Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192810 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 964(@200wpm)___ 771(@250wpm)___ 643(@300wpm)
“I need something from you,” I announced.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“This isn’t a social comm,” I shared.
“Sweetheart, you were shot at two days ago.”
My entire frame froze at the endearment.
He’d never called me anything like it.
“Are you okay?” he demanded.
“As you can see, I’m fine,” I said stiffly.
“I’ve been mad with worry. Even your mother commed, asking if I’d heard from you.”
“The family did a vid that very night, Dad,” I reminded him.
“You can fake things with makeup and vid-shopping and”—he skimmed a hand out in front of him—“holos.”
“Well, this isn’t vid-shopped. This is me, live and in person.”
“All right,” he replied. “What do you need?”
“I need to know about her.”
Even his holo paled. “What?”
“Obviously, I learned my lesson the very long and hard way about the depths of your loss.”
He flinched.
I refused to process that, or how painful it obviously was for him, and kept going. “But I need to understand…her loss.”
He got even paler. “Is the prince okay?”
“Aleksei’s fine,” I snapped. “I’m fine. We’re all fine. Except Antheme. She’s very dead.”
“Oh, Laura,” he whispered. “Were you close?”
“She died for me, so I’d say that’s pretty close.”
More whispering with, “Honey.”
I could not take this.
“Okay, let me be clear,” I bit out. “I’m breaking the no contact for a reason. I’m not telling you that reason. And after this is done, we’ll go back to that. But I need this, and you’re the only one who can give it to me, so I’m asking for it, and then we can go back to regularly scheduled programming.”
“Everyone is right in what they’re saying. This is something big,” he guessed (correctly).
“No,” I lied through gritted teeth, giving the party line that Germaine had released after the incident. “As I said, everything is fine. Yes, there’s a disenfranchised faction that’s doing stupid stuff. But the RMI is all over it. I can’t say more, I just know they have it under control now.”
“Then why are you asking about me losing…” A long hesitation. “Her?” he queried.
It sucked that it hurt he could barely even say the word “her” while referring to her.
I couldn’t feel it.
I had to stay on target.
“If you want to ask questions, I’m out, Dad. We’re done and we can return to—”
I was reaching to the display to end the stream, but he said quickly, “No. No. I’ll tell you.”
I sat starchily on the side of the daybed, folded my hands in my lap and stared at his holo.
“I sense you already understand it’s agony,” he started.
“Yeah, Dad. I got that part,” I drawled sarcastically.
“Can I…will you allow me to show you something?”
Of course, he wouldn’t just tell me.
“Fast, Dad. I have things to do.”
He nodded quickly, reached for his Palm, murmured some things into it, and then…
By all the gods…
A 3D pic popped up from his Palm, not full size, obviously, but…
Hecate save me…
The extraordinary dragon with silky fur the color of creamy buttermilk, brilliant amber eyes, sheer taffy-pink feathers streaming back from the sides of her head, her long, sinuous neck curled in an elegant S, her intelligent face, which resembled a doe more than a dragon, was stunning.
The coloring was wrong. My beast’s face had more of an equine shape.
But there was no denying the similarities.
“Is that her?” I breathed.
The image blinked out.
“It was a mugging gone wrong,” he said tersely. “We were so connected, she was fifteen blocks away, and I could feel her fear. I transformed. I flew. She was still alive when I got to her. She died in my arms.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head.
“It doesn’t excuse what I did to you,” he said swiftly. “She would…she would hate me. Absolutely loath me for what I did to you.”
I lifted my head.
“But your beast so looked like her, when she appeared, something fractured in me,” he whispered.
I couldn’t bear this.
“This isn’t what I want to talk about.”
Again, speaking swiftly, he offered, “What do you want to talk about?”
“Could you not control it? How you were with Mom. How you were with me?”
“Your mother and you are two different stories, Laura.”
“I need to understand how a male acts when his mate is in danger,” I ground out.
His expression infused with understanding, and for the first time in both of our lives, it became fatherly as he let out a long, “Ahhhh.”
“Dad,” I snapped.
“Laura, it’s excruciating,” he stated. “Females, they bear other burdens. Males, this…if I’m reading it right, what you’re asking about, then I can tell you. Right now, Prince Aleksei is in the deepest pit of all the hells.”
My heart lurched.
My beast rolled.
My eyes raced to the door.
And Aleksei stalked through it.
I took one look at his face and…
Uh-oh.
Chapter 40
Broken Glass
I had no chance to move or utter a word before he was in, he’d seized the tablet, and Dad’s holo blinked out because Aleksei hurled the tablet across the room.