Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92043 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
We found my father and brothers sitting around the table with Charlie and Uncle Sven. Finau was missing.
“Did you tame the beast?” Chance joked as we entered the room.
“Fuck off and die, Chance,” Lucy said easily. “Charlie, can we talk for a minute?”
Charles stood and followed her outside. I watched through the glass doors as she led him across the yard and stopped beneath the old oak tree out back.
“Have you finalized anything?” I asked, staying on my feet. Where the hell was Finau?
“I’ll take Charlie to Goodman’s tonight after dinner,” my dad began. “That puts us a few hours behind schedule, which is a problem, but it can’t be helped if we want you with us. Lucy needs more time to settle if the medicine is going to work.”
I nodded.
“You’re sure that you don’t want to stay back?”
“If I can make it, I’m going,” I confirmed.
“My mate already placed Charlie’s tracker under his collarbone,” Sven noted. “I’ll monitor it from here while I keep watch over the women.”
“You won’t be the only one here.” It was half order, half question.
My father shook his head. “We’ve got six on the perimeter. When we leave, two will move closer to the house.”
“The four of us and Finau will monitor the situation from the ground,” Danny announced. “We’ll stay on Charlie for as long as we can, keep in close contact with Sven, and use his tracker if they slip past us.”
“We don’t move in until they get him to wherever they’re staged,” Chance said firmly. “Or the whole mission goes to shit.”
“We all agreed on that?” Beau asked, looking around to meet each of our gazes. “Because things may get messy before that.”
My lower stomach twisted with worry, but I nodded. “As long as it doesn’t look like Charlie’s about to lose his head.”
“He says he can take it,” Danny said doubtfully. “I don’t like this.”
“It’s the best we have in the limited time we were given,” my father reminded us.
“Matthias and Josiah will be there to take care of Dad so we can follow Charlie,” Beau added.
“You think that’ll be needed?” I asked my dad.
“They’ll bring in enough to overpower me. We’ll need to make them believe they have.”
“Don’t—”
“I won’t let anyone near my neck,” he assured me drolly. “I’m coming home to my mate tonight.”
Chapter 9
Lucy
“Why aren’t you nervous?” I asked Charlie as my knee began to bounce. Ambrose had left us only a few minutes earlier, and I was already having a hard time focusing on my brother. I’d been adamant that Charlie hang out with me until dinner, but my body’s response to the distance between me and the Vampire was already beginning to annoy me.
“There isn’t anything they could do to me that would be more painful than losing Zeke,” Charlie replied, his fingers drumming on the arm of the couch.
“Don’t underestimate these people, Charles,” I ordered.
“I’m not,” he assured me. “But I’ll have the Bouchers watching the whole time. They’d never let anything happen to me.”
The words coming out of his mouth should’ve been comforting to some degree, but something in his tone was wrong.
“What was that earlier?” he asked before I could grill him. “The mating heat?”
“On steroids,” I confirmed.
“It never happened like that for me,” he mused.
“Ambrose tells me it’s different for everyone,” I mumbled. “I think it’s getting worse because we didn’t immediately fall into bed.”
“You haven’t—”
“Don’t ask, and I won’t answer that question, you weirdo,” I warned.
Charlie smiled. “Probably for the best. So what are you waiting for?”
“I barely know him.”
“You know him better than I knew Zeke.”
“That’s not saying much. Zeke smiled at you, and you were like, lead me anywhere, and let me adore you.”
“You’re not far off,” Charlie agreed. “Best thing I ever did.”
“Still?” I asked curiously. “Even now?”
“I’d feel this a thousand times, a million times, if it meant that I had Zeke for even a day. It was worth it.”
“See, I don’t know if I feel that way,” I replied, leaning back on the couch. “I like Ambrose, and he’s hot as hell.”
Charlie laughed.
“But tying myself to him for all eternity seems like a big step.”
“Do you think you’d ever leave him?” Charlie asked softly, watching me intently. “Not a knee jerk reaction because he pissed you off, but actually leave him? Can you imagine ever being without him again?”
I tried to picture it, going back to my life in Baltimore, doodling in my notebook in the mornings, going to some boring corporate job that paid well enough that I could save up for another trip, eating takeout in front of the TV alone. The thought was depressing. Somehow, in the past couple of days, I’d grown used to having Ambrose near.
Of course, I wouldn’t be totally alone. Charlie would probably come with me when it was safe to go home, but for the first time in my life, I wasn’t sure if his company would be enough. It was a sobering thought.