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)
Holy fuck. It had been plain as the expression on her face she was involved with someone—and it was also very obvious that whoever it was, she wasn’t saying anything about him.
Had to be a human.
As Shuli stepped off onto the fourth floor, his eyes scanned the hall. Which one of the doors was his? Probably better not knowing—given how protective Rhamp was of his sister, if they found the fucker, things were going to get real messy, real quick, and not because of anything to do with a slayer.
Hell, Shuli was feeling a little fangy himself.
Make that a lot fang-ish, even though he had no right.
They kept going on the ascent, saying nothing, communicating through eye contact, not that there was much to talk about.
When they got to the top floor—lucky number seven—they stopped and listened. Tested the air for scents. Looked around—
A sudden creak and thump shot his head to the left.
Next to the stairwell, a door marked “Roof Access” was closing next to him, and he flared his nostrils. No scent of lesser.
Meanwhile, Rhamp leaned over the stairwell banister and looked all the way down to where they’d started their march. L.W. was the one who wandered, stalking halfway down the hall.
After glancing around, Shuli reached out and quietly cranked the door’s knob. There was a dead bolt mounted on the jamb, but as he pulled things open just a little, he saw that the slug had been removed from its internals, and the hole it was supposed to plug into was stuffed with what looked like paper.
Flaring his nostrils, he leaned into the chilly staircase, and caught sight of the door at the top bouncing closed. Thanks to thermodynamics, the heat from the hall wafted upward, greedy for its liberation into the cold, so he got nothing.
If it had been a slayer who’d passed by here in the hall to get the door? They would have left plenty of nasty-scented molecules lingering in the air. The half-life on that shit was a good two weeks.
“Guess she was wrong,” Shuli muttered as he eased back and shut things.
“Or it left.” Rhamp shrugged as he straightened and turned away from the drop. “We could stake out, but I’m supposed to be in the field with John Matthew. A position here would be hard to account for.”
L.W. was still walking away from them, looking at the closed doors of all the apartments like he was playing rock, paper, scissors with each one—and the rock was his shitkicker.
“I agree we need to just move on.” Shuli shook his head. “His Royal Fuck-Shit-Up’ness is going to want to be west of here, in a zip code that has a much, much lower median income and a far higher likelihood of crossing paths with something that smells like a human grandma.”
Plus he really wanted to get the fuck out of here. The idea Lyric was with somebody else made him want to get shitfaced on absinthe and fucked by someone with dark hair again—
He and Rhamp jerked around to the stairwell at the same time.
The scent they were looking for. Finally.
Lyric had not been mistaken.
“L.W.,” Shuli hissed as he took out one of his nines and kept it down at his thigh. “We got a party to go to.”
The heir to the throne might be big as a bus, but he could move like a sprinter when he wanted to. The asshole was instantly front and center—and even took the lead down the stairs as they started to track the stink. The three of them kept against the wall, moving silently, and at the floor below, they paused, even though the scent was still drifting up through the core of the building.
L.W. glanced back and met Shuli’s eyes. Then Rhamp’s.
When the heir nodded, they moved as a single unit. Down. Turn. Down. Turn—
They ran into two humans on the third landing, a couple on their way out, scarves wrapped tight on their necks, gloves being drawn onto hands. Rhamp, who was bringing up the rear, did the duty, brushing their memories clear and inserting the ironclad conviction that it was too cold for them to go anywhere. Home was better.
Or something like that. Whatever thought he put in their brains, they instantly backtracked and disappeared.
Now was not the time for kibitzers.
As Shuli arrived at the lobby, he dipped into the vestibule. No smell, so he shook his head sharply.
The slayer had to be in the cellar.
When L.W. pointed to the secondary fire stairs at the far end, Rhamp nodded and jogged off, his shitkickers quiet over the carpeting, his weapons making a sweet chiming sound under his jacket that only fellow vampires would hear.
Before L.W. could continue the descent from their position, Shuli latched on to the male’s sleeve. Those pale green eyes swung around, and the two of them just stood there.