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)
Her little sister considered this. “Frozen.”
“Again?” Echo teased.
“Well, do you have a better idea?” Odette shrugged, her tone that of a beleaguered forty-year-old.
Laughing, Echo nodded and picked up the remote. “I’m introducing you to a Disney classic.” When Echo had been a child, their father, William, had been around for her in the evenings. During the day, she had a werewolf nanny who was obsessed with Disney movies. Now that Echo was twenty, William seemed to have passed parenting Odette on to her. Not that she minded. At all. “Mulan.” The movie opening credits started and Echo glanced down at her sister. “It’s about an ordinary girl who becomes a warrior to protect those she loves.”
“Okay, cool.”
A few hours later, they’d watched Mulan (Odette was a fan) and had started Frozen when Odette’s eyelids started to flutter. Echo pulled her sister into her arms, comforted by her warmth.
“Echo?” Her sister’s quiet, sleepy questioning tone drew her gaze from the screen.
“Yeah?”
“There was a new girl at school today. Lucy told her our family is weird. Are we weird?”
For now, Odette was too young to know the truth about supernaturals. She imagined their father would explain the way of things to her at the same age he’d chosen to reveal it to Echo. Eight years old. She’d learned William adopted her after the death of her parents. That if she ever told the truth about who he was or any of the supernaturals in The Garm, she could cause their deaths too. Her innocence had been stripped from her and a dark responsibility placed upon her shoulders. It hadn’t bothered her before. But the thought of the same being done to Odette filled Echo with fear and sorrow.
“We’re not weird,” she reassured her sister.
“I’m the only one at school who has a guard.”
It was true. Echo had endured the same embarrassment of having a bodyguard throughout the entirety of her schooling.
“It’s just to keep you safe. You know that.”
“There’s a new guard.”
There was. Their father had assigned a hulking werewolf to Odette’s daylight guard. “Gideon?”
“Weird name.” Odette wrinkled her nose. “I don’t like him.”
Echo tensed. “Why?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. Just don’t.”
“Has he done something?”
Instead of answering the question, Odette asked, “How come I only ever see you at night now?”
Her six-year-old sister was a little too smart, though. “Because I have a new job that keeps me away.”
“Like it keeps Daddy away?”
Echo hid her scowl. Perhaps it was time to have a discussion with their father about how rare his visits with Odette had become. “He’s just … busy. Making lots of money so we have a nice life.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll never leave you, Odette. I might not be around all hours of the day, but I’m always here for you.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
“Love you.” Odette burrowed sleepily into her side.
A lump caught in Echo’s throat. “I love you more than you’ll ever know.”
Unfortunately, her duty to The Garm and to her father meant leaving Odette as soon as she was asleep to work. The next evening, however, her father had called at the last minute to tell her she had the night off. She didn’t question it. Instead, she waited until Odette slept, then left the apartment to the one she kept for herself, where she had a fridge filled with blood. After slaking her thirst, Echo had gone for a walk around the city and returned to the apartment via the underground entrance.
Later, she would realize it was that unintended sneakiness that had made the wolf bold.
Echo woke abruptly.
Her eyes flew open and her body was stiff with tension beneath the covers. Her whole being seemed to hum with alertness.
She willed the blood to slow in her veins so she could hear, sitting up slowly and zoning in on her newly heightened senses.
The preternatural connection to the world meant she knew the sun was about to rise so she shouldn’t be awake.
Something was wrong.
That’s when she heard it.
Odette’s muffled whimper.
One minute she was in bed, the next she was down the hall and throwing open the door to Odette’s bedroom.
A large figure sat on her sister’s bed, looming over her, his big paw covering Odette’s mouth while his other pressed to her sister’s stomach. His gaze flew to Echo’s in shock.
Gideon. The new werewolf guard.
She could smell the perverse lust pouring off him.
Rage unlike anything Echo had ever experienced threatened to control her. The only thing that stopped her was her desire to protect Odette from everything. Even herself.
“Get up,” she seethed.
The wolf swallowed hard. He was twice the size of her but he knew he was going to die for this. “It’s not what you think.” He stood slowly. “She was having a nightmare.”
Odette burst into noisy tears. “No, no, I w-wasn’t.”
Fury and grief ripped through Echo. “Has he touched you before?”
Odette shook her head, sobbing hard.