Total pages in book: 254
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 240032 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1200(@200wpm)___ 960(@250wpm)___ 800(@300wpm)
Why did he look familiar?
Another cell phone started ringing, and that time Randall pulled his out. “Randall… Yes… yes… we’ll be there soon… yes, I’ll bring help.” He chuckled, then ended the call. “Constance fell and needs help. Ani, will you come with me? She needs to get dressed and doesn’t want me to see her naked.”
“Yup.” Ani slid a look toward the other man, their eye contact lingering, communicating something I wasn’t sure of. She turned to me with a smile that almost seemed brittle. “We’ll be back in a little bit, Nina.”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll be here.”
She winked. Then she glanced at the man one more time and made a face that didn’t put me at ease.
He glared at her right back, taking a long pull of his beer before Ani and Randall left, turning right to go out the back, the door slamming shut behind them.
I managed to take one single sip of the nearly frozen bottle before an unfamiliar voice asked, “What the fuck are you?”
I almost wanted to snicker at the predictability. People, people, people.
Instead of answering him or wasting my time giving him any attention, I took another sip that I didn’t enjoy half as much as I should have.
Unfortunately for me, he didn’t take the hint.
“Did you hear what I asked?” the blond man tried one more time.
I thought about ignoring him some more, but my gut said that wasn’t going to have the effect I wanted it to. So, without looking at him, I replied, “I heard you.”
“So?” he asked in one of the most annoyingly entitled tones I’d ever heard in my life. One of those voices that had the ability to instantly get under my skin by how demanding it was. There was bossy and then there was passive-aggressive.
I wanted people to like me. I wanted to fit in. But at what cost?
Since we’d gotten here, no one had asked me what I was—other than the kids—and no one had visibly shunned me. It had been nice.
But this was the exact reaction I’d been dreading when we got here.
And he wasn’t going to drop it.
“You listening? I have a right to know,” the werewolf claimed.
He had a point, to an extent, but I still wasn’t ready to answer his question, regardless of how much he believed he wanted to know the truth.
He didn’t.
He just didn’t know that yet.
And that realization was what I was trying to avoid.
Which meant I had to put my polite face on while I said, “I’m not anything you need to worry about,” even though he was being so rude. Plus, my bracelet was on, it wasn’t like he could smell me in the first place.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to hold on to my patience. Tried to hold on to my understanding. “It doesn’t, but what you’re asking is personal and rude,” I told him, trying my hardest to be polite. I even looked at my instant serotonin boost—Duncan—lying there, sleeping, to remind myself why we had to make this place work.
It helped, but not enough.
Especially not when the man scoffed.
I took another sip of my beer and tried again, for Duncan. “Look, your elders said I didn’t have to share that information with anyone, and I hope you can respect my wishes.” See how nice I could be?
Not nice enough though.
“If you have nothing to hide, then why can’t you tell anybody?”
I focused on the bottle in my hand, trying not to let frustration get the best of me. I didn’t like being ambushed. Confrontation wasn’t my thing either, at least not when I was having a perfectly good day. It was one thing for Spencer to call me something that hurt my feelings, and it was another to deal with someone annoying… very annoying.
“Folks hide things when they have a reason to,” the blond kept on.
I should’ve seen that coming.
He wasn’t wrong. At the same time, I thought about the elder with the bracelet that I knew I hadn’t imagined. Did he give Franklin shit about it? I doubted it. But just thinking about the elder rekindled my curiosity about his magical nature. “I understand why you think you should know,” I tried to reason. “I’m not like you. I’m not going to pretend like I am, but I hope you understand that you can trust me. I’m here for the same reason everyone else is. I just want to raise my boy in a nice, quiet community where he can be safe.”
The man’s expression went dark, and I did not like that. “I don’t know you. I don’t need to trust you,” he just about spit.
My magic fluttered in my chest. “No offense, but I don’t know you either, and I have no reason to trust you. And what you’re doing is the same as me asking how big your balls are, the only difference is that I don’t care because I don’t want to see them, the same way my ancestry doesn’t affect you either,” I replied, clenching my teeth almost the whole time.