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)
No doubt Xcor had come here to release his two soldiers from their over-day duties guarding the captive. Though the Band of Bastards had sworn their allegiance to Wrath long ago, they still had their own chain of command, and Tohr never questioned it, in spite of the fact that he was the King’s right-hand male, and technically called all the shots over all the fighters.
“I’ll stay out here.” Rhage leaned against the concrete wall as he tossed his stick in a wastepaper basket. “Let me know if you need anything.”
Qhuinn nodded and opened the door into the hospital room. Slipping inside, the heart rate monitor seemed too loud, and so did the whirring sounds from all the machinery around the head of the bed. The male they’d found in that hidden room at Whestmorel’s was full of tubing and the color of a corpse, his skin gray and stretched over the bones of what had probably once been an attractive face. The bruising around his wrists, neck, and torso had settled into a series of dark purple blotches, and there were a couple of lines of neat stitches on his shoulder and under one arm. With the covers set just below his diaphragm, it wasn’t possible to assess the lower body’s damage.
But he wasn’t a medical guy, anyway.
Going around the foot of the bed, Qhuinn sat in the chair that had been pulled up on the far side. Of course he thought of his brother. How could he not. Just like with Luchas, all they had was the aftermath of whatever had been done to this male and it was anybody’s guess whether the aristocrat was going to live.
Oh, who the fuck was he kidding. If you had to say that, the answer was—
The eye closest to Qhuinn opened a little, a crack appearing between the matted lashes. Then there was a little gasp and both hands tightened into claws.
Qhuinn jerked forward, but made sure he kept his voice soft and even. “You’re in the custody of Wrath, son of Wrath, sire of Wrath. What’s your name.”
When he didn’t get an answer, he wasn’t surprised. “You want to tell me your name? What’s your name.”
If they could get one, it would help the ID process. V had already run a search on the species databases, just in case anybody had reported a brother, son, uncle, father missing. So far, nothing. Then again, the male’s entire bloodline could be in on Whestmorel’s treason, with him the only holdout. Fucking aristocracy—
A rasp cut through the whirring of all the monitoring machinery.
“What did you say?” Qhuinn got up and leaned over the bed. “What’s your name.”
When there was no response, he decided he’d imagined whatever it’d been, and he glanced at the machines behind the bed. No alarms going off, so he assumed the big vitals were all doing okay—
“Geeeeorge,” the male wheezed.
And then everything went haywire, the monitors flashing, a loud beeping ringing out at scream level.
Qhuinn looked at the heart rate, the peaks and valleys going irregular before spacing out farther and farther apart…
… until they stopped altogether.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The hell she was going home like a good little girl.
Lyric gave the males a good minute or so to ghost down to Dev’s building. Then she closed her eyes and dematerialized as well. When she re-formed, it was on the snowpacked roof of a walk-up kitty-corner behind his address, and she kept herself hidden by staying behind an exhaust chimney for the heating system.
From her vantage point, she could see a back parking lot, and all kinds of windows with drapes pulled or blinds down. Counting up from the bottom, she focused on the fourth floor, and tried to orientate herself. Dev had a corner flat—but at which end? Or did his studio face front? She’d never looked, because his blackouts cut the view.
Crap, she was all turned around. Meanwhile, her heartbeat was loud in her ears, and as the wind whistled past her head, she braced herself for…
Nothing happened.
Impatiently brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes, she stared down at the shallow area with the cars squeezed in between piles of dirty, packed snow. The security lights that shined from the roof were so bright, there weren’t a lot of shadows or places she couldn’t visualize.
“Oh, God, Dev…”
What if things had gone haywire after she’d left and he’d been attacked on the way back to his apartment?
She waited a little longer, then stepped out from behind the industrial-sized duct. Going over to the edge of the roof, she counted the snow-streaked cars to give her mind something to do. Then she went back to all the windows on the fourth level.
And kind of expected to see flashes of gunfire and hear the screams of humans escaping a melee.
Still nothing.