Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Sure, Pandora knew there could be some species-based tensions between them. But since they’d met, Elias had proven himself to be more modern than she’d first thought. He even told the crowd about a particularly amusing interaction he’d had with a local, and particularly grouchy, gargoyle. Who’d tried to sell himself in service to Elias because he was sick of the schoolchildren looking up at him on their walk home and making fun of his missing fang.
And she knew from experience that Lucy had no issues with vampires either.
So the two of them tossing species-based barbs at each other instead of looking for anything personal to gripe about made Pandora think that they actually didn’t dislike each other, but were just digging their heels in and sticking to the story that it was hate-at-first-(and every)-sight rather than admitting that as they spent more time together, they saw they had mistaken initial assumptions about each other.
Pandora knew her friend to be hot-tempered and stubborn. She could see Lucy having a difficult time admitting their first impressions were wrong, and letting bygones be bygones. Lucy once held a grudge against a neighbor for years over one small disagreement about parking spaces. After all the snark tossed between Lucy and Elias, Pandora imagined that Lucy was just sticking to the same energy as the first meeting, despite the fact that the zingers they were tossing lately felt a lot less pointed – and that Elias hadn’t even been taking any digs at Lucy during dinner.
She hoped for everyone’s sake that the two of them would sit down and have an adult conversation where they could both agree to change their opinions of each other based on new evidence.
“Do you think there’s something going on with them?”
“Definitely not,” Pandora said.
“How do you know?”
“Well, first, because Elias is always at the house,” she said, immediately regretting it when Victor’s green eyes went dark. “But also because Lucy never keeps anything from me. I know about every bad date she’s ever had.”
Even the one time that Lucy had woken up after a particularly strong full moon to find herself naked in the woods with a man she’d never seen before.
She’d been reasonably sure they had just encountered each other while on a hunt and that nothing had happened between them.
Apparently, it was a turning point for her as a shifter, wanting to make sure she never went through a full moon alone again, despite not having lived near her own familial pack in many years.
“Do you want me to walk you to the Tube?” Victor asked.
“Do you maybe just want to … walk for a bit?” she asked.
“Sure,” he said, tucking his hands into his front pockets and making his shoulders curl forward – something that Pandora found almost intolerably adorable.
If this was a real relationship, not a business arrangement, she was pretty sure she would have moved into his path, grabbed the front of his jumper and pulled him down for a long, deep kiss.
But it wasn’t.
So she needed to keep her hands to herself.
No matter how much harder that seemed to get each time she was around him.
“How have things been at home? Is your family driving you crazy?”
“Pretty much every moment,” Pandora said, but she was smiling. “For the most part, it is good crazy. Three more relatives have shown up since the engagement party.”
“Who?” Victor asked, lightly touching her hip to guide her away from a man stumbling out of a pub.
“My uncle Leopold and his partner, Cody.”
“Leopold and Cody,” Victor said, looking amused by the mix of new and old-fashioned names.
Pandora couldn’t exactly tell Victor that Leopold, a man who had been single and lonely for the better part of five hundred years, had happened across a newly made, twenty-something vampire named Cody at a trendy new underground vampire club. Sparks had flown. They’d been inseparable ever since.
“There’s a bit of an age gap there,” Pandora said. “Then there is Aunt Henrietta,” she went on. “If you think Aunt Ravenna is a bit … eccentric, Henrietta puts her to shame. She showed up just before dawn in a cloud of musky perfume and sixteen small dogs.”
“Sixteen?” Victor asked, aghast. “I like dogs as much as the next Brit, but … sixteen.”
Henrietta had long been a fervent dog-lover. And she was often despondent over the fact that there were no immortal dogs the way there were immortal ravens like Vlad.
“They’re all spoiled horribly rotten, too,” Pandora said fondly, thinking of the way Henrietta went to everyone’s bedroom to hand them a bag of dog treats, instructing them to give any dog who came to their door a little snack before sending them on their way.
“What kind of dogs are they?”
“She likes them small and fluffy,” Pandora said. “She has several different-coloured Pomeranians, Pekinese, papillons, and chihuahuas. And, yes, she will introduce you to each of them. As well as tell you several facts about them.”