Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132437 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 441(@300wpm)
He was going to need to support himself.
The shower took five minutes and not because he wasn’t thorough—well, he didn’t spend a lot of time on his junk, that was for sure. But the rest of his body and his hair, he covered with an efficiency he was used to, even if his surface area had increased tenfold.
It was so weird, he thought as he stared down at his relatively flaccid sex. When he’d gone through his transition, he hadn’t gotten an erection. He’d heard some males did, and maybe it was because, in his case, there had been so many people around when the change had happened.
Maybe it was also because Lyric had been the one letting him take her vein and he’d had enough presence of mind not to disrespect her like that. Whatever the reason, this evening’s wake-up call had certainly dispelled the notion that he might be impotent.
He was the damn poster boy for Cialis.
By the time he was dressed and stepping out into the hall, he didn’t feel totally refreshed, but he was definitely restarted. And when it became obvious that nobody else was in the residence, and a check of his texts confirmed this, he felt bad that he was so relieved. He couldn’t dwell on that, though. He had shit he needed to take care of.
On that note, he made sure location services were off on his Samsung.
Hitting the Wheel on a fast-track tempo, he skirted along the circular corridor while praying he didn’t run into anybody. Given what had happened last night, he did not want sympathetic eyes or words. He wanted everybody to ignore him.
Duck-and-cover remained his mode while he went through the check-ins required to come up into the interior of Fritz Perlmutter’s house. He kept expecting to be denied passage, given that Vishous ran all the security, but clearly the Brother didn’t intend on keeping him a prisoner. Emerging onto the yellow Colonial’s front porch, he glanced around the development. When nobody rushed forward to stop him from leaving, he closed his eyes and dematerialized toward the downtown, praying that he didn’t re-form in the middle of a road sign or a lamppost.
Or a moving car.
By some miracle, he managed to avoid an embedded impairment, and as a chaser, he also found himself where he’d intended to go.
The roof of the Caldwell Public Library.
Taking out his burner phone, he stared at the darkened screen. The city was alive all around him, cars flowing over the twin bridges in both directions, lights twinkling in the windows of the skyscrapers, pedestrians walking in huddles to parked cars, to the bus stop.
He was jealous of every single one of those rats without tails.
Whatever their problems were, at least they were not betraying the very male who had taken them in and treated them as a son.
As he signed into the unit with a code, his gut rolled and he bent down, thinking he was going to dry-heave again. When he didn’t, he went into the phone log. There was only one number listed, the back-and-forth of calls received and sent out going to the same 518-area-code-led destination.
Things were answered on the first ring.
“Where were you last night.”
Allhan closed his eyes and pulled his shit together. When he reopened them, there was no wobbling, no hesitation, no stutter.
“There were extenuating circumstances.”
“Oh?” came the drawl. “Tell me more. No? Cat got your tongue?”
The accented voice made Allhan’s skin crawl, and he remembered the bodies in the snow last night. The blood. The suffering.
“You’re out of time, vampire,” the lesser cut in. “I’ve been patient with you, but I’m done with that.”
“You’ll get what you need. This is not an easy task, I told you.”
“It’s been six months—”
“No, it’s been three since I’ve started to really get inside.” A wholly unfamiliar surge of aggression went through him, his fangs tingling in his upper jaw and then descending. “If you want the addresses of where the Black Dagger Brotherhood stay, I have to get them under the radar. I’m of no use to you if I’m caught and killed by the King because I rushed this.”
“So give me what you have.”
“One whole list. That was our deal. Besides, piecemeal is useless to you. You have to attack all at once or they’ll move and the addresses will be worse than worthless. They’ll become traps for the likes of you—”
“You have no idea about my plans.”
“You want to be Fore-lesser.” When there was a beat of silence, Allhan heard his new, deep voice go even deeper. “Did you think I don’t know how things work for you? And strategy is everything in war, whether you’re going after your enemy or your enemy is your own fucking job competition. Don’t blow your chance with impatience.”
“You have a week,” the slayer gritted out. “And then I’m going to visit the one address I do have. I’ll be sure to give your regards to your sister. She’s going to like me. A lot.”