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)
And what do you know.
Someone with big feet had already paved the way through the new drifts.
When he got to the entry, he thought of when he’d been here just the week or so before, returned from where Rahvyn had stashed him in time… with an old friend ready to meet him and let him in.
This time, he had the copper key, thanks to Fritz.
Letting himself in, Wrath stepped through into the frosty vestibule, and then did the same duty with the heavy weight of the inner door.
The foyer was not much warmer than the cold night.
His boots carried him across the mosaic design on the floor, and his brain supplied the delicate details of the apple tree in full bloom. Thanks to the echo of his treads, he once again knew where the first step was. Up, up, up… he went, and with each footfall, relief flooded through his veins.
He could smell the crackling fire. And the fresh blood of his only son.
Again.
At the top, he stopped and flared his nostrils. Given the warmth that spilled out to him, he knew the double doors were open, and when there was no greeting, not even a gruff one, he satisfied himself that at least there was the soft, rhythmic snoring of someone in a deep, healing sleep.
Wrath took out his phone, and spoke at it quietly: “Text, red alert group. Start. L.W. is found. Repeat, I have found him and he is safe at the mansion. Minor injuries only. End.”
He didn’t call his shellan yet. She’d get the message, but would want so much more information.
Which he wasn’t sure he’d be able to give her.
Walking forward in a straight line, he entered the study, and just as he had with the exterior approach, he pulled from his memory the contours of the pale blue room with its absurdly delicate French furniture and the antique rug and the glow from the fireplace… and there was something else he could visualize.
The fighter sprawled on the floor, his son.
Back when Wrath had been restocked onto the proverbial shelf of life and shown up here, the Scribe Virgin had granted him a brief return of sight so he could see L.W. The gift had been a surprise because the mahmen of the race was not known for her warm-and-fuzzies. But maybe as a parent herself, she’d been aware of how much it would mean for him to see in maturity that which he had known only as an infant young.
Not great news, as it turned out—and not because his offspring was weak or shifty.
Wrath didn’t know what he’d expected, but the harsh, tortured reality of the male had saddened him—and he wasn’t feeling any better about where things were after how many nights now? He was also no closer to figuring out how to reach his son.
At least he knew where he was, though.
Even if it was just physically.
Wake him up, he told himself. Talk to him.
Yeah, and say what? L.W. had proven too apt at the whole apple-falling-from-the-tree bullshit. Hell, the kid had landed right at the foot of Wrath’s goddamn trunk, a brooding, aggressive fighter who stalked through spaces, rarely talked, and had moved out to Shuli’s like a storm heading for new landscapes to ransack—
A creak down below had Wrath wheeling around and getting a gun out at the same time. The mhis still surrounded the mountaintop, the buffering making it virtually impossible for anyone to get here if they didn’t know where the mansion was, but fate was a fucker, and he didn’t need to learn that lesson a second time.
Except then… he caught the scent.
As he lowered his weapon, he released his breath. “Leelan.”
In the resonant quiet, he heard subdued movement in the foyer, his Queen coming across the hard stone floor and then ascending the plush carpeting.
“He’s here?” she whispered as she closed in on him.
“Yeah.” He held his hand out for her. “Sound asleep.”
“I figured this was where you both were.”
Beth halted beside him and left his palm dangling in the breeze, no doubt because she was rightfully focused on their son, and reassuring herself he was still in one piece. It was impossible not to rage at the many nights she must have had to do this alone, worrying over the kid with no hellren by her side. Maybe she was thinking of that, too, the scent of her sadness an acrid sting in the nose.
Cursing everything they had lost, he went to put his arm around her—
She stepped out of range. “I really want to call Doc Jane or Manny, but it only makes him mad when I do that.”
Frowning, Wrath turned toward her tense voice. “Are you okay?”
“I guess we have to leave him here?” He had the sense she was looking around, and then came the pacing. “I mean, I know Vishous is monitoring the property and the mhis is still up, but—”