Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“Then I hope someone got sick of his fuckwittery and put an end to him.”
“Now who’s bloodthirsty?” I teased as something caught the corner of my eye.
I looked out the windows.
Then I blinked and stared out the windows.
Prue, in a dove-gray tunic-length top that looked like two squares stitched together with openings for armholes, and matching gray leggings with equally matching gray flats on her feet with pointed toes that curled up, making her look like she was wearing tiny boats on her tiny feet, was lurking behind a shrub.
She was also wearing her octopus beanie.
How Atlas Talyn didn’t recognize his third child had strong artistic tendencies was beyond me.
What a moron.
But I couldn’t think on that.
Because she was furtively glancing around the shrub at something.
“What?” Battle called.
I didn’t know what, so I couldn’t answer him.
Carefully extricating my feet from under Bartholomew’s jowls, I stood, and my movement must have shared I was in the studio, because Prue looked my way.
She then started waving, not in a hello way, in a get-out-of-the-way way. Since I had no idea what way I was supposed to get out the way of, I didn’t move. And after a spell of her gesticulating wildly, she raced across the grass.
I got up and went to the door.
I opened it just as she came crashing in.
And that would be crashing.
And the crashing would be into me.
“Get down!” she said urgently and in a hushed voice.
But she didn’t give me the chance to get down.
She yanked me down to my knees.
I hit the floor hard, and that was probably one of the reasons Battle did an ab curl to sit up and growled, “The fuck?”
Bartholomew bumped his head on the desk when he lifted it to see what was going on.
The straight edges of Prue’s hair fanned out when she snapped her head to Battle then pointed at him. “Don’t move!”
“What’s going on?” he demanded.
But, as per usual with Battle giving everything he could to someone he loved, big brother didn’t move.
Prue dragged me to the side window.
I glanced in confusion at Battle.
I returned to her when I felt movement and saw her popping up so only her beanie and eyes were over the bottom edge of the window frame, then down, and up again, and down, then up.
I inched up to look over the edge of the window and gasped.
Christian was out there, crouched by a bush, stabbing some kind of long stick into the soil beside it.
Chassie was out there too, wearing a lavish sundress that was pink and had deeper pink flowers on it, was mega flowy and had lots of ruffles. She’d paired this with a wide-brimmed, straw hat with a corresponding pink ribbon tied in a big bow at the back.
Her hair was floofy under the hat, and Floofy was lounging bedside her as she did some pruning.
At this point, Christian moved with his sticks, acting like she wasn’t there, five feet away from him.
He crouched by another bush and dug the stick in.
Chassie shifted so he was in her eyeline.
Or she was in his.
I moved from the window and landed on my ass, whispering, “Oh my God.”
Prue landed on her ass beside me. “I know!”
“I don’t, so what the fuck is going on?” Battle demanded.
“Shh!” Prue waved at him.
I eyed Battle.
Oh shit.
“She’s on the prowl!” Prue said animatedly to me.
She so was.
“Who’s on the prowl?” Battle asked.
“Shh!” Prue repeated.
I could tell Battle was getting pissed.
I could also tell he was done with this because he was making moves to get up.
I knew no way could Battle witness Chassie trying to mend the damage she caused by pretending Christian didn’t exist, only for Christian to make his move to prove he did, and her racing away from him, so he was leaving her alone, without Battle…doing something.
I didn’t know what.
I just knew he couldn’t do whatever it was because that was the message Chassie had been sending.
She wasn’t sending it now.
However, she wasn’t being overt in the new message she was sending.
Ugh.
Shit.
“Don’t move,” Prue ordered. “They can’t suspect we’re in here.”
Battle stopped moving, but clipped, “Who?”
Prue ignored him and told me, “She used to garden in old jeans and sweaters and beat-up wellies. She only started wearing dresses since Christian’s been around.”
Oh shit!
That made Battle move.
So I crawled on all fours quickly across the room, knowing I looked like an imbecile, but this was too important for him to engage.
I got to him, looked up at him to see him staring down at me like he thought I needed medication and a straitjacket.
I grabbed his hand and tried to pull him down.
He didn’t budge.
“Just sit, Battle, please,” I begged.
He glowered at me.
“Please?” I repeated.
Slowly he sat.
“That’s what the ‘yes’ meant at Ravenna’s,” Prue called quietly.
Mm-hmm.
That was what the yes was about.
Either did he like her, or should she make a play, but something like that was what she asked the cards.