Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Crack, crack, crack, crack!
Another four dead, and the pain lessened.
Then suddenly, she was yanked out of vamp speed and hauled against a hard body. Echo struggled, knowing she could break a human’s hold in seconds, but abruptly stopped when she saw the wooden stake touch her chest over her heart.
“Not so cocky now,” Lincoln snarled in her ear.
Elijah leaned over his parents, guarding them. They were pale but didn’t seem to be in pain anymore. Seven coven members’ bodies littered the carpet. Energy crackled in the air as Elijah stood and when he turned to face them, Echo sucked in a breath.
His eyes were bright gold, and the energy she sensed was coming from him.
Oh, they’d pissed him off good.
What a sight he made.
She even heard Lincoln’s intake of breath.
Echo smirked. Good luck with that, warlock.
Elijah’s strange but beautiful golden gaze took in the dead and then Lincoln, holding Echo captive with a stake. A witch stood at either side of Echo and the warlock.
“You tried to kill my parents.” Elijah’s deep voice rumbled coldly. He didn’t sound like himself at all. A shiver skated down her spine.
“We’re trying to protect you,” Lincoln replied. “And if you don’t come with us willingly, I will stake your vampire girlfriend right through the heart.”
“I don’t think so,” Echo said coolly.
“Shut up, vampire. This is between us men,” the warlock said.
So the wrong thing to say.
She was a blur, knocking the wooden stake from his hand, and turning in his arms. Her incisors lengthened as she lunged at his neck, his flesh popping beneath her sharp teeth as she aimed for his carotid. His blood burst into her mouth, and Lincoln Blackwood, who had at first tried unsuccessfully to dislodge her, slackened in shock. Major artery hit, lifeblood flowing into her, and within ten seconds, his pulse slowed … and then stopped.
And Echo was no longer hungry.
Two birds, one stone.
She felt little remorse. The Blackwoods had destroyed so many lives over the centuries.
“No!” a female shrieked behind her, and suddenly Echo was yanked back at the same time the curtains over the window were pulled away. The fading glow of the sun as it set crackled across Echo’s body, and she screamed in agony as her skin reddened and bubbled like it was boiling.
A whoosh of wind blew her hair around her face, and then her back slammed hard against something as the pain receded. Muffled shouts were followed by familiar cracking sounds.
She blinked, panting for breath as cognizance returned with the easing of her pain. Elijah.
He’d sped her across the room, crashing her into the wall out of the sun’s path. Shivering as her skin healed itself, she took in the sight of Elijah closing the curtains. The two remaining witches were on the ground, their heads turned at sick angles.
Elijah had killed them.
She sensed his despair, grief, and shock roll into her from across the room.
Clearing her throat, unable to look at his parents, Echo said softly, “They would have killed your parents and me. You did what you had to.”
A moan drew her attention, and Echo’s heart broke as Bill pulled a sobbing Nancy into his arms. They looked stunned.
And no wonder.
In less than five minutes, their sitting room had turned into a battlefield, a mass murder scene.
Elijah watched his parents with a hellish look on his face. He looked remorseful and grief-stricken … but then something flashed across his eyes. Something vengeful.
Good.
He’d need that fire to get through this.
He looked at her. His eyes drifted over her face, something she didn’t quite understand in his expression. Then she realized her lips and chin were covered in Lincoln’s blood.
What did he think of her now?
Did he see that she was part animal, part savage?
Did it disgust him?
And why did it matter?
Concern wrinkled Elijah’s brow. “Are you all right?”
It wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. Pushing away from the wall, Echo looked down at her hands and saw they were as good as new. “I’m fine. If the sun hadn’t already been setting, I would have been a goner. Thanks.” She nodded at him. “For pulling me out of the way.”
“Thank you for saving my parents’ lives.” He crossed the room, not looking at the bodies. “If you hadn’t moved so quickly, they’d be dead.”
Echo watched as son and parents reached for one another, embracing tightly. Elijah kissed his mother’s forehead, whispering apologies she said he didn’t owe her.
Emotion clogged Echo’s throat. She allowed them some time and disappeared into the kitchen to clean the blood off her face. When she returned, she stepped toward them. “The sun has set. We need to move before others come. But we need to deal with the bodies first. Or should I say, you do, Elijah.”
“Me?” he asked warily as he stood to his full height.