Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
I let out a breath and close my eyes in a long blink, pushing more tears out of my eyes. They roll down my cheeks and splatter onto the floor. Devon is in bad shape. Sure, he could recover, but he won’t be the same. Which would be fine to most people. Any version of their loved one is better than none.
But the Malus Family aren’t most people.
“Hey,” the nurse starts, looking at me. She’s young, with thick red hair pulled back in a loose braid. Her eyes are kind, like she was born to work a job helping others. I expect her to tell me I need to leave or even start questioning how I got here in the first place. “You’re Florence, right?”
“Um, yeah.” I shake my head, realizing too late that I probably shouldn’t have told her that.
“I have something for you,” she says and reaches into the front pocket of her pink scrub top. I go on the defense right away, bringing my hand up, ready to defend myself and Devon if need be. But she doesn’t pull out a weapon. Instead, she hands me a letter.
“I’m going to page the doctor,” she tells me and walks out of the room, leaving me staring at the white envelope with confusion. It’s small, about the size of an index card. I flip it over and see that it’s sealed with a golden sticker. My breath catches in my chest as I hold it up, catching the emblem embossed on the sticker: The Order of the Mystic Realm.
Chapter
Six
The doors leading into the ICU click open and I turn, sensing my vampire husband before I see him. I shove the letter into the center pocket of my hoodie and slowly inhale. Theo hangs back by the door and Xavier strides in.
“Wren,” he starts, and hearing his deep voice say my name sends a shiver through me. “We spoke with the doctor.”
“I…I know,” I whisper, not needing Xavier to tell me that Devon’s injuries are grave. “You’re going to turn him?”
“Yes. He was raised and prepared for this. It was always the plan. Though the original plan changed,” he goes on and shifts his gaze from me to Devon and back again.
“Right, because the original plan was for him to knock up a random Order member of his choosing.”
Xavier closes the distance between us. “Yes,” he agrees. “That was the plan. But you are not a random Order member anymore. You are my wife. No one else will ever touch you again.”
His words carry a threat but also a promise. “I don’t want anyone else to touch me,” I breathe, voice quiet. I try to blink back tears and bring my hand up, fingers landing over Xavier’s heart. A renegade tear escapes my eye and Xavier gently wipes it away with his thumb.
“You don’t need to be sad, Wren. He’s not dying in the traditional sense.”
I stare at him for a second and then start laughing. “This is all so weird, and my life is full of weird. So weird for a hunter is really fucking weird.”
His lips pull into a smirk. “Weirdness is relative. We’re all weird, it’s just a matter of what you’re willing to show.”
“You’re right. Turning people isn’t weird for you. It’s normal. Day-to-day life.”
“I don’t turn someone every day,” he chides, his smirk growing. “I don’t like people enough to keep them around forever.”
“You like Devon?” My eyes narrow a bit. “Do you even know him?”
“Wren,” he says gently and brushes my hair back. “I do, and I have. He’s smart and has a good head on his shoulders.”
“Right,” I say and nod, trying not to think about how weird it is that Xavier—my husband—watched his offspring from the start, finding potential in them when they were only children. Now that is fucking weird no matter how you spin it.
I can’t deny the feelings I have for Xavier. Not to myself and not to him. But the fact that there is so much about him that I don’t know is a mind fuck. He has lived for hundreds of years. He has seen so much. Lived so much. Done so much.
Maybe that’s why I felt so drawn to Devon. He and I both had baggage and a past, but it was of more equal time. Neither of us lived through the Black Plague, for one.
"How do you do it?” I ask, tearing my eyes away from Xavier’s gorgeous face and looking at Devon. He’s so helpless and defenseless right now. “How do you turn someone into a vampire?”
“The sire drains all the blood from their progeny. Then, right before their heart takes its final beat, the sire feeds them their blood. What actually happens after that…” He shrugs. “The black magic takes over. Everything inside is frozen. Not functional but not rotting. Blood still circulates our systems, but it’s powered by magic, not by a beating muscle inside our chests.”