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 didn’t ask you to do shit.”
As Rhamp cursed and turned to leave, Shuli slapped a hold on the guy’s arm and jerked him back into place.
“He’s right.” Shuli leaned down and still those pale green eyes didn’t shift to him. At all. “Get talking. What happened.”
Long silence. Then: “A flash went off in my face, and my eyesight hasn’t adjusted yet. Okay, Mom?”
Straightening, Shuli catalogued the black blood on the leather jacket and the red blood on L.W.’s puss. “Enough is enough. You need to get this shit checked out.”
“It was just the flash from the stabbing—”
“You’re going to go to Doc Jane or I’m telling your parents.” Shuli shrugged. “That’s where we’re at—”
“Fuck you—”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve redecorated my entire house in bullets and bombs. I’m waiting for the enemy to show up here, and the property is surrounded by Brothers and Bastards. You don’t want to admit a weakness, fine. That’s your choice. But you’re making yourself a liability to me and Rhamp, and I wouldn’t think your ego’d masturbate over that reality. Do you really want to be that much of a lameass.”
Rhamp glanced back and forth between them. Then he shook his head like he wanted to punch them both. “This isn’t the first time, is it. That you haven’t been able to see.”
Shuli just kept staring down at the bed. “I’ll let him answer that.”
There was a stretch of silence. After which Rhamp dragged a frustrated hand through his hair. “Great. So that’s a no.”
“Don’t you want to be able to fight,” Shuli said in a low voice. “If there’s some help Doc Jane could offer you, don’t you want it? So you can do what you were born to do.”
It was the best argument anyone could offer the fucker, the only carrot they had—and God knew sticks were a no-go. The hardheaded cocksucker was too mean and numb to be influenced by threats.
L.W. exhaled as if he were staring down a long drop and contemplating a jump. “I’m running out of time.”
“You don’t know that, until you get a medical opinion.” Shuli rubbed his aching fucking temples. “Doc Jane has to keep everything confidential, so she won’t say anything—”
“You believe that?”
“Yeah, I do. You have no idea what I’ve talked to her about.”
Abruptly, Rhamp started pacing around, his brows down so low, they could have qualified as a mustache. “When were you two assholes going to tell me about this.”
L.W. and Shuli answered at the same time: “Never.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
When Denne arrived at the cabin by the s’Hisbe, she looked at the snowed-in stump of a structure and had an absurd impulse to burn it down. t’On’s words were stalking her and maybe they’d be frightened off by the flames.
Probably not.
At the door, she stomped her boots on the welcome mat and opened the way in. She half expected her parents to be waiting for her, an ambush riding a tide of love and worry that swamped everything. Or maybe it would be t’On again, out of the suit he’d put on for her, even though the feel of it made his skin crawl.
“Fuck me.”
Heading over to the rack of robes, she shucked her parka, and then hesitated. With a heavy sense of guilt, she ran her hand down the falls of fine fabric and stopped on a random one. It was a burnished gold, and with a sudden shot of shame, she couldn’t remember what the color was supposed to mean. Next to it was a burgundy red, and on the other side, a navy blue. Finally, there was the deep purple she’d tossed on last night.
Closing her eyes, she started all over again with the eenie meenie miney—
“Moe.”
Navy blue. She didn’t know what that signified, either. Overriding a choking sensation, she drew the draping off the hanger, but instead of pulling it on, she ran her hands over the heavy woolen folds and measured the even, perfect stitching on the seams. There were three seamstresses who made the royal robes—or there had been three. The eldest of the trio had died last year. They’d been trained in the tradition by the previous generation of masters, who in turn had been trained by the masters before them.
She hadn’t seen anybody else coming in as an apprentice, had she?
She didn’t know. But if no one did, the artistry would be lost.
Slipping the weight onto her shoulders, she was struck by the instant warmth and the reassuring way the folds fell around her body. The fastenings up the front were a series of pearl buttons that were hidden in a pleat that went from the short collar all the way to the hem, and as her fingers worked them, she imagined the old, infirmed hands that had made such precise knots.
When she was finished doing up the tie at the neck, she wondered why she’d never appreciated the details before. And the fit? The robe had been specially tailored to her so that nothing around the neck or shoulders pulled, and the tips of her boots just barely showed at the bottom.