Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 29381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29381 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 147(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 98(@300wpm)
If Mathias has Tabitha, I’ll go after her. I’ll do everything I can to save her…or die trying. No woman—especially sweet Tabby—deserves to perish the way Mathias prefers to kill: shaving, branding, raping, then leaving the agonized victim to bleed to death. I can’t even think about her enduring that. She’s so warm, so passionate beneath her shy exterior, so smart, and so welcoming I couldn’t find the will to stay away. Everything about her draws me in.
She is, in a word, perfect.
Tabitha deserves a better father for her child. In fact, her parents insisted on that—and found her a suitable mate, whom she would have joined with mere days from now. I never imagined that dredging up the strength to walk away from her would lead to her disappearance…or worse.
“Call Shock,” I demand. “Now!”
With a sigh, Bram pulls his phone from his pocket, his long exhalation sounding like code for you poor bastard. “You’re presuming the wanker will answer.”
After pressing a few buttons, Bram hands me the phone.
Shock picks up…with his usual attitude. “What the fuck do you want?”
“It’s Raiden Wolvesey. I need help.”
“Why should I help you? We have nothing to say.”
The hell we don’t. “I need information about the Lowery attack.”
Shock falls silent for a long moment. “Why do you think I can help? What’s done is done.”
“You knew about this?” I’m horrified. My stomach lurches. “You knew Mathias intended to attack Tabitha’s family?”
Shock remains silent for so long that I wonder if the wizard hung up. Finally, he replies, “If you were Mathias and you could obtain information you needed while bedding one of magickind’s most renowned beauties, what would you do?”
“So he planned to take her and—” I can’t finish my sentence. Hell, I can scarcely breathe. I’m torn between feeling ill and wanting to take him—not to mention his evil boss—apart with my bare hands. “Did he succeed? Does Mathias have her?”
“How should I know? I wasn’t there. Mathias had this mad idea last night. Wouldn’t share it, just said he’d solved a problem and needed information. Then he disappeared. I don’t know who he took from the Lowery estate. But today, he’s in a foul mood. Make of that what you will. Now piss off.”
I hear three beeps in my ear. The wanker hung up on me! With a curse, I thrust the phone back at Bram, trying to tamp down my growing fear and fury.
Mathias was after information? But he’s in a right foul mood? Something must have gone wrong.
I pray that means Tabitha escaped.
Clinging to that glimmer of hope, I resolve to keep searching for her. I won’t rest until I find her…one way or the other.
“Well?” Bram prompts.
“Shock knows nothing.”
“At least nothing he’s willing to admit. With him, who knows?”
Who, indeed? I wander into what was once Tabitha’s bedroom and stop in the doorway—stricken. Rubble everywhere. Destruction. But not a single trace of her—not a shoe, not a ribbon. Not even a hint that she fought back.
Just…nothing.
Somehow, that guts me almost as much as if I’d found her body. The effect is the same.
She’s gone.
The thought is a stab straight into my bleeding heart.
Damn it, how can I be this grief-stricken over someone I don’t love?
Chapter
Two
“If Mathias had Tabitha,” Bram says, voice low, “he’d likely be taunting you with the knowledge.”
I clench my fists. “Why? As you pointed out, she’s not my mate.”
“But she is carrying your youngling, and her magical signature would tell him that,” he points out, referring to the visual “aura” around every witch and wizard that details their power and lineage. “He’ll start with the idea that you’ll do anything to protect your coming youngling…and the woman carrying it.”
A very good assumption.
My phone rings. I yank it from my pocket, peer at the display, and swear. My father. If Nathanial, the eternal manwhore, tells me that he’s scored two sisters and to come home immediately, as he did last week, I’ll throttle the man.
“What?” I bark into the device.
“Good evening to you, son. Are you…busy?”
In other words, am I already shagging someone tonight? I grit my teeth. How can a grown wizard hundreds of years into his magical lifespan still think like a rutting man-child? I’ve tried repeatedly to explain to him that since I’ve joined the Doomsday Brethren, finding a different woman every night no longer tops my priority list. Staying alive does. Granted, that’s likely futile. Seven warriors stacked against the most evil wizard in history and his growing army? The odds aren’t merely abysmal; they’re suicidal. But my twin, Ronan, is committed to this war and its noble cause. I won’t leave my brother to fight alone.
“Very.” There’s nothing more important than finding Tabitha. Hopefully, my terse reply will dissuade my father from calling for at least a few hours.
“Very well, I’ll tell your encinta that.”