Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103719 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 519(@200wpm)___ 415(@250wpm)___ 346(@300wpm)
“Look,” she said, “I’m about to crash for the day, so let’s get on with this—”
“I understand you have some information about… Deer Mountain.”
Instantly, she remembered ascending a trail, pine trees crowding in around her, the night so much more dense and dark than it ever was in Caldwell… as an entity like nothing she had ever seen before appeared in her path.
You have a disease of the soul. If you do not cure it now, it will destroy you.
“Are you still there?” whoever the hell it was asked.
“How about we start with an apology. I waited for you for an hour back in April—that view was nice enough, but not where I wanted to waste sixty minutes of my life.”
“I’m really sorry about that. Something… came up.”
“I’ll bet. But no loss on your side—because I don’t know anything about that mountain.”
Or what the hell she’d seen on it.
There was a pause. “That’s not what my contact told me—”
Coughing interrupted the flow of words, and it was a while before the choking was reined in. Naturally, Xhex twiddled her proverbial thumbs by recalling what that entity had said to her, the words nudging up into premonition territory, the whole interaction the kind of thing she had deliberately forgotten—
There is a path before you, my child. It will be long and dangerous, and the resolution of your quest is not clear at this time. But if you do not start… you will never, ever finish.
“I was told you could help me,” the caller finally resumed. “That you knew things.”
She cleared her throat. “You were misinformed. I don’t have anything to say to you about Deer Mountain—”
“It’s not for me. It’s for my… well, she’s not my wife yet. She’s… searching for her community, and we have reason to believe it is on that mountain.”
This was a human, she decided.
And didn’t that make her even less interested in getting involved.
As the scent of John’s conditioner wafted out of the bathroom, Xhex glanced again in the direction of the marble enclave. Clearly, things had progressed all the way to the end of his shower routine. The fact that he always did the same thing, in the same order, was like a metronome to cleanliness, a to-do list he checked off, and she liked that about him.
She liked everything about her male…
For no good reason, she considered how she’d feel if he needed help. And what she would do to get whatever it was to him.
“What kind of community are we talking about?” she asked even though she didn’t want to.
“She’s… not like me.”
“That tells me nothing, sorry.”
“She’s not like you, either.”
As Rehv had been the reference, maybe Mr. COPD on the other end of the phone knew he was talking to a vampire. But maybe he didn’t.
“She needs to be with her kind,” the man said roughly. “She needs… to not be alone in this world.”
Something in the tone made Xhex frown and sit up, her legs swinging off the bed. As the balls of her feet made contact with the antique Persian rug, she moved them back and forth, the feel of the wool brushing her callouses the kind of thing that she couldn’t decide if she liked or not—
All of a sudden, another memory came to her. It was clear as a bell, and was accompanied by a feeling of dread: Vishous staring at her with those icy eyes of his, the Brother’s voice low with warning as he’d told her he’d had a vision of her. After which he’d uttered a single word.
“Wolven,” Xhex heard herself say.
No pause now from the man: “Yes, she’s a wolven. And if you know what that is… well, I don’t know how you fit into all this or what your connection is to that mountain. But I’m running out of time and I need help, so I’m willing to grasp at straws.”
Caught in her own head, Xhex muttered, “If you’re short on hours, you should have showed up back in April.”
“I thought you said you didn’t know anything about the—”
“I’m not interested in arguing with you.” She needed to snap out of this: Not her problem. “And I can’t help you because I don’t know shit—”
“I’m dying. And I can’t leave her alone in this world. I just can’t. Please… help me.”
Well… what the hell did she say to that.
Can of worms, she thought. This was a total can of night crawlers, everything a tangle of big, fat fish bait.
“I really don’t know what I can do for you.” Over in the bathroom, the water was cut off, the dripping loud, the sound of her mate flopping a towel around his body quiet. “Yeah, I did go up that mountain once. But there was nothing there other than rocks, trees, and pine needles on the ground.”