Total pages in book: 203
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199654 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 998(@200wpm)___ 799(@250wpm)___ 666(@300wpm)
She huffs out an exasperated sound before continuing with, “I messaged Dani and she had just gotten to the airport, so she dropped me off here asking me to go with you. She didn’t tell me what her emergency was but said it’s imperative you don’t go to Romania alone, so said it was fortuitous that I got here when I did. Like Fate is intervening or something.”
She rolls her eyes, shoves her hand in her shirt, and yanks something out of her bra, making me startle and avert my eyes.
“Here!”
She jiggles a plastic sandwich bag before slapping it into my palm.
I don’t know what’s in it. All I see is a sheet of paper towel. My eyes move to her face. I’ve never seen her this pissed off. She’s like a stranger to me right now.
“I got my plane ticket switched. I’ll get us a ride. We’ll get this done and then we’ll go home and you can do whatever while I finally do what I need to do.”
She storms off, pulling her phone out as she goes, and she’s gone before I get another word out of my mouth.
I growl out exasperation before I shove the bag she handed me into my pocket, reach into the room and grab my backpack, then head out, dropping the room key on the empty reception desk on my way out.
The front door to this small inn is locked and I don’t see Bailey outside. There’s a sign taped to the door that reads side door please.
I walk out the next entrance, where I see trash cans and shoulder-height gates, cordoning off the trash area. Bailey is just outside the gate, standing with her arms over her chest, face red, her bag by her feet.
“The ride will be here in five minutes,” she mutters, not looking at me.
I guess we’ll sit in the airport for the next five fuckin’ hours.
A black car pulls up to the curb not two minutes later and the driver rolls the front passenger window, greeting, “Buongiorno! Uh…”
“Ride share for Bailey?” she asks. “Aeroporto?”
“Si.”
“That was fast,” she says snatching her bag and reaching for the back passenger door handle, climbs in and scoots over.
I climb in beside her, shut the door and start to say, “Listen–”
But she cuts me off, holding her palm three inches from my face.
“Save it, Jason.”
“Save it?” I fire back with my brows up.
“I don’t need your platitudes or whatever.”
“Kiddo…” I try for gentle.
“No! You listen for a change. I don’t need your words. I don’t need anything from you. Let’s just get on the damn plane and go to the damn–” Her eyes dart toward the back of the driver’s head. “…place. And… and then we’ll go back home and that’s that. I don’t need you giving me crap for coming. I know how it is; you don’t need to make something clearer when it’s already blindingly clear. I came because I… I…”
A cloying floral scent hits my nose and things suddenly feel amped, but as I take in what’s happening around me, things mysteriously slow down. The driver is watching us in the rearview mirror with a calculated expression.
He’s now wearing a respirator mask. The vehicle is again against the curb instead of moving down the road. Bailey’s not speaking. She’s slo-mo flopping toward me, eyelashes shaking like she’s trying to fight it. Fuck! Now all I see are the whites of her eyes. I catch her as she slumps against me, a complete ragdoll.
What the fuck?
“Buh-” My vision doubles, triples, no… it goes completely blurry and everything melts into darkness at the same time as another strong, but incredible scent also hits me.
Warm apple pie. No, better than that. The apple pie from my dreams. And I know, to a cellular level, to the core of my wolf’s soul… it’s her I’m smelling. As I’m plummeting toward unconsciousness, of course this is when I’d smell my fated mate.
5
BAILEY
My eyes feel as if they’re glued shut. It takes effort to pry them open. I reach to rub them, but I can’t. I’m… stuck? Something is cutting into my wrists.
The fuzzy feeling snaps to dizzy anxiety as reality zooms into focus. I’m on a cold concrete floor, restrained with my wrists attached to something behind me.
I squint against light spilling in through a window ahead of me.
Jason is also straight ahead, halfway to that window.
He’s restrained! To a pillar. His eyes are on me, his mouth tight. There’s hellfire in his eyes.
Who? What?
We’re in a basement.
“Jase?” I rasp.
His nostrils are flaring and his hair has flopped into his eyes. His chest is rising and falling with big breaths. He’s as angry as he was when he opened the hotel room door to me. No, worse. The look on his face has me sure he’s blaming me for this.