Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Comfort was important. If at any point she was too hot, too cold, too hungry, too tired, or too in pain, she might throw up her hands and declare she didn’t want to do this anymore.
I imagined the labyrinth hearing her, taking her at her word, and spitting us back out. Possibly even barring us from reentry.
I didn’t have the time to try to find another willing witch. This had to work the first time.
If that meant I had to cater to her every want and whim, so be it. It would all be worth it in the end.
“Maybe,” she said. “But I think I just want a quick shower first. Then an actual meal,” she said.
I simply nodded, biting my tongue to keep from reminding her that the many snacks she’d eaten in the car certainly seemed enough to constitute a meal. Albeit a nutritionally devoid one.
“By all means,” I said, waving toward the bathroom. “There should be a robe to slip on until the clothes get here,” I said.
She was quick to seek some privacy.
Alone, I waited for the bag to arrive before slipping out of my shoes, then climbing up onto the bed furthest from the window. If an accident—or not an accident—happened and the curtains opened, it would give me a chance to seek shelter before I burst into flames.
I hadn’t realized just how tired I was until I was finally able to relax.
I was asleep in moments, still listening to the sound of the water slapping onto the shower tile floors and trying not to think of Roxanne alone in there, naked, the water cascading down her body.
__
I woke with a start, knifing up in the bed, feeling adrenaline surge through my system.
Something felt… wrong.
My gaze slid to the curtains, still finding slivers of light peeking out of the very edges where the curtains didn’t quite kiss the wall.
The bed next to mine was empty, though there were wrinkles in the bedding like Roxy had been there at some point.
I slid off the bed, something akin to dread filling my system as I moved around the half wall toward the bathroom. Finding the door open and the room empty.
Roxanne wasn’t in the room.
Panic shot through my body as I slipped into my shoes and rushed toward the door, thinking she’d taken advantage of my unconsciousness to get herself free. Of me. Of our arrangement.
“Roxanne?” I called, rushing down the hallway toward the elevator.
I went down to the lobby, rushing around, asking random guests if they’d seen a small, blonde woman.
“Roxanne!” I called, going back up to our floor.
That was when I heard it.
My name.
Really, she must only have been whimpering. But with my hearing, there was no mistaking it.
“Nathaniel.”
She was in one of the rooms on our floor.
Had they come in and stolen her?
Had they caught her coming back—likely from venturing out for food—snatched her, and stashed her in another room?
How had I managed to sleep through all of that?
Had she tried to call for help? How long had she been whimpering my name?
A growl, primal and growing in intensity as I ran, moved through and out of me until I closed in on the door where I heard her soft sniffles.
Pulling up my foot, I slammed it into the door.
The rage must have made me underestimate my strength.
The door flew off the hinges, ramming back into the wall where it exploded into pieces as the three vampires from earlier turned in unison.
The growl grew louder, reverberating through the room, vibrating the walls until the mirror in the bathroom cracked, splintering around the tiled space.
I was vaguely aware of Roxanne murmuring under her breath as all the vampires charged at me.
But they were young.
Hardly more than baby vampires, really.
It wasn’t going to be much work to dispatch of them.
Except, of course, I wasn’t at my full strength. Each day, I was becoming less and less vampire, and more and more mortal.
When all three came at me at once, the weight of them felt impossible to shake as I rammed backward into the wall to dislodge one of them as my hand went out toward the other one’s throat.
On the floor between the beds, Roxanne’s voice grew stronger as she crawled over toward the windows.
She was chanting something, but the snarls of the baby vampires were drowning out the words.
A spell, maybe?
A ward?
But she was on the move regardless, maybe not trusting herself or me to protect her.
Bothered by the idea of that, I threw one of the vampires off of me, watching as he rolled off of the bed and fell to the floor.
“Nathaniel!” Roxy called, voice tight. “Get out!” she added.
When I turned, she had her hand on the curtain pull.
I didn’t hesitate.
I threw the last vampire out of the way, then rushed into the hall, slamming back against the wall between the two rooms.