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)
Eventually, Elijah must have drifted off. By the time he wandered into the kitchen, his mum was the only one there to tell him his dad had taken Odette for a walk to calm the poor girl down. Apparently, she was fretting about Echo leaving that evening.
“Has anyone checked on Echo?”
“I did,” his mum replied quietly as she made him a coffee. “She’s safe. The room is pitch black.”
“Good.” He slid onto a stool at the breakfast bar.
“You seem to have grown to care for her. Echo, I mean.”
Elijah smirked at his mother’s questioning tone. “I don’t know what I feel.”
“But you feel something?”
Only to her could he admit, “I do. And it’s probably bloody stupid of me.”
“Or not.” His mum’s attention drifted over his shoulder toward the hall that led to the bedrooms. “She needs someone like you to remind her there’s good in the world. That there is light.” She met his gaze. “She grew up in a violent world and has only known darkness for much of it. But she was meant for more than that, Elijah.”
“How do you know?”
“The way she loves that little girl. The way she looks at you when you’re not looking.” She gave him a soft smile.
His breath caught. “How does she look at me?”
“Like you’re the sun she misses.”
Emotion stung his eyes. “You see more than most people, don’t you, Mum?”
She shrugged, pushing the mug of coffee toward him. “I see the way you look at her too.”
Elijah stared into the drink before him. “Isn’t it too soon … to … I don’t know.”
“I fell in love with your father in a day,” she reminded him. “With some people … you just know. Whether it’s a friend or a lover. They’re our soulmates. Time doesn’t get to dictate our feelings on the matter.”
“I don’t think she wants to be loved,” he replied hoarsely.
“No, I imagine it terrifies her. But she needs it. She needs to be loved. We all do.”
“Sometimes, when I get a chance to breathe, I can’t believe how messed up our lives are right now. All of us.”
“It’ll sort itself out.” His mum reached over to caress his cheek. “I never would have wanted this kind of responsibility on your shoulders. But deep down I knew you were born to do something incredibly important. And I know, in my heart, that you’ll keep us all safe. That good will win in the end.”
His chest ached. “I love you, Mum. I’m so grateful for you.”
“I love you too, sweetheart. We’re all going to be okay. I know it.”
16
Thanks to her vampiric instincts, Echo knew she’d awoken a little before sunset. Lying in the safe darkness of the guest room, her supernatural hearing focused on the lives beyond the bedroom door.
She could hear Elijah packing for their long drive, explaining to his parents and Odette the plan she’d laid out to him on the plane ride here. They were driving to Scotland. To the Highlands, where the ex-fae turned werewolf and mate of Alpha MacLennan lived. Thea Quinn MacLennan. She was once fae-borne, but William had it under excellent authority that Thea’s mate Conall, a powerful werewolf and Alpha of the last pack in Scotland, had turned her with his werewolf bite to save her from dying. She’d been stabbed through the heart with a pure iron blade. He’d bitten her.
It was proof that Eirik’s stories were true. A werewolf mate could turn a fae into a mortal-but-long-lived werewolf. William had been furious and had considered killing Thea just to punish her for slipping through his grasp. In the end, he’d decided Conall was too powerful and respected within the supernatural world to risk war with. Thea had been left alone.
However, she was their only lead to Niamh Farren. Echo had to believe that Thea could lead Elijah to Niamh. That they could all help her bring down William and The Garm.
“Is it safe to drive there? Will Echo be safe?” She heard Nancy ask with genuine concern.
She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever showed any kind of real parental concern for her. Perhaps William did when she was a child, but those memories were shadowed now by his lies.
“We’ll make it to Calais just before sunrise. We’ll find somewhere there to hunker down until the sun sets again. With the long days, we’ll only make it to Yorkshire before we need to stop. Then we’ll drive through the next night and stop in Stirling. The days get longer the farther north we drive. It’ll take us at least three nights to get there. If it were winter, we’d get there faster.”
That was the plan. Of course, if she hadn’t allowed her psycho adoptive father to turn her into a vampire six years ago, they could have made it there in less than twenty-four hours.