Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142050 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 710(@200wpm)___ 568(@250wpm)___ 474(@300wpm)
The latter were for her. If she needed to eat something.
With her father’s help, Allhan was repositioned out from under the desk, and his clothes removed, a blanket laid over him for modesty’s sake. Meanwhile, pillows were wedged under her arm to help support her—
The next broken bone was the other femur, and then his shoulder popped out of alignment.
Allhan screamed at that point, and she had to squeeze her eyes closed.
What if my blood isn’t strong enough, was all she could think of.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Exactly what the hell time was it, Qhuinn wondered, hours later.
As he emerged from the break room’s stairwell and stepped out on the main floor of V’s facility, he had a coffee in his hand and a—oh, look, it was another Danish. He’d had no idea what he’d ended up taking out of the display of food down there, but evidently, his subconscious had been front and center enough to remember that the cherry from earlier last evening had been fucking amazing.
He shoved the pastry into his mouth and sipped on the mug as he glanced out at the empty workstations. The place had been totally vacated about an hour ago, everybody except the Brotherhood—who remained downstairs—sent home for the day through the escape tunnel to keep things quiet. And now? The silence was interrupted only by random beeps and whirs from all the unmanned computers.
Refocusing on what mattered, he stared at the tableau next to Allhan’s desk. The male was under a mismatch of blankets, his body four times the size it had been, his face drawn in new lines that were pretty fucking handsome as it turned out. The best news, though, was that the kid was breathing, and a lot of his pain was in the rear view.
Right by his head, as she had been all night, Lyric was practically asleep on her proverbial feet. But her eyes, though they were half-mast, did not leave the male she had so heroically helped.
He was alive only because of her.
Qhuinn still couldn’t believe how it had all gone down, the knocking that had interrupted the meeting with the King, everybody pulling guns on the IT specialist who’d rushed over on foot, a stammering, fucked-up mess as he’d said the same name over and over again.
Allhan.
No one had seen Vishous run that fast, and for once, the brother hadn’t been texting out various commands on his phone for whatever he needed. Too frantic. As the Brotherhood had piled into the barn, V had crashed through the workstations, knocking over monitors on his way.
And then Qhuinn had done a little OMGing of his own.
The last thing he’d expected was to find his daughter on her knees, her wrist scored, her voice so commanding as she ordered Allhan to take her vein.
She had taken control of the dire situation all on her own, and as Vishous had stared down at her in utter, dumbfounded shock, Qhuinn had felt an echo of that himself. There were a lot of things that he associated with Lyric. Kindness, elegance, beauty, warmth, loyalty.
But assertiveness was just not something intrinsic to her nature.
Coming back to the present, he glanced at V, who hadn’t moved from the young male, either. In spite of the stress, the brother had not smoked even one cigarette since the change started. Though vampires did not get cancer, Allhan’s new lungs needed a little time to fully mature.
So it was either nicotine withdrawal or all the adrenaline ebbing off that was making those normally steady hands shake so badly.
Doc Jane had come by the second things had gotten rolling, to check vitals and worry over Allhan. She was momentarily back at the clinic now to pick up some pain meds. It was tricky, though. Too much and you could slow respiration, she’d said. Sometimes, suffering just had to be borne—
“When will he be out of the woods?” Lyric asked in a rough voice.
Qhuinn opened his mouth to answer, but V got there first—as he should have. The brother was not only a medic, he was, for all intents and purposes, the abandoned male’s father.
“We’re getting there.” V passed his gloved hand down his face, then smoothed his goatee. “You saved his life.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that—”
“I do.” V offered his dagger hand. “I owe you, true.”
Lyric stared down at the palm that was in front of her as if she’d never seen one before. “Oh, you don’t have to—”
“I owe you a debt for saving his life. Period.”
Tentatively reaching out, she shook his hand. “That’s really not necessary.”
As was his way, her uncle V didn’t argue with her—but not because he wasn’t into confrontation. The fucker loved conflict. No, he’d stated his point and that was that. Lyric’s opinion on the matter was irrelevant.
When she looked up Qhuinn’s way, as if she couldn’t believe what was happening, he smiled as his chest swelled. There were few greater things in life than when your kid impressed someone important. It made you feel like you hadn’t fucked them up, after all. And also that you had done a very, very good thing in bringing them into the world.