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)
He frowned. “I doubt very much the guys will forgive me if I just show up out of the blue.”
“You tell them you were struggling mentally. You went off to get help. You handled it badly. They’ll forgive you.”
“Would it be safe?”
“Once we deal with all these assholes … I hope so. And if it is, you should keep doing the thing you love.”
His chest warmed with a rush of tenderness toward her. “And would you support me? You’d be the mate of a rock star.”
“Girlfriend.” She cut him a weary but affectionate smirk. “You can’t go calling me your mate in front of the normies.”
He chuckled and for a second, he forgot they were talking about something that could be a pipe dream. If they didn’t defeat Astra and the Blackwood Coven. If The Garm didn’t regroup and come for revenge.
So many enemies.
So much on the line.
The thought of his parents, and how they were probably hiding their fear to protect Odette as Astra kept them locked up like animals, fueled Elijah’s determination.
34
As if by magic, two vehicles awaited them when they emerged from the woods and stepped onto the road that would lead them to Astra.
The plan was to only get so close with the SUVs before heading to Astra’s on foot. Echo could use her shadow gift, while Elijah, Fionn, Rose, and Niamh were using their magic to cloak everyone else on their approach.
According to Bran’s satellite images, the house was situated on the southern edge of a twelve-acre property that abutted Fionn’s. The compound she’d created from farm buildings was in the northwest near where Fionn’s magical boundary was in place.
It was no coincidence.
The fae female was practically shouting “Nah nah nah nah nah” at Fionn. She knew all about them. More than they’d ever known about her. She also thought she owned Niamh, Rose, Thea, and Elijah. Echo almost snarled at the thought. Elijah belonged to no one and if he did, he belonged to her and her alone.
Bran confirmed there were only three heat signatures at the house.
Astra and two wolves.
Each supernatural apparently emitted a different heat signature. Fae, witches, and warlocks were closer to humans, only a few degrees warmer. Wolves ran hotter. Much hotter. Vamps, unsurprisingly, ran a little cooler than the average human.
The plan was to surround the house.
Fionn and Rose at the back entrance.
Thea and Conall on the left.
Echo and Elijah on the right.
Niamh and Kiyo at the front.
There would be no escaping them.
Echo approached the side of the house with Elijah. They were faced with a side door entrance. It blasted open when they were about five feet from the property.
A mammoth guy, as tall as Conall but even broader, burst from the entrance. His canines were down and his eyes gleamed with malice as he scented them with a deep inhale.
Echo looked at her mate and sensed his plans. She nodded. And then in a blink of her eyes, he disappeared using his nifty new traveling skills.
Elijah reappeared behind the wolf and punched his fist right through the male’s chest.
The huge wolf bellowed in outrage and whirled out of Elijah’s grip with a grunt before her mate could rip his heart from his chest.
He made the mistake, however, of thinking Elijah was the threat.
With her vamp speed, Echo bridged the distance between them and jumped onto the wolf’s large back. She placed his head between her palms and held on with supernatural grip as he tried to shake her off. When she rolled over him toward the ground, she twisted his head in her grasp with all her strength, breaking his neck before she tumbled into a perfect somersault.
Popping up to her feet, she caught Elijah’s admiring look a second before he pressed a foot to the wolf’s broken neck and severed his head from his body.
He winced and turned to her with a sickened grimace. “Well, that was bloody disgusting.”
Echo’s lips twitched, but her smile halted as their supernatural hearing picked up Astra’s voice.
“We’ve been breached. Take out the humans!”
Elijah’s eyes flew to hers in horror as Astra’s screech of outrage hit their ears.
“She’s warned the guards!” Niamh shouted from the other side of the house. “Echo, Elijah, Conall, Thea … Go! We’ve got this!”
Echo didn’t wait around to argue with anyone. She and Elijah were a streak of supernatural speed. She could hear Thea and Conall changing into their wolf forms in the distance, but she concentrated on the obstacles in her paths. The trees. The bracken. Rocks. A stream. She wound her way through them as if Odette’s life depended on it. Because it did.
They lunged over a low stone wall that brought them into a field with several barn-like buildings, and Echo strained to hear ahead of them. Instead, all she heard were Conall’s and Thea’s racing heartbeats as they caught up to them as wolves. They skidded to a halt as a door in the long, white stone building before them was thrown open. Echo shot a look at her wolf companions.