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)
Wake. Work. Come home. Chill.
Last night, we’d hung out in the living room with the purple fire, ordered in noodles, drank wine, snuggled and read (real books!).
Oh, and there was a lot of lovemaking wedged in.
But I had not hidden the fact that I was increasingly excited at how much my beast was making herself known.
More flutters.
Tension in my chest like she was stretching.
Sensations of movement like she was rolling or changing position.
It’d been so long since I had all that, I was impatient to have her back in full.
“Yes, I heard her,” I told Aleksei.
“We’ll clear our schedules, hunker down here when the time is nigh,” he said.
“You don’t have to—”
“I’ll be here when you get her back, Laura.”
“Okay,” I mumbled, fighting a grin because he was so…
Aleksei.
He removed his finger but swept his gaze down my feminine, stylish and pretty, but somewhat severe black suit. An ensemble I’d purchased to attend Cat’s human grandma’s passing ritual.
“Although that’s fetching, albeit austere, you didn’t have to go that far for the interviews,” he remarked.
I wasn’t dressed for the interviews I was conducting with Allain that afternoon to hire my aide.
I was dressed for something else.
Here we go.
“I’m going to Naylyn’s ritual this morning.”
His brows shot up.
Naylyn was the young female who’d been murdered at the gallery.
“Before you say anything,” I began hurriedly, “I wasn’t keeping it from you. I didn’t know I intended to go until I was in my closet, programming my outfit for the day. But, drahko, I can’t get her out of my mind.”
His face softened and he stole an arm around me. “I’ve been experiencing the same.”
Of course he had.
Because he was so…
Aleksei.
“Her family must be out of their minds with her loss,” I said. “Not to mention the betrayal. And the way she’s being portrayed on the news and the tapes. She wasn’t a traitor. She wasn’t a pawn. She was a young woman who thought she was falling in love.”
“Indeed,” he murmured. Then he said, “I’ll go with you.”
I was surprised at this decision.
“You will?” I asked.
“A statement needs to be made. Of course, it has, but no one has picked it up. The story was much more sensational when she was an accessory in an assassination plot. If you and I attend her passing ritual, that statement will be made.”
“And it might provide some small balm to her family and friends,” I added.
“Yes,” he agreed. “But I’ll warn you, love, this will be controversial. Beings have made up their minds about her. There’ll be a great number of opinions about us doing this, and no one will have any compunction about putting them on a tape.”
“Do you mind?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t, but you’re very new to this. In the short time you’ve been exposed to it, you’ve enjoyed unprecedented popularity. You need to be aware that will turn, Laura. It isn’t a maybe, it’s a definite. There will be those who understand what we’re doing and see it for what it is. There will be those who will not. Comments and speculation can be misguided and vicious. I want you to go in knowing that’s not a possibility, it’s what will happen.”
“Not having experienced it, I can’t say I’ll be prepared. But I don’t want to get into a zone where what people may or may not think dictates what I do. If I get in that zone, I’ll never do anything for fear someone will get pissed about it. Or I’ll surgically attach myself at the hip with Germaine so she can guide my every move.”
“Let’s not do that. The only female I wish in my bed is you. She’s not welcome,” he joked.
I laughed.
Then I had to quit laughing to get to the next part.
“Do you remember Nata?” I asked.
He still had his arm around me but had turned his head and was taking a sip of his coffee, and only his eyes came to me at my question.
He swallowed the sip, put his cup down and faced me fully.
“Yes,” he said cautiously.
“Has…anything happened with her?”
“I informed Allain of my concerns.”
“And?”
“And Allain investigated it. He found I was correct. Errol dallied with her. He also promised her he would announce they were formally courting. He did not deliver.”
“And?” I pressed.
He sighed. “And Allain is looking to find her another post. Nothing is available for her skillset, so she’s still working at the Catalogues for now, but she’s been taken off anything that’s sensitive or has great value.”
“What does she do at the Catalogues?”
“Documentation and data entry.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means she researches backlog papers and artefacts, verifies their authenticity and enters them into the database with thorough substantiation and descriptions before they’re stored.”
“And her skillset?”
“She has a university degree, double major, history and preservation.”
“So she’s pretty qualified.”
“She wouldn’t have been hired if she wasn’t. It’s my understanding her goal was to move out of authentication and into preservation. But she’s young and was working her way up.”