Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61523 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 308(@200wpm)___ 246(@250wpm)___ 205(@300wpm)
Eat, love. Goodbye for now. I’ll reach out when I can, but if you need me, you know I’m here.
Okay. Bye. Nerves dance in my stomach over words that shouldn’t come this easily. Still, I say them. I want to. And Romy Spencer is not a coward. I love you.
Oh, you have no idea how much I fucking love you, Romy. But you will. It’s my goal that, for the rest of our fucking lives, you will.
Cal
“Calloway,” my uncle greets, opening the door with what’s becoming a signature smirk as soon as my communication with Romy comes to a close.
Honestly, it’s giving a certain feeling of timing that’s beyond coincidental, but it doesn’t matter. I need this meeting just as much as he does. I need the time, information—I need my uncle keeping me around until tonight.
“Come in.” He gestures with his hand. “Or would you rather continue lingering out here in the hall for a while longer?”
Ignoring the prod, I step inside the office and wave off the lingering cigar smoke. The source is still between his fingers, and as he closes the door behind me and offers me a seat in the leather high-back chair across from his, he takes another puff.
“Would you like to smoke?” he asks.
“No, thank you.” I shake my head, taking the offered seat, crossing my heel across my knee, and steepling my fingers together instead. “I’m not much for cigars at nine a.m.”
He chuckles, reclaiming the seat across from me that’s closest to the fireplace. There’s a bar set with amber liquid on a cart along the wall, a book, open and overturned on the table beside him to keep his place, and pictures from all over the world of him and his consorts.
He looks at home here—in this office, and now that I think of it, all over the grounds—more so than any of the other vampires, and it makes me wonder if this place isn’t just owned by the Council, but him.
“I find cigars enjoyable at all hours, myself,” he muses. “After all, what is morning to a vampire? The sun never sets on our day.”
I shrug, conceding the point. It’s fucking bullshit small talk, and frankly, it’s taking everything in me to sit through it. But logically, he’s right. Humans follow the sun like a clock, but to us, all the hours are the same.
I make the first move, claiming the upper hand right out of the gate and addressing some long-weighing questions from my mind. “Speaking of vampires, Uncle, I find the group here interesting for many, many reasons. One of which is the way not one of them besides you seems pleased or accepting of my presence. Why is that? The Council itself has barely paid me any mind, and your brothers would much rather see me dead.”
He smiles, pleased with himself and his answer as he delivers it. “They didn’t want you here. Frankly, they don’t. But I’ve earned my place, and my judgment is trusted.”
“Okay, then,” I hedge. “Why do you want me here?”
“Before your arrival?” he clarifies. “I wanted you here because it’s what’s right. They don’t have to like you for you to be of the fourth order of blood, Calloway. You deserve proper placement. The species deserves the continuation of the fourth line.”
“Even if I don’t want it.”
“Even then,” he agrees. “Sometimes, for the good of the whole, sacrifices must be made by the parts. You are where you’re supposed to be.”
“Why me? Why not Rook or Kane?”
He scoffs audibly, my question laughable. “Because they’re already mated, of course.” But ridiculous or not, I needed to ask it to set up my next move.
“Okay. Then why does Nathanial think Rook is dead?”
He pauses, pursing his lips before regaining a smile. “A bargaining chip. With my opposition on the Council. They wanted blood for your crimes, and I wanted you. Telling them Rook and Kane were dead was simply a means to an end.”
“That’s why you took me to my brothers, then? So, I would know they weren’t?”
He shakes his head, toying with his own fingers, and it’s a not-so-subtle sign that he’s done answering my unfettered questions. The rest of the conversation, it seems, will be at his discretion.
Satisfied anyway, I push back in my seat, placing both feet flat on the floor, and moving the conversation forward once again. “All right. Fine. What can I do for you, Lucian? I assume there’s a reason you’ve called me here this morning, away from the rest of the group.”
He smiles, sitting back in his seat and resting his elbows on the exquisitely arched sides of the chair. “I asked you here this morning to, perhaps, settle some of your nerves about tonight. I know you’re not keen on how things work here, but I still find that bringing you here has a purpose.”