Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 104350 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104350 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 522(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 348(@300wpm)
“Let’s hope so,” said Tao, “because we need—” He frowned at the sound of her phone chiming. “Is it Ethan?”
Looking at the screen, Riley shook her head. “No, it’s Lucy.” They’d spoken a few times since Riley left Sedona. “I’ll just be a minute.” She walked out of the office and swiped her thumb across the screen. “Hey, Luce.”
“I just spoke to Ethan and Max,” said Lucy. “I can’t believe you didn’t call me to say that you’re mated.”
Riley winced. “Sorry, there’s just a lot going on.”
“Hmm, well, I’ll forgive you because I love you,” Lucy said, a smile in her voice. “I wanted to say congratulations. I have to say, it comes as a shock that Tao was your true mate. You’re just both very different, but I guess that’s often how it works with predestinated mates. I really am happy for you.”
“Thanks, Luce.” Riley leaned back against the sandstone wall. “Are you fully healed now?”
“Yes, thanks to Max. He truly is a gem.”
Riley smiled. “Yep, he is.”
“Both your uncles are awesome. They’ve been like watchdogs since you left.”
“Aside from your wound, how’ve you been?”
“Good. Just . . . nervous, you know?” Her voice shook a little. “It’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that someone here actually shot me. I hate not knowing who it was, hate that I could be smiling at the person who did it. And I’m utterly pissed that some of the flock are trying to pin the blame on you.”
“Join the club.”
“I don’t think they really believe what they’re saying. I think they just want someone to point the finger at so they can convince themselves that the threat has gone. But that doesn’t make it okay.”
No, it damn well didn’t. “How’s Sawyer?”
“He’s fully healed too. He doesn’t believe it was you either, by the way.”
“I don’t suppose you have any theories on who it actually is?”
Lucy paused. “If I’m honest, I would have suspected Cynthia if I hadn’t been shot. I mean, she could have deliberately missed you because all she really wanted was to piss you off, right?”
Riley blinked. She hadn’t actually considered that. “Right,” she agreed.
“I don’t think Cynthia would ever try to kill me. Not even for what I did,” she added in a low voice.
Riley frowned, echoing, “What you did?”
Another pause. “Rhonda Lincoln . . . she started a petition.” Rhonda was one of the ravens who had been killed at Alec’s party.
“What sort of petition?”
“She wanted Cynthia gone from the flock,” Lucy explained. “Rhonda was tired of Cynthia taunting her about how she’d had her mate, Richie. You know Cynthia took particular joy in tormenting any females who’d mated one of the guys she’d slept with.”
Yeah, Cynthia had loved that she could hurt the others that way. She hadn’t cared that it left her with only a few friends or that it lost her the respect of many. A dominant female shifter had her pride, but Cynthia’s pride either wasn’t easy to chip at or was somehow completely nonexistent.
“She somehow got Rhonda’s number and repeatedly sent her cruel text messages with all kinds of explicit details about her time with Richie.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. Rhonda hit breaking point and told your parents.”
“Yes,” said Lucy. “They told her they’d make Cynthia stop, but they didn’t. Or maybe they tried and Cynthia just didn’t listen. Rhonda went to them two more times for help, but nothing changed. That was when she started the petition. The other females were happy enough to sign it. Most of the guys also signed it because they didn’t want their future mates to have to deal with Cynthia when they claimed and brought them to the flock. Even Sawyer signed it, though I think that was more because Richie was his friend than anything else, since Sawyer doesn’t intend to take a mate.”
“I didn’t even hear about the petition.” Given that Riley despised Cynthia, she figured that the other females would have considered her the best person to go to for support.
“Rhonda knew you were loyal to me; she was worried that you’d tell me because, as Cynthia’s sister, you felt I had a right to know what was happening. Of course, I’d have then been pissed as hell and told my parents. So Rhonda came to me first and tried to talk me into signing it . . . She made some really good points—things I wouldn’t have thought of myself.”
In other words, Rhonda had done her best to turn Lucy against her own sister. It sounded as if it had worked. “What points?”
“Imagine being me, Riley. Imagine that your sister has fucked every guy in the flock. It would feel a little bit weird being with any of them, wouldn’t it? Imagine that you push past that awkwardness and take a chance, but then those guys compare your performance to hers. Imagine how smug your sister would be, knowing you had her castoffs. That was my reality. You know how bad it was.”