Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 274(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 183(@300wpm)
Liam flushed, his hands balling into fists. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he managed, blushing. And never mind that it had nearly happened last night. “Come on, Jules. It’s really important! Aren’t you worried for him at all? He’s your brother.”
“Yes,” Jules said in a mild voice. “He’s your brother, too. But you seem to keep forgetting that.” Jules’s expression was a mix of curiosity, revulsion, and fascination. “I’ve never seen you like this before.”
Liam scowled, pursing his lips and turning away. “Fine. I’ll go by myself if you don’t care.”
“Wait, I’m coming with you,” Jules said with a sigh. “What about Eric? Should we take him with us? I think he’s still asleep.”
“Let him sleep,” Liam said, barely suppressing the urge to snap at him to stop wasting precious time.
During the helicopter ride home, he closed his eyes and tried to analyze whether he really was acting strange. Was he? He wasn’t this snappish normally; that was true. He was usually a lot more sensible and even-tempered than that. Could Jules be correct and it was just some kind of mate-related separation anxiety? Was it possible? Anthony hadn’t bitten him. He’d just grazed his teeth against his mating gland. They’d always been very attuned to each other.
Whatever this bad feeling was, it wasn’t going away.
Please let him be okay.
It was the only thought he had for the rest of the ride.
The ride home felt excruciatingly long.
It didn’t help that Liam had to spend most of it pretending to be asleep to avoid Jules’s probing questions he had no answers for.
He didn’t want to talk about it. All he wanted was to see Anthony and make sure he was all right. He wanted to be wrong about Anthony being in danger. He would gladly bear Jules’s I told you so if it meant Anthony was perfectly safe and healthy.
Finally, they were there.
Liam jumped out of the helicopter before it even finished landing.
The sound of a gunshot made Liam freeze.
Then, he was sprinting toward to the house, ignoring Jules’s calling his name.
He yanked the front door open and went still at the sight.
The first thing he saw was blood.
Lots and lots of blood.
It looked very red against the white wood floor. The blood was coming from the wound in Uncle Wayne’s thigh.
There was a tall, dark-haired man standing over Uncle Wayne with his back to Liam. For a moment, Liam thought it was Anthony, but in the next, he instinctively knew it wasn’t: the slope of his shoulders was different, and this man seemed a little wider.
The man had a gun in his hand.
Liam swallowed, looking around frantically. Where was Anthony? Who was this man? Why had he shot Uncle?
Jules collided with his back. “Ouch!” he said, snapping him out of his disjointed thoughts.
The man didn’t turn. “You’re under arrest,” he said, putting electromagnetic cuffs on Uncle Wayne’s wrists.
Uncle Wayne looked deathly pale, and it might not have been just from the loss of blood. “You can’t prove anything,” he croaked out.
“Oh, I very much can, Uncle,” the man said.
Liam frowned. Uncle?
“Uncle?” Jules said, voicing Liam’s confusion.
At long last, the man turned toward them.
Liam gasped, hit with a wave of familiarity. He knew this man. He knew him.
But—but—
The man smiled, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. (Liam knew him.)
“Li,” he said.
Liam shook his head dazedly, unable to grasp the most logical explanation for this.
“You’ve grown,” the man said softly. “I can’t believe you’re twenty already.”
“Who the hell are you?” Jules said, moving forward. “What’s going on here?”
The man’s eyes shifted to Jules and he smiled crookedly. “Juli,” he said.
Liam felt faint. A memory flashed to the forefront of his mind. The niggling feeling of wrongness that he got the first time he heard Anthony call Julian Jules. The teenage Anthony had never called Jules that. It had always been Juli. Jules was the nickname Julian had insisted on since he was six or seven, long after Anthony had left for the war.
Anthony shouldn’t have used the new nickname. It should have been Juli.
It should have been Juli.
Which meant…
Which meant…
“Ant?” he breathed out. Ant. That was what he’d called the teenage boy with bright blue eyes who carried Liam on his broad shoulders. The boy—the boy was this man. Liam remembered him. He remembered him.
Holstering his gun, the man walked toward him. He paused in front of Liam and visibly hesitated, a deep furrow appearing between his brows. “Why do you stink of…” He trailed off and shook his head before pulling Liam into a hug.
Liam stood still and stiff in his embrace as his heart tried to grasp what his brain had already understood. This was Anthony. Ant. This was his real brother. Which meant…
“What the fuck is going on?” Jules said. “I don’t understand. Where’s Anthony?”
Liam’s heart dropped before soaring. They weren’t brothers.