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)
Allhan was back at the Wheel, still racked out after the horrible shit from the night before. The fact that the male wasn’t currently at his desk stripped off any urgency to roll-call the other teams and the assignments—and was yet another insight, not that he was looking for it, into exactly how much that one particular male took up space in V’s head.
Rent-free.
V glowered and pulled a pivot. As he went for the Audience House’s back door, he wasn’t limping. Much. And thanks to his mahmen’s intelligent design of vampires and their ability to heal, his nose had gone a long way to getting back to normal as well. No more bandage required, and the fact that he had two black eyes? Who cared.
He could rock the Goth and fit in with Qhuinn’s purple hair.
The rear entrance to the facility was one of the many security points he’d created, and as he eyed the dumbass wreath that was currently a circle of tangled bare birch branches set with cardinal birds and fucking cranberries, he wanted to tear the damn thing off and stomp on it. His hands were tied, however, as it was part of the setup, the ruse, the no-worries-you’re-safe-here routine. To that end, there was also a matching one on the front entry the civilians used, and Fritz took special pride in reflecting the seasons and the various human holidays with them. V didn’t give a rat’s ass about making people feel comfortable. He was interested in the shit that mattered, the shit that actually kept everybody safe, as opposed to just created the illusion of safety.
But if he ever did anything to one of those wreaths? Fritz’s lower lip would quiver, and V was a tough guy, but there were limits to even what he could withstand.
In order to access the Audience House from the rear, there were three different checkpoints to get through, the back-to-back sequence requiring passage granted by his staff at each successive steel door. In between, the contained spaces were under the total control of his team, especially the one in which he could, if he had to, neutralize any threat through chemical agents.
Standing on the stoop, he looked into the security camera eye that was so tiny, if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t spot it under the eaves. And then he waited. Even though he was the architectural mastermind of it all, he followed the rules like everybody else, waiting for clearance to be given.
It was fucking inconvenient. But with safety came—
V stepped into the first containment space and glanced up at the camera. There was a pause, and he was granted the next closet-sized room. And then he waited again.
The last of the steel panels opened, and the smells were total bakery, everything that was flour and butter on a sheet in a three-fifty oven wafting into his sinuses.
Not that he was a big Danish guy.
As the staff stopped what they were doing and turned around with expectation like they were prepared to wallpaper him with cinnamon buns, he reminded himself that, again, making doggen cry was not a look.
“I’m good, true?” he said as he strode out of the kitchen as fast as he could.
The urge to let loose his temper on the cooks was only about the stress he was under, and besides, two seconds of blowing up would just lead to two hours of torture with him having to pull a panicked Fritz out of a tailspin over quality control issues that did not exist. Everything that came out of this kitchen could have taken up window space in a Parisian café. To the point where you had to wonder if the civilians who came here were looking for advice from their King, or calories that came with coffee and jam.
As a public service—so he didn’t run into any of Saxton’s paralegals or other staff—he let himself into the solid steel core of the facility. Just his luck, Hollywood was waiting for him, a big, blond gorgeous mountain of gotcha.
“Here he finally is, Mr. Cheerful.” Rhage grinned around the chocolate Tootsie Pop in his piehole. “And look, no Band-Aid on your Rudolph. What a good little healer.”
“Fuck off,” he muttered as he shoved his way by. “Tohr made it?”
“Yup, he’s in there.” Rhage stepped in behind. “You’re the caboose. Another minute and a half, and I was going to have to go get you and drive you in.”
V opened the access panel. “Spare me.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
The Audience Room was a pine-floored, bulletproof-window’d space with two armchairs in front of a crackling hearth full of birch logs. Currently, the space was SRO with brothers, and Wrath was sitting in his usual ass palace on the left.
No ball slapping, yukking it up this evening. The silence was pin-drop perfect, the air thick as a brick wall, and nobody was smiling.