as he magnified the coordinates. His golden eyes narrowed when the navigation system isolated the exact floor. The signal originated only one level below his own penthouse.
Orlov had been living right beneath him.
The knowledge made something savage twist inside Taurex’s chest. How long had the human male been there? Had he deliberately chosen an apartment so close to Terra’s workplace, or had the arrangement been some kind of grotesque coincidence?
Taurex doubted the latter. From everything Terra had told him, Viktor Orlov was a male who watched and waited and collected information until he believed he possessed enough leverage to take what he wanted. Apparently that obsession had led him directly under Taurex’s feet.
He guided the golden shuttle to the building’s rooftop landing area and brought it down silently. Ordinarily he used the parking levels when operating in terrestrial mode, but there was no reason to announce his arrival today, and the roof offered direct access to the private elevator system reserved for the uppermost residences.
The instant the shuttle settled, he was out of his seat and moving, every warrior instinct he had spent years training rising effortlessly to the surface. His earlier grief had vanished beneath something much colder and more useful—purpose.