Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 92941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92941 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Reese Matthews doesn’t believe in fairy tales—especially not the kind that involve vampires and fated mates. She prefers her life work, friends, and absolutely no supernatural drama. But when an infuriatingly gorgeous vampire strides into her job and sends her body into overdrive with a single glance, everything she thought she knew is turned upside down.
Beaumont Boucher has waited over a century to find his mate again. But this time, fate must have gotten it wrong. Reese is nothing like the woman he lost—the one he walked away from in another life. She’s sharp-tongued, stubborn, and completely unimpressed by his brooding vampire charm. He should leave her alone. But the bond between them is relentless… and the longer he stays away, the worse the craving gets.
While Beau fights the impossible pull toward Reese, his family is reeling from a devastating loss. As the Bouchers hunt for answers, darkness looms—and Reese is caught in the crossfire. With enemies closing in and their connection becoming impossible to ignore, Beau must will he risk his heart—and Reese’s life—for a second chance at fate?
When destiny refuses to be denied, can two enemies find love in the ashes of a past they never shared?
Fans of J.R. Ward and Kresley Cole will devour this steamy paranormal romance filled with fated mates, forced proximity, broody vampires, and enemies-to-lovers tension. Grab your copy and dive in
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Beau
I’d seen a lot of dead people. Conservatively, I’d seen thousands. They’d died in war, natural disasters, accidents, suicides, murders, and plain old age. I’d long ago stopped being shocked or feeling much of anything when I came across one.
But nothing had prepared me to see my baby brother laid out on a stainless-steel table.
I reached desperately for the usual detachment, but I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t actually hold on to any single emotion or thought beyond the fact that they’d obviously tried to spare us by placing his body parts close together to give the illusion that he was all in one piece.
He wasn’t.
The sheet dipped ominously between his torso and head. His thighs and knees. The ball of his shoulders and most of his arms. His wrists and hands.
I swallowed down the bile in the back of my throat.
“You know who did this?” my father rasped, his eyes flickering between the normal blue and a deep red.
“Strike team three eliminated all of them,” Arthur assured him. The Commandant of the United States Vampire Command looked almost as sick as I felt. “It took them less than a day to get back into the compound.”
“Why weren’t we informed?” Ambrose, my eldest brother, stared at the commandant.
“It was a fluid situation.”
“Bullshit.”
“How much less than a day?” my brother, Chance, asked derisively. “A fucking hour? You can’t tell me this didn’t take a while.”
I forced myself not to flinch. I refused to think about all that Zeke had gone through before the end. Not now. Maybe not ever.
“It took them twelve hours.”
“We should’ve been there,” Danny murmured. “We should’ve known.”
“We did know.” I swallowed hard. “All of us knew.”
I’d known the moment Zeke was hurt. There was always a low vibration of connection between the five of us. When one of us was worried or injured, all of us felt it to some degree. Sometimes we didn’t know which of us was in danger, and it became a process of elimination game, each of us reaching out to the others until we knew who was in trouble. Zeke had been the only one we hadn’t been able to contact.
“You’re sure this was some small group and not part of a larger—”
“They were locals who noticed that the team didn’t get injured like they should’ve,” Arthur replied, cutting our father off. “They knew what we were, and when given the opportunity…” He grimaced and shook his head.
“How the hell did they even have the opportunity?” Ambrose asked. “How the fuck did they keep him down?”
“That, we don’t know,” the commandant confessed.
“And no one thought to ask?” Chance snapped in disbelief.
“I give you my word—”
“Fuck your word,” I said flatly, staring at the man who’d been like an uncle to us.
Our brother had been cut into pieces, and Uncle Arthur hadn’t even called to let us know he’d been captured. We’d spent the last two days trying to find out what the fuck was going on. Our mother was frantic. We’d barely been able to convince her to stay home while we came into headquarters, and I wouldn’t have been surprised if she came through the doorway at any moment.
He’d fucked us.
“Bjorn,” my father snapped in warning.
“It’s all right, Erik,” Arthur said, shaking his head. His eyes met mine. “This is unprecedented aggression.”
“What the hell did you all expect when you went public?” Danny spat.
“We went public sixty-four years ago, Daniel,” Arthur reminded him. “And since that time, targeted assaults have been minimal. The benefits of no longer having to hide our species from the rest of the world far outweigh the consequences of living openly.”
Danny scoffed. “Tell that to our brother.”
“We’re doing everything in our power to make sure that this is an isolated event,” Arthur replied quietly. “And not part of a larger plot.”
I didn’t think a single one of us believed that some random local group in the middle of the jungle had the means and opportunity to hold my brother captive for any length of time, not without outside resources.
Our father stared at his friend. “You have all that you need from him?” he asked quietly, reaching out to brush Zeke’s hair back from his forehead.
“We do,” the commandant confirmed.
“I’ll expect him back home by dusk tonight.”
“I don’t know if it’ll be possible to—”
“Tonight, Arthur,” my dad ordered, reaching into his pocket. “No later.”
The commandant held our father’s stare for a long moment before nodding. “I’ll see it done.”
With a nod, my father flipped open the pocketknife in his hand and reached out to cut a lock of Zeke’s hair. My throat tightened painfully as he cupped it into his palm for a moment before closing his fist.
As everyone began to file out of the room, I looked down at Zeke again. His face was slack, and there was mottled bruising around his jaw and eyes, but he still looked like the little brother who had followed us around, trying to be a part of anything and everything we’d ever done. It was almost as if, at any moment, his eyes would open, and he’d tell me to get my shit together.