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)
Dearest Lassiter, he was sick to his stomach all of a sudden.
“So what happened,” Conrahd demanded.
“We are in process.” Whestmorel cracked his window, the cold air whistling in. “Get off at the next exit.”
“I beg your pardon? We are well far from our—”
“The next one.”
Conrahd did as he was told—except then the medical predicament became clear: There was no going to Havers’s clinic to get his heart checked out. What was he thinking? The healer’s first phone call would be to the Black Dagger Brotherhood, as he and Havers had been acquainted since they were young, and there was no way there wasn’t an alert out for him.
There was also no going to a human provider. All they needed was imaging of a six-chambered cardiac muscle to be set loose on humanity.
“Pull over,” Whestmorel choked out.
Conrahd glanced across the console. “Whatever has gotten into you. You’re making no sense—”
“Stop the car!”
Even before they came to a full halt on the highway’s shoulder, Whestmorel opened his door and emptied the contents of his stomach into the briny slush. After he threw up a second time, he then endured a round of dry heaves. When he felt as though things had resolved, he unknotted his Hermès scarf, and wiped his mouth on the silk.
“Verily, are you all right—”
“Shut up.” Collapsing back against the seat, he left the panel cracked so he could get some cold air. “Proceed back unto the safe house. Fast.”
“I cannot until you close the—”
It took him two tries to get the latch mechanism to catch, and the nausea that had come upon him threatened to return as soon as forward momentum resumed. As he sank into the fine leather, a misery entered his system that he had not felt since…
Well, ever. Throughout the course of his life, he had enjoyed going from triumph to triumph, and bringing others along. The plot against Wrath was supposed to be in this same vein.
But how he felt now was… not enjoyable, at all.
He had males waiting to hear of yet another success, such that their sacrifices were bolstered, and the promise of the future—which he had spoken of, which he had vowed to lead them unto—would be closer to being made manifest.
Except at the moment, he felt very mortal. Very, very mortal. And as if he had not just failed them all, but sentenced the lot of them to death at the hands of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.
“What about the slayer, then?” Conrahd glanced across the interior. “We were going to go give the order to release him at the neutral holding location. That was the plan. You were going to meet with Lash, and then we were going to personally tell the guards to release the lesser.”
Yes, he’d meant to go there and free the thing himself because he would have been protected by its master. He had played the scene out in his mind’s eye many times, before they’d even abducted that particular undead.
The performance was supposed to be so that Conrahd could see it happen and carry the details back to the others, evidence of Whestmorel’s growing seat of power.
How naive he’d been. How ignorant. Riding on a wave of surety that had been not destiny or fate, but… mere ego.
As another wave of nausea hit him, Whestmorel returned to that moment, when he had stood before the master of all evil—and felt that crushing weight in his chest. He had been fine until he was not, and the next thing he had known was being down in the snow.
No breath that he could draw, nothing but the agony of a heart-seizing known unto him—
“No,” he said roughly. “We do not go near that thing. Not now, not ever.”
Conrahd stared over with disbelief. “We’re just leaving it then? That location is secure, but there are limits. What if a human finds him?”
“Then the human will deal with it.” He glared over at Conrahd. “Do not go back there. Do not go anywhere near that slayer.”
The male frowned. “What happened in the park, Whestmorel.”
“All is going according to plan,” he said with exhaustion. “Worry not on that. Let us continue forth to the safe house. I will rest and we will reconvene at nightfall next.”
“When are you going to take Lash unto the Audience House?”
As he groaned and closed his eyes, he was once again all too well aware of Conrahd’s ambitions, and he found himself ruing his decision to go with one who was so competent: If he himself showed any further weakness the now, he was quite confident it would be exploited in favor of an insurrection.
“Just drive,” he commanded. “I alone know the when of it, and it shall stay as such until I say differently.”
With his nausea returning, he went to wipe his mouth—
There was a stain on the maroon silk of his scarf… a black stain. With a shaking hand, he touched his mouth, then dipped his fingertips to his tongue.