Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
“Now,” he went on, “I’m not going to throw his sacrifice away without knowing why he did what he did.” He inclined his head at the now smirking Alleena and said, “You will raise her and discover why.”
Alleena’s smirk faded. He watched as she swallowed her denial and rephrased it again. “And if there’s nothing to find?”
“The government wants her for research. You will pick up the fight in court for her as her mother’s only living relative,” he raised his voice a decibel to cut off Alleena’s protest and added, “And as the clan’s only scientist, you will study her blood as the child grows.”
Alleena snapped her mouth shut, her eyes blazing with anger.
“And if there’s more to her?” Ruben asked, stepping in to save his mate from an unforgivable mistake. “Fosch had been acting recklessly –” he ignored Archer’s growl of warning and went on, “but I know for a fact he was a smart man, probably had a good reason to do what he did. Maybe there is something we’re missing.”
Archer inclined his head. “If there’s something, Roxanne will disappear before we have to fulfill the human’s verdict.”
“And if there’s nothing to find?” Alleena repeated.
Archer looked at the infant, contemplating the small bundle, remembering his own daughter. His heart iced around, hardening against the emotion that tried to well up. “If there’s nothing, we can use her to make the humans lose interest in catching one of us.” There was a tiny flicker of guilt inside him, dulled by the numbness he felt for all he had lost. He wondered, even as the other members of the council looked at one another, if he’d come to regret this decision one day, if the iciness surrounding his heart ever thawed again.
There was a shocked pause before Jaspion chuckled. “Ah, if they find that she’s no more than a lesser preternatural, than there’s no reason for their persistence.”
Bebbet nodded. “It was Fosch’s fault they got our trail in the first, it’s only fair his daughter fix his mess.”
Decision reached, everyone stood and left the council room, except for Archer and Roxanne. At the door Ruben paused, glanced at Archer.
“Sir, I’m sorry for your loss.” He said and left, and Archer recalled all he had lost these past years. A daughter, a lover, a friend and now a brother.
He frowned down at his brother’s daughter, hoped she proved to be more than she looked – for his brother’s sake, for his sacrifice. Then he called Laura, his in-house assistant, and ordered her to take the hybrid upstairs, to the room across from Logan’s.