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)
So he’d refused to think about it again.
Instead, he’d concentrated on the sounds of the voices, the comings and goings of the medical staff, and where Apex was—which was never far. Through his eavesdropping, he’d learned that the liberation of the facility was sticking, that the guards who had been commanded by that female had all run off or been killed, that the site was secured by the Black Dagger Brotherhood, and that the prisoners who hadn’t died of starvation and disease were being treated.
He’d also known Kane was around. Lucan, too. And their mates, especially Nadya, who was a nurse.
He’d memorized the schedule, knew when darkness fell because that was when Apex always brought in the first round of food—and then the male would leave for a stretch of time, returning freshly showered with something that Callum, until he’d finally opened his lids, had assumed carried a spritz of perfume.
Not perfume, though. White blooms.
The night he had decided he was strong enough to leave, he had waited until Apex left to go get the first of the meals. Then, he had finally opened his eyes.
He’d been on his back, and the sight of that ceiling? It had ripped him back to that female riding him—for a split second, he had blinked and seen her straddling him again, felt the sensations, jerked at binds that no longer existed.
He could still remember the battle it had been to stay in the present. And his wonder at the flowers had helped him focus.
All around the bedding platform, set in little glass containers, there had been roses and carnations and sprigs of baby’s breath.
It had been spring in his sorrow.
And that was when he’d cried.
Not for long, though. He hadn’t had a lot of time if he wanted to avoid a goodbye he didn’t have the strength for . . .
A goodbye he still didn’t have the strength for.
“Apex,” he whispered—
“No, I am afraid that is not me.”
Callum spun around. The male who had come up behind him was a striking figure, tall and lean, dressed in a black robe that fell to the floor, his black hair long and straight. At first glance, you might mistake him for some kind of ascetic, a religious figure who wafted through the physical world doing good deeds. Not it. Those gleaming dark eyes were calculating in a banked-nuclear-bomb kind of way.
Funny, how appearances could be deceiving.
The male’s nose flared and there was a flash of surprise. “Oh, it’s . . . you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I know you.” The figure drifted forward as if he were floating, bypassing Callum and pausing at the door. “Come in. Join me for a meal. It’s the least I can do to pay you back.”
Callum blinked. “For what?”
“Your hospitality.”
Shaking his head, Callum blurted, “You must have me mistaken for someone—”
“Oh, no. I haven’t.”
“Who the hell are you?”
The male bowed. “Blade, blooded brother of Xhexania. And it’s true, you do not know me, but I know you.”
As the entrance was opened, Callum’s entire body was suffused in fight-or-flight, echoes of the past whipping at him.
The male regarded him steadily. “You were hurt here, then?”
“Yes,” he replied in a rough burst.
“And you’ve come back to see if the pain is still with you?” The smile was part sly, part soulful. “Hard to get stains out of the soul, isn’t it.”
“How do you know me?”
“I stayed in your cave. Up on Deer Mountain.” The male touched the side of his nose. “I recognize your scent.”
Lights flared in the interior, and even though Callum didn’t want to see, his eyes locked on what was revealed.
The exhale that came out of him was not relief, per se. But it was a release of some kind.
Nothing was the same. There was no bedding platform. No weapons on racks on the walls or lying about on tables. No combat clothes, no combat rations, no combat-clad guards waiting for a turn with him.
No female watching him get violated with hungry, angry eyes.
Just a lot of elegant, sleek furniture—and a white shag carpet that he had the absent, stupid thought was absolutely inappropriate in the middle of an abandoned goddamn sanatorium.
The bitch would be hard to vacuum, too.
Callum stepped forward without thinking, as his brain was too fucking busy trying to figure out what he was looking at.
“I have redecorated,” the male said dryly.
“You have,” Callum blurted.
There was even a white marble and brushed steel kitchen.
The male walked over and opened the Sub-Zero refrigerator. “I was going to pan-fry some scallops and steam my asparagus. I have a fresh loaf of French bread—and for dessert . . .” That calculating stare shot over his shoulder. “I’m feeling naughty. I have Ben and Jerry’s mint chocolate chunk.”
Callum walked around, putting his hand on a chair that was slipcovered in cream and white. And the back of a sofa that was done in the same damask pattern. He touched a cashmere throw blanket. Lingered at the foot of a king-sized bed that was draped in fine white and cream cotton covers.