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)
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“Look, maybe we take a break from our little side hustle. Just until things cool down.”
L.W. bared his fangs again. “Another six civilians get killed and that’s your fucking solution? We back off? Have you seen the pictures of the bodies. Rolhand had his upper lip nailed back to his cheekbones and his fangs pulled out—”
“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point, relax—”
“Have I?” L.W. demanded. “The Brotherhood and the fighters need a bigger presence in the field, not smaller. Lash is a fucking machine making new lessers. We’re running out of time.”
Actually, he was the one running out of eyesight. But he wasn’t bringing that shit up. Like everything that had happened with Bitty, his piss-poor peepers were another no-go zone.
“I want to know where Emile and Rolhand were taken last night,” he gritted out. “And I want to personally find the slayers who hurt all of Shuli’s boys and have some fun with them.”
Rhamp took another hit of his vape and exhaled in a whoosh. “You’re telling me this is for Shuli? For the roommate you hate? I don’t buy that for a second so spare me the Good Samaritan routine. You just want to interrogate lessers—”
“Is that wrong? What, I’m supposed to bandage their fucking boo-boos and send them back to Lash?”
“I don’t think you’re just looking for information when you hurt those undead sonsabitches.”
L.W. curled up both his fists, until the cell phone cut into his palm. “What’s that supposed to mean.”
“I’ve seen your face. You like it. You’re a helluva lot more sadistic than you admit.”
“Fuck you.” As a pair of humans jogging down the library’s steps glanced over at him, he lowered his voice. “Those were your boys, too, Rhamp. I’m surprised you’re not more fired up—or are you getting afraid. Did you see those pictures and get rattled, buddy? Mmm? Worried that’s what’s going to happen to you and it’s making you lose your nerve?”
Rhamp’s voice grew uneven. “I’ve got Emile’s and Rolhand’s sisters calling my phone and weeping. I got their cousins asking me how they can go hunting—when they’re aristocrats who wouldn’t know how to hold a gun to save their fucking lives. I’m not losing anything but patience with your fucking attitude.”
“Then leave.”
“You know what your problem is—”
“I don’t care what your opinion of me is, and spare me the emotions of others. It’s never been persuasive before, and it’s not starting now.”
“That why you keep asking if I’ve seen Bitty? Because you don’t give a shit about people?”
L.W. growled into the cold breeze. “She’s not my Kryptonite. If that’s why you’re bringing her up—”
“FYI, I know what you said to her, when you showed up half dead at Safe Place. Everybody knows what you said to her when she offered you her vein.”
Squeezing his eyes shut, L.W. bit out, “This conversation is over.”
“You insult her in the single worst way a male could ever insult a female. And then you just walked away from that, right? Suuuuuuuure you did. Never thought of it again. Never, ever thought of her again—”
“Just get the address where they found those two males,” he snapped. “I don’t care how you do it. Oh, and you can go fuck your- self.”
Cutting the connection, it was all L.W. could do to stop from doing some screaming himself. What kept him from going nuclear on the vocal was the fact that he was on the edge of the field and there were slayers somewhere around him. And as he glared over at the lion statues that flanked the columned entrance of the library, he was frustrated that he couldn’t go where the best hunting was. This was an unlikely part of town to find slayers. It was way too brightly lit, and there were too many humans, even though it was after dark on a cold night.
There was only one thing that the Lessening Society and the Brotherhood agreed on in this war: No one wanted those rats without tails involved.
He needed to be in the shitty part of town, where the drug-house walkups and the abandoned buildings were. Where the CPD Public Safety monitoring system didn’t have cameras everywhere. Where the streetlights were broken, and if there were humans around, they didn’t want trouble.
Where the lessers stalked the streets looking for fighters so they could try to bring a Brother’s head home to their master on a stake.
He’d find slayers there. He always found slayers there.
The problem was, if he ran into a member of the Brotherhood or the Band of Bastards in the high-number avenues of the city? If he crossed paths with one of the fighters?
The complications were going to be historic.
And his father might very well kill him.
Which considering L.W. was supposed to be banned from the schedule for his own safety was just too fucking stupid—