Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
“Good thing I’m not?” he questions.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I wanted to check on you.”
“Why?”
“Your mental health is going to impact—”
“Bullshit,” I interrupt before he can go on. “I’m nowhere near ready to carry your child.”
“Fine, I just…” He trails off and shakes his head. “They all left and I thought I’d see how you’re holding up because this is a lot and there’s nothing that can be done to help you accept it.”
I nod, knowing he means since I can’t be held spellbound, there’s no skirting around how fucked up this whole situation is. I’m married to his brother and he’s going to knock me up.
“If they were here would you have come by?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think we’re really supposed to be friends.”
“I see.”
“You’re interesting,” he goes on. “And I want to know how you killed that rack-shash whatever.”
“A rakshasas,” I say with a smile. “I stabbed it through the heart with a consecrated blade. Then we burned the body and threw the bones into a river. It was so hot and we were being kind of too lazy to dig a hole.”
“You said that so casually.”
I let out a snort of laughter. “You live with vampires. Surely you’re no stranger to covering up murder.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Not me personally. I, uh, spent a lot of my life overseas or away at school.”
“Right. You’re being groomed to become one of the Elite Immortals,” I say, mocking. “You really want to be a vampire?”
“It doesn’t seem so bad, does it?” He sweeps his hand out at the room. “Not in this family, at least.”
I just nod and bite my lip, looking at him curiously. “How do you know they’ll make you one?”
He shrugs and winces from the pain it causes the burn. “I guess I don’t. But we don’t really know if anyone keeps any promises.”
“True, and I might be a little bitter right now, but I’m apt to say people in general just suck.”
His face softens. “You had no idea your family made a deal.”
“Nope.” I go into the bathroom and run another washcloth under cold water, swapping it out with the other. A bead of water runs down Devon’s arm and I gently wipe it away. He’s warm. Muscular. And…a nice guy?
No, I refuse to believe it.
“You thought you were getting Larissa.”
“I was supposed to,” he says, looking guilty. “Then I saw you. I’m…I’m sorry.”
“I feel like I should be mad at you, but I would have been given up anyway.”
“Yeah,” he agrees and silence falls over us.
“You’re totally her type,” I say and playfully nudge him. “Larissa, I mean.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Sure.”
“Yeah,” I go on. “She has horrible taste in men.”
“Thanks,” he says dryly and I laugh.
“Really, though…her last boyfriend was this textbook narcissist who took any opportunity to trash-talk his ex-wife/mother of his children.”
“Sounds like a winner,” Devon says and carefully pulls the rag away from his skin to look at the burn. It’s pretty bad.
“Right? We all told her that he was a lying piece of garbage but she believed him when he said his ex was crazy and made everything up.” I roll my eyes, remembering how frustrating it was to watch Larissa defend this asshole to the family. “Even his kids were scared of him. And I get it—maybe, ya know? Believe him but when his own children say they don’t want to be with Dad because they’re scared he’s going to hurt them like how he used to…it takes a special kind of stupid to stay with someone after that.”
“What ended up happening?”
“He got mad and threw a plate at the wall. Leo happened to be on the phone when it happened so let’s just say that man, who is now bald, will never have the range to throw things like he used to.”
“Bones were broken?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“And the baldness?”
I smile. “A simple curse. And I might have made him have lustful dreams about his mother for a few weeks after that, too.”
He lets out a snort of laughter. “You are diabolical and I’m fucking here for it.”
I shrug like it’s no big deal. “What’s the point in being a witch if you can’t curse an abusive narcissist every now and then?”
“It would definitely come in useful.” He looks at me, wanting to say something more, but inhales and gets up. “I should go and you should sleep. Maybe? You’ll probably have to get used to being up at night. You’ll be expected to, I don’t know, hang on Xavier’s arm when he’s doing, well, whatever the hell he does.”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“I am on a need to know basis as a human. Though I do know tonight, he and Theo are meeting with another family who runs a company if you know what I mean.”