Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92559 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
But then he focused through his stupid on Mahrci. The female was sprawled on the couch, a bloody towel around her hand, one of her boots on the floor.
With Mayhem sitting at her feet like a dog.
And after Apex asked her if she was okay, he became aware the female was looking at him with the kind of intensity that meant a message was trying to be communicated: It was like the pair of them were in an optical round of charades, where the first word rhymed with “putt,” the last with “s’up,” and there was an f-bomb in the middle somewhere.
What, he mouthed to her.
“Your friend wants to know how we know each other,” she said awkwardly.
“Oh.” He opened his mouth. Closed it. “Through work.”
As Mahrci exhaled slowly, he abruptly wondered if this assignment up here hadn’t been a ruse, after all. Except then he thought of the equipment in the back of the Suburban. No one, not even a male as wealthy as Whestmorel, would waste that kind of money just to monitor his daughter’s temper tantrum—
As his cell phone vibrated in his leather jacket, he frowned and took the thing out.
Speak of the devil.
He looked at her. Glanced at Mayhem.
“’Scuse me.”
Apex had never been to Camp Ghreylke before, but he’d studied the architectural plans to prepare for the job, so he knew where to go to find one of the five bathrooms on the first floor. Closing himself in, he accepted the call while he checked out the dark green, pinecone’d wallpaper and the rustic copper sink. There were two stalls with dark green doors, and lights that were set with copper shades.
Goddamn, he thought. This whole place was like if Paul Bunyan had decided to take up interior design.
“Hello?” came the demand over the connection. “Are you there or not?”
Well, wasn’t that the question of the hour.
Apex turned and looked at himself in a mirror that was framed with birch branches. A stranger was staring back at him.
Rubbing his eyes with his free hand, he heard himself say, “Yeah, I’m at your camp.”
“Is my daughter—”
“She’s here.” No reason to bring up the coyote attack. And he had to wonder if the guy knew his groundskeeper was a wolven. “Is that why I’m wiring up this place?”
“Put her on the phone,” Whestmorel demanded. “She’s not answering my calls.”
Apex checked himself out again in the mirror. Nope. Still recognized the features and knew nothing about the male behind the black eyes.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’m not a family therapist. If she doesn’t want to talk to you, that’s between the two of you.”
“She lied about her whereabouts. She told me she was at—”
“Annnnd we’re still talking about your kid problems. Why?”
“Because I pay you,” Whestmorel snapped, “and I am ordering you to put her on the phone.”
Apex watched in the mirror as his upper lip peeled off his fangs. “You know what one of my biggest pet peeves is?”
“Not in the slightest—”
“Authority. I fucking hate authority. So if you’re trying to muscle me, how ’bout you get somebody else to wire your house. I’ll leave the equipment here since you paid for it all—”
“Wait.” There was some rustling, like the male was switching ears because he was frustrated, but too classy to curse. “Surely you can understand the concern a father has for a daughter who—”
“Nope, can’t say as I do—and I’m never having children so I have no intention of learning. Now, what are we doing here? Am I completing the work you’re paying me for, or are you going to keep throwing around the word ‘order.’ ”
The exhale that came over the connection had a begging quality to it. “The mating ceremony is in less than a month.”
“Again, not my business.”
In the quiet that followed, he imagined his “boss” was weeding through various avenues of coercion and manipulation. But here was the thing. The whole subordinate label required a two-sided arrangement, and Apex was a part of that handshake deal in name only. So the aristocrat was playing with himself.
“She must come back to Caldwell,” Whestmorel announced.
“That and a bowl of soup is your lunch, not mine.”
Another pause. Then, “All right, fine. But you are not an easy male to deal with.”
“This is such a newsflash, you have no idea,” Apex said dryly. “And I’ll take care of the project here as long as whatever is going on with your daughter stays between the pair of you. Good talk, great. I’m out.”
He ended the call, and then he braced himself on the lip of the pretentiously woodsy-casual sink.
Hanging his head, he breathed through his mouth. All he could see was the wolven on that floor up in his quarters above the garage, bleeding, naked . . . a blast from the past that knocked Apex on his ass, and sent him tumbling into his memories.