Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
This was good.
I didn’t care.
Red covered my vision when I whirled on him and snapped, “That fucking bitch! What? Controlling his father and beating his mother to death wasn’t enough? She has to go after everything he loves? What is wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, Catla,” Nayden replied, still in that calm voice. “I’ll never know. You won’t either. Because you aren’t a vicious cunt.”
Well, that wasn’t exactly a compliment, but coming from Nayden, I’d take it.
I threw myself in a seat, crossed my legs, but my foot was still bouncing.
“I have to get a lock on this,” I declared. “I have to be together when we get to him.”
“You’re welcome to shout at me some more,” he offered.
“No, I’ll just sit here and visualize wringing her neck for the next half an hour.”
“That works too.”
“If anything happens to them…” I let that trail.
Nayden had no response.
I focused on him. “Don’t you have any advice? I mean, don’t they train you to keep your shit together when stuff like this happens?”
“Since demonic fury makes us excellent killing machines…no.”
“Fuck!” I shouted, jumped up and started pacing again. I whirled on him and accused, “How are you calm? I know he’s like a brother to you.”
Instantly, faster than I’d ever seen it happen with any demon, his eyes glowed red.
“He shared,” he said with deceptive quiet. “I’ve known for years what he lived through. What they put him through. I was with him when he learned his mother had died. I was at his side, marveling at his patience, as he pushed his case through the courts to claim what was his since birth. In other words, I have practice keeping a tight rein on wanting to stream a hole through that bitch’s forehead.”
I huffed.
But it made me feel better to know that Tanyn had told his friend about his life, his trials and tribulations, that he had someone loyal like Nayden.
I threw myself in a seat again and stated, “It really sucks you don’t like me, because I like you.”
“You’re growing on me,” he muttered with a lip twitch.
That made me feel better too.
“Controlled breathing,” he said.
“What?”
“Deep breaths in. Hold. Deep breaths out. Ten seconds in. Ten seconds hold. Ten seconds exhale. Ten times. Do it.”
I did it.
I felt calmer after doing it.
So I said, “Thanks.”
He got up and headed toward the cockpit, replying, “Don’t mention it.”
He wasn’t there long before he came back out, resumed his seat and said, “Twenty minutes until landing.”
I nodded, turned and stared at the window to watch the lights in the far distance of Abyssinia get closer.
That twenty minutes felt like two, at the same time it felt like two hours, before we were hovering our landing over the bay behind Berg Castle.
Tanyn and Hurley were there, like always, but as I watched him the entire time we landed, I saw impassive Tanyn was back, and this didn’t give me happy thoughts.
I had to fight back the urge to shove Nayden out of my way so I could get out of that jet first, and to Tanyn.
I bested this.
But that didn’t mean I didn’t race, yes, on heels, to my male.
I grabbed the sides of his neck when I got to him, lifted on my toes, touched my lips to his, rocked back and asked, “Zyr and Manny?”
“They’re here,” he answered, voice tight.
Thank gods.
“And Manny is fine,” he went on.
I tensed, because that was only one half of what was left of his whole family.
“But their escape craft came under heavy fire. The armor partially failed. They took a blast that caught Zyra. She’s in a medi-pod now.”
My heart was squeezing so hard, it was a wonder it was beating, but I forced myself to say, “Okay. I’m here. I’m safe. You go do what you have to do. I know where the medi-unit is. Is Manny there?”
“Yes.”
“Go,” I urged. “Nayden is with me.”
He glanced at Nayden. He bent to touch his mouth to mine. Then he took my hand and guided us inside.
He stopped and said, “See to Hurley?”
I nodded.
“Stay with Catla,” he ordered Hurley.
Hurley whined but sat down beside me.
With another glance at Nayden, he prowled off.
I turned to Nayden and said, “Let’s go.”
I didn’t wait for him.
I snapped my fingers at Hurley and took off toward the castle’s medi-unit.
Some time later, curled in an uncomfortable chair outside Zyra’s pod with Hurley, Tanyn strode in.
I unfolded and hopped to my feet at the same time Hurley jumped down and ran to his daddy.
Hurley got a loving but perfunctory head pat before Tanyn walked to me, and I took no offense that his attention wasn’t on me but on the window into the pod.
But when he got to me, I wrapped both arms around his waist, pressed my front to his side, felt his arm curl around my shoulders, and we both looked into the pod.