Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
His deep voice is full of emotion.
I don’t know what to say. I’m surprised at his confession. Surprised and pleased, my body clenching around his knot even as he drapes himself over me.
“The question is, do you care for me? Because we both know you’re keeping things secret.” His words are far more accusing than his tone, which is rich and soft with redolent pleasure, and I know they’re not meant to hurt me, just to convey a bit of frustration. “You know I’m on your side. I hunted the entire city looking for Sarya because I was obsessed with her. Turns out she was right under my nose.”
“The sex is good,” I admit. “But sex doesn’t solve everything.”
“It’s not just the sex, Gwenna. Surely you know that by now?” He stops teasing my nipple and slides his hand between my thighs, moving to toy with my clit again. “You think I claim just anyone as my mate?”
I bite back the whine rising in my throat. How does he expect me to have a serious conversation with him when he’s going to make me come again like a cat in heat? “You…you…”
Suddenly my throat burns. It’s a sharp knife-slash sensation, and I want to gasp but there’s no air.
HELP.
A sharp thought pierces my mind. A familiar, sharp thought.
I know this person.
“Hemmen,” I choke out. Oh gods.
At my side, Raptor goes stiff. “That’s a damned thing to say when a bull’s knotted inside you.”
I want to reassure him, but the haze falling over me won’t let me. I can feel Hemmen’s panic and the pain as his throat is cut. The blood. The gurgling. Can’t breathe. Collapsing. Then…nothing.
I clutch my throat in horror. “I—I think Hemmen is dead.”
Thirty-Nine
Raptor
Raptor to Hawk: I don’t think I’m cut out for this shit.
Hawk to Raptor: I don’t think any of us are.
Hemmen is dead.
As I lay there in the blissful aftermath of knotting the woman I wanted more than anything, I find out that one of my Five, one of the fledglings I’m supposed to be watching for possible thievery, has been slaughtered in an alley while I fucked around with Gwenna.
It doesn’t matter that hours have passed since that moment. I’m still burning with frustration and anger. I’m still seeing her startled face as I confess my feelings for her and she blurts out another man’s name.
As we stand in the alley, talking to the guild’s enforcers about Hemmen’s violent death, I can’t help but glance over at Gwenna. I’m obsessed with her, even as I feel like I’ve been had. The timing can’t be overlooked. The moment I knot her, suddenly someone else dies? It’s too convenient. She’s distracted me in the best sort of way, my sweet little mate, and I’m the fool who falls for her pretty tears and her caresses every time.
My mate. It’s the only word that fits for what Gwenna is to me. I just never thought claiming a mate would be like, well, this.
Now a young human man is dead. I don’t even know what to think of it. Hemmen was never my favorite person. He hated hard work and would rather have spent his time inside a library instead of in the tunnels, but I can’t fault him for that. It’s not a lifestyle for everyone. Even so, I wouldn’t wish death on him.
“Where were you at the time of the attack?” one of the enforcers asks me.
“Inside. With the woman.” I nod over at Gwenna.
He eyes her, no doubt noting the blanket she has wrapped around her, and the borrowed dress. Naiah lent a gown, since I’d torn Gwenna’s clothing in my haste to fuck, but Naiah is nowhere near the same size, and the gown that hangs loosely on Naiah’s lean form fits rounded Gwenna like a sausage casing.
Now I know what the sausage feels like when the cook stuffs it.
She’d made me laugh, made me feel so mucking good. Like us being in bed together was as natural as air, as natural as breathing. That it didn’t matter that I have a permanent knot, or that I’m Taurian and built differently than her. She never blinked an eye at any of it, and I wonder how much was pretending.
“Can you think of any enemies he might have had?” asks the enforcer, scribbling notes in a small notebook.
“No,” I lie. I’ll have to talk to Rooster and Hawk about this. I’ll tell them what I know—and how Gwenna distracted me at just the right time. “He’d mentioned he was meeting a friend, that’s all.”
“Some friend,” the enforcer says.
I eye the sheet-covered body in the alley. Even now, a thin line of red is bleeding through the fabric, right where his neck is. His throat was cut, just like in the other murders. The murderer isn’t Gwenna—as I was knotted in her at the time of the killing—but she knows something about this. And I need to find out what.