Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
River had his arm casually slung around the waist of a blonde woman who’d come to stand at his side, her face beautiful and serene and full of joy.
A giant of a man sauntered up to Raven. Wholly formidable and covered in ink. Wearing an enormous, welcoming grin, though his piercing blue eyes seemed to be trying to cut right through me to see inside.
As if he should be the one wary of me when the lot of them looked like a pack of trouble.
Peril and affliction and an irrefutable threat.
Theo watched me with an amused smirk. Like he knew something I didn’t.
Undoubtedly, he did.
Kane started introductions. “As you probably heard, this is River.”
“Nice to meet you, Emery,” he said.
“Nice to meet you, too.” The words were thin.
“And this one right here is Charleigh, River’s fiancée.”
Charleigh was just as beautiful as Raven, but in an entirely different way. A soft innocence radiated from her as she stepped forward and smiled.
She reached both hands out for one of mine. Holding it gently as she whispered, “Hi, Emery. It’s so good to meet you.”
Emotion clawed through my consciousness, and some of the tension I’d had locked inside me unfurled.
“Charleigh,” I whispered in a hello.
Kane continued on, pointing at Raven. “And it seems you already have met this one right here, which isn’t a shocker considering she goes around befriending every person she meets.”
Playful affection laced Kane’s voice as he lifted his chin at her. “Raven is actually River’s little sister.”
There was no missing the resemblance.
Both with black hair and midnight eyes, their brows arching in nearly the exact same way.
“I can’t believe this,” she whispered, amazement in her voice. “There was something about you all that had me right here…” She splayed both palms over her chest. “And now…”
She clipped off as if she wasn’t sure she should release the joy.
“It’s a small world, I guess.”
“Or a small town.” She choked it around the happiness I could feel radiating from her.
The real kind.
Her sincerity clear.
Another rush of relief rolled through me.
There was something about them that was…good.
Safe.
Close to the type of safety I felt with Kane when he was the last person I should feel it with.
“And this brute rubbing himself all over her is Otto,” Kane teased.
The man didn’t seem to take any offense. He just grinned as he stretched out a hand to shake mine.
“Really good to meet you, Emery.” His expression was the one that dimmed, sympathy pursing his lips together as he murmured, “Though I am very sorry to hear about your sister.”
A thrum of sorrow crested. “Thank you.”
The pad of Kane’s thumb stroked at the very base of my spine.
It both soothed and ignited a fire.
But in it, I could feel the rush of his compassion.
Something real and true, and God, I had no idea how to make any sense of him.
How to make sense of any of them.
Theo lifted a hand where he loitered to the side. “Good to see you again, Emery.”
“You, too.”
He roughed his hand through the crop of his black hair.
It was the first time I noticed the tattoo stamped on the back.
Two stacked Ss with a dagger running through and an eye in the middle.
The same as Kane had on the back of his, though Theo had a skull at the top where Kane had the wilting black rose.
Awareness dawned, and my attention skated, dipping to Otto and River’s hands and noticing that they all had the same one, only with slight variations.
Kane had said they were close.
But there was something about them that made them seem tied in an intrinsic way. As if their connections reached far deeper than the obvious.
River seemed to notice what I was looking at, and he shifted his hand from Charleigh’s waist to her back to conceal it.
Disquiet gusted.
“Come on, let’s get you something to drink before you stand out here dying of thirst.” Raven broke the tension, and she reached out and grabbed my hand to tug me away from Kane. I didn’t realize I’d basically been leaning on him until he was no longer there for support.
My knees wobbly and weak.
“I literally cannot believe it’s you,” she squeaked near my ear like it was a secret as she snuggled close to my side like I was actually her new best friend.
Like she’d known me forever.
Like anything about this was normal.
She began to lead me back into the house.
No reservations or shyness.
“Um, excuse me…are you going to wait for me?”
The voice echoed from behind, and I peeked back to see Charleigh rushing to catch up, that warm smile on her face.
Raven spun around to face both of us, still holding my hand as she dragged me inside. “I would never leave you. I just knew you would follow because hello, we obviously have to talk about this in private because is this not the absolute best thing ever?”