Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126030 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
He got to work, dressing her with careful efficiency and desperately trying not to let his gaze linger on secret places. He was painfully hard by the time he slid her into bed, but he ignored it. He kissed her forehead, and then lightly kissed her lips, before excusing himself from the room.
He wondered how much she would remember.
He wondered when he’d have to make good and finally tell someone his murky and dangerous past.
31
John
Frigid wind whipped by the cliff, swirling around him. After he’d seen everyone back to the hotel last night, he’d gone back out and sat on a park bench, looking out at the darkness and thinking. He’d tossed and turned when he did finally turn in, rising again early this morning.
Now he stood at the edge of the world, it felt like, looking out into the abyss as flying creatures gathered overhead to participate in a three-cairn—or whatever—training session led by a mysterious and intensely powerful creature that wasn’t completely gargoyle. What else he was, nobody knew. They also didn’t seem to care. Not about his past, and not about Nessa’s, or Austin’s or Jessie’s or John’s.
He felt the danger approaching from behind. His pack had learned never to do that. This convocation had no such qualms. Then again, he no longer attacked first, and asked questions later like in his youth.
The phoenix, a shorter woman of Asian descent, stopped beside him wearing a purple muumuu. He’d seen a great many of those this morning, all worn by the convocation and heckled by the resident gargoyles.
“You don’t have wings.” She looked at him expectedly.
He nearly checked to make sure he wasn’t wearing a cape. “No.”
“You are standing very close,” she said, pointedly looking at the ground between his toes and the edge of the cliff. “If you fly off, you’ll die.”
The words sounded like a threat, but the tone didn’t quite match.
He kept his face blank. “Yes, that is very likely.”
“Unlike me, you don’t come back to life.”
Was it a threat? He didn’t know if he could take a phoenix, but he’d certainly give it a go.
Remembering what Tristan had said the night before, he rolled with it. “This is true. Must be nice to have the assurance of not really dying.”
“Oh, I die.” She nodded adamantly. “It really hurts, most of the time. I hate doing it. But it’s not forever, you know what I mean? Also, I have wings. I can shift mid-fall. You? A gust of wind would blow you off the edge. You’d flap your arms and flail, but eventually, you’d go splat. You wouldn’t come back from that.”
His eye was twitching. He still couldn’t tell if it was a threat or not. The increased adrenaline was making his head spin. It wasn’t as easy to roll with it as he’d originally thought.
“Correct,” he said, feigning calm.
“Right. So maybe you should move back from the edge so you don’t go splat.” She put up her hands. “Hollace said you were a past alpha, and I shouldn’t tell you what to do because you wouldn’t listen, but this is just pointing out the obvious. Jessie would be awfully sad if you fell off the cliff, that’s all. And Ulric said it might get windy. So.”
Her eyes flicked to the edge and back to him again.
A grin pulled at his lips. It wasn’t a threat, at all. The opposite, she was concerned for his safety. Moreover, she was worried about how his death might affect Jessie. He’d grossly misjudged her. Comically so.
The smile almost bubbled into laughter, and he took a large step back. “How’s that?”
She judged the distance, about five feet, and then the wind howling past. She shrugged. “From there, you’d at least have a fighting chance.”
“That’s all we can hope for, in the end.” He was joking, but she nodded solemnly.
The chuckles broke through.
“Why are you here, by the way?” he asked before she could step away. “Why are you signing on to help with this mage thing?”
She put her hands into the pockets of her muumuu and swished the garment around. “These are great for air flow, by the way. You should get one.” She hesitated and then gave him a poignant look. “If you want.”
His chuckles grew.
“I signed on to help Jessie,” she continued. “She summoned me. I felt her need, and I answered. When I answered, she met the challenge—Austin Steele did, actually, but that counts—and gained my approval. I’m doing what I agreed to do.”
“Help her.”
“Yes.”
“But not Austin?”
She pulled a hand free and used a finger to reach through her glasses, where there didn’t seem to be a lens, to rub her eye. “Helping her is helping Austin Steele. Helping them is helping shifters and the magical world at large.” She tilted her head and looked up at the sky. “Helping them is helping restore stability in the magical world. I’m not much of a philosopher, but that seems about right, doesn’t it? One group—the mages—have too much power. That can’t be allowed.”