Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 82030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 410(@200wpm)___ 328(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Before he could say more, though, a groan came from the corner.
Brandt whipped his head around, muscles tense. An old man struggled weakly to rise, his face swollen, one eye purple and swelled to no more than a slit.
“Uncle Herbert!” Lexi gasped, scrambling to pull her blouse around her shaking body. Her fingers fumbled at the buttons, useless.
Brandt stepped forward silently, steadying her trembling hands, fastening the fabric for her. The brush of her skin under his fingertips nearly undid him, but he forced himself to have control. He knelt at her feet and helped pull up her discarded skirt. The zipper had been ripped open but the clasp at the top still fastened.
The minute he had her dressed, Lexi rushed to the old man.
“Oh, Uncle Herbert—are you all right?”
“Lexi-girl…why are you here?” His voice was weak, but his one good eye warmed at the sight of her.
“I’m here to take you home, Uncle Herbert,” she said, stroking his gray hair back. “That’s all that matters. We’re free now—Butcher won’t bother us anymore.”
Brandt bent low, sliding an arm carefully under the man’s shoulders. He lifted him easily to his feet.
“Are you well? Can you walk?” he asked.
“I think so.” Uncle Herbert nodded. “But who are you?”
“He’s the one I, uh, worked for on the Kindred Mother Ship,” Lexi threw over her shoulder. She had spotted the stack of bills on the table and was shoving them fiercely into a bag. “Here,” she said, shoving the plastic bag filled with cash at her uncle. “You’re going to put this in the bank for the next time you have to pay property taxes. Butcher won’t be asking for it again.”
Her gaze flicked to the body on the floor in the next room and she shivered.
“I don’t understand.” Uncle Herbert shook his head, still looking dazed.
“That’s okay, you don’t have to understand right now,” she told him. “Come on, Brandt—help me get him out of here, would you?”
Wordlessly, Brandt put an arm around him and bore the old man’s weight. With Alexandra on the other side, they got him out of the bar and into the night.
As they left Bad Intentions together, Brandt felt the oath he had once clung to turn to dust behind him. The Goddess had been right—Alexandra was meant to be his.
And he would never let anyone take her from him again.
51
LEXI
Lexi’s mind spun as they left Bad Intentions behind. She could still see Butcher’s purpled face… his bulging eyes…the way Brandt had held him up by the throat as if he weighed nothing. And she couldn’t forget the awful, final thump when his body had fallen, limp and lifeless, to the sticky floor.
She shivered.
Brandt killed a man. For me.
The thought was terrifying. But also…had he really said “I love you?”
Did he mean it? Or had it just been something he growled in the heat of the moment?
Lexi had no idea and she couldn’t exactly ask with Uncle Herbert around.
She kept an arm around him in the back seat of Brandt’s shuttle as it lifted off into the night air. Some Kindred shuttles converted into car-like vehicles but either this one didn’t or Brandt just preferred to fly over driving. The night sky whizzed past the viewscreen as he flew them over the darkened streets, silent but steady, until they reached her home.
He landed the shuttle neatly on the front lawn and then helped Lexi get Uncle Herbert out.
Uncle Herbert seemed all right, Lexi thought, though his left eye was swollen shut and his voice was weak. Aunt Helen met them at the door with a cry of relief, pulling him into her arms, murmuring over him like a mother hen.
“Oh, Lexi—what happened to him?” she cried, looking in dismay at her husband’s black eye and swollen face.
“Some bad guys worked him over but don’t worry—they’ve been taken care of,” Lexi told her. “Just put him to bed and keep an eye on him, will you?”
“But what’s this he’s got?” Aunt Helen looked down at the plastic bag filled with cash. “Where did he get a sack full of money?”
“That’s a long story, but it’s his—don’t worry.” Lexi put a hand on her aunt’s arm. “Look, I’d like to stay and explain but I can’t right now—I have something really important to do. Can you trust me for now and just keep an eye on Uncle Herbert? I promise I’ll be back to explain tomorrow but right now I have to go.”
Aunt Helen still looked worried, but she nodded at last.
“All right, Lexi. You’re a good girl and you know we trust you. Just be safe out there, wherever you’re going.”
“I’ll be fine,” Lexi promised. She squeezed her aunt’s arm and hurried back outside where Brandt was waiting on the porch. She knew her elderly relatives were still agitated and normally she would have stayed to reassure them. But tonight, she couldn’t stay—not with the big Kindred waiting and so much unresolved between them.