Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
When he rings off and turns to leave, I grab him by the shirt. “If he told you where to find this office building, I’m going with you.”
He shakes his head. “Too dangerous.”
“According to you,” I say tartly.
Raiden raises a brow at me. “Because it is.”
“You don’t decide for me. You’re not my mate.” I shrug.
His icy blue eyes narrow. “The child you carry is mine. I have every right to care about your well-being.”
“Care, yes. Decide, no. Either I go with you, or I’ll resume this search alone. If Bram knew that easily how to find the place we seek, then someone else will, too. Unlike you, I’m likely to have privileges to enter, given that I’m his next of kin. What reason will you use to access his paperwork?”
Raiden clenches his jaw. “Since Bram is a Council member, I’m confident he can pull a few strings.”
He’s right. In fact, we both are. Between his connections and my familial relation, we should have no trouble viewing whatever my father might have stashed in the building.
“Should we be wasting time arguing, or should we be working together? What could happen, really? It’s a Council building in the middle of the day. Others should be there. We’re doing nothing wrong.”
Raiden hesitates, looking like he’s about to refuse.
“Hello?” Nathanial Wolvesey calls from somewhere in the house.
I shiver. From the moment I arrived, Raiden’s father has looked at me far too sexually. Since I carry his son’s child, it’s particularly unnerving.
Raiden cups my shoulder and scans my face. “Did my father do or say something that made you uncomfortable?”
“That he understands why you desire me so much—before he assured me the two of you have passed women between you over the decades.”
He winces. “Bloody hell.”
I don’t ask if Nathanial was lying. The truth is all over Raiden’s face. Pain bulldozes me. He’s treated women like interchangeable playthings. Convenient energy sources. Likely still does, me included.
“He said you wouldn’t mind if I allowed him to—”
“He’s wrong. I mind. A great deal.” He clenches his teeth, but he meets my gaze. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry for his behavior or sorry his father revealed the truth? I shove the question away. “I politely refused, in case you’re wondering. I won’t be alone with him again.”
His expression tightens. “Nor will I let you.”
“Hello?” Nathanial’s footsteps across the gleaming hardwood floors come closer.
Raiden doesn’t hesitate. He grabs my hand. “Let’s go.”
As always with teleporting, a loud sucking noise fills my ears. Then eerie silence. Suddenly, I lose my balance, and a sense of tumbling through air overwhelms me. The weightlessness, the not knowing which way is up and which is down, makes me slightly ill.
A moment later, we stand outside a neo-modern office building. Built in the 1960s and topping about five stories, the concrete structure was carved with magical runes between each tier of white-draped windows. The air here feels heavy. I don’t see a soul in sight.
“It looks abandoned.” Eerily so, in fact.
He frowns, grabbing my hand tighter. “Bram said the Council ministries no longer use this building. Apparently, it’s been the source of human speculation, particularly the meaning of the runes.”
“I recognize some of the symbols. Magic, mastery, truth, fate. Death.”
Raiden shrugs, his wide shoulders looking almost menacing in a dark trench. “Unless it’s relevant to what we seek, there’s no time to decode. I have an uneasy feeling. Let’s move quickly. I don’t want you out in the open where you’re vulnerable to Mathias or any eyes he might have watching.”
“He likely has no idea where I am.” If he did, I would already be in danger.
Raiden hustles me under the building’s portico, deep in shadow, and pins me with a glare. “It won’t take Mathias long to figure out that you weren’t killed in the attack. Or that you’re carrying my youngling. Once he pieces all that together, he’ll be on us.”
Dear God, I never considered the ways in which Mathias might find me. But my father would have recorded my birth, so the evil wizard knows I exist. Since I’ve never mated, he won’t find a mate listed for me in The Peers and People of Magickind. The fact that I carry Raiden’s child won’t be listed until the youngling’s birth, but even so, a wizard with Mathias’s cunning and resources could easily learn the truth. After all, he hasn’t managed to outwit most of the Council and stay a step ahead of the Doomsday Brethren by being a half-wit.
“Fuck.” Raiden runs a hand through his long, pale hair. “Once he starts pursuing us, I know where he’ll look first. Until we can find whatever your father hid and get it to safety, we can’t go back to your house. Or mine.”
“I fear you’re right.”
“I’ll tell Ronan to warn my father away for now. He won’t be happy, but eventually I’ll set everything back to rights. I hope.”