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)
And last, a direct view to Sceptred Isle featuring the prominent, illuminated, graceful fortress of the Celestial Palace.
To my left was a kitchen with what seemed like miles of glossy black cupboards and monochrome countertops.
Everything, as far as I could tell, was decorated in black, grays, matte silver and polished chrome with accents of amethyst.
This was all I took in before Aleksei was back, stunning me immobile again because he was in a long-sleeved dark-gray T-shirt that hugged his pecs and biceps, faded jeans, and Sky-Trek running shoes.
Not once, in all my life, had I seen him in casual gear, and as noted, I paid attention to him.
He stopped four feet in front of me, like he didn’t trust himself to get any closer, and I saw immediately his temper had not cooled even a little bit, even if his eyes were now dark as night.
“Now…explain,” he bit off.
“E-explain what?”
“Explain…”
He drew a sharp breath into his nose.
“Explain…” He tried again.
And failed again.
“Explain…what the fuck…”—his torso spiked toward me—“you were thinking, putting yourself in the path of a PR60!”
A PR60?
What on earth was that?
“I think maybe we both need to take a brea—” I began to suggest.
“Answer me,” he gritted.
“Perhaps—”
“Fucking answer me!” he roared.
Oh no.
No, no, no, no…
NO!
I lived with this shit my whole fucking life before I left my parents’ home.
I would not have my mate speak to me this way.
No.
Fucking.
Way.
“Calm down,” I snapped.
“I’ll calm down when you answer my fucking question,” he fired back.
“And I’ll answer your question when you can speak to me rationally.”
“And I’d be speaking to you rationally if you’d been behaving rationally and hadn’t walked right in the path of a fucking PR60,” he clipped, not even slightly doing what I asked.
So I lost it and yelled, “I don’t even know what a PR60 is!”
“It’s the weapon he trained on you. Prison issue, in case an inmate manages to escape the benzos they pump into everything and is able to shift. It’s got humanoid settings, demon settings, fae, bot, and the strongest, beast settings. And it’s powerful enough even to ring my beast’s bell. Which was what that fucker was set at, and you stepped right in gods-damned front of it in fucking human form.”
That was the same weapon that killed my beast.
“I wasn’t thinking,” I whispered, my mind tumbling over itself.
“No shit?” he bit.
My mind stopped tumbling, and my head ticked. “I would appreciate, considering you know, a little bit of compassion here, Aleksei.”
“A little bit of compassion for you doing something so motherfucking stupid?” he demanded, just like he thought I was motherfucking stupid.
“It was instinct.” I threw up both hands and guessed at why I did what I did, “You’re my mate.”
“And that venue had twelve RS agents crawling all over it, one two feet behind him, weapon trained. He’d have been neutralized, except you stepped in front of the gods-damned stream, so he couldn’t stun the fucker, because if he did, and it triggered his finger to stream, you would have been caught in that fire.”
Well…
Whoops.
“Okay, you have to cut me some slack. I’m new to this,” I said.
“Cut you some slack,” he whispered, and I did not take his change in tone as a good thing.
Oh no.
I could tell it was a bad thing.
Very bad.
I opened my mouth, but he lifted an imperious hand for me to keep quiet, which rankled in a major way, and he shifted his attention over my shoulder.
I turned.
The doors to a lift situated behind me opened. Set and the female agent strode out, and it was only then I noticed the female was dark fae.
“Scene is locked down. The team is already there. Truelock and Vinestrong are being transferred to interrogation, District Three Constabulary. Constables from there as well as Districts Two, Four and Five are corralling witnesses and gathering evidence, but the RMI is sending agents in to take over,” Set reported.
“Wait, what?” I whispered.
“The assailant is being transported to the Hold. And RS, RIC and RMI are already squabbling about who’s going to have the first go at him,” Set finished reporting to Aleksei.
He didn’t even spare a glance at me.
I whirled on Aleksei. “Why are Cat and Gayle being interrogated?”
“Because no one knew I might be there, except Cat and Gayle,” Aleksei all but spat.
“They wouldn’t—”
He dismissed me by ordering Set, “Mammon and Freya Truelock need to be picked up too.”
“No!” I cried.
“Already ordered,” Set told him.
“My father been informed?” Aleksei asked Set.
Set nodded. “Allain is doing it. Then he’ll be here to assist you.”
“There is absolutely no way Cat, Gayle or Mr. and Mrs. Truelock are involved in this,” I announced.
No one paid me any mind as Set informed Aleksei, “I clocked him when he came in. At first, he had eyes only for Laura.”
“Same,” the female said. “She’s pretty, but it wasn’t that. He was locked on.”