Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138274 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
The other female glanced back over, and God, she seemed as ancient as Nalla was feeling. “Oh, I realize you speak the truth.”
“So you know who I’m talking about? He obviously keeps it mostly to himself. My father knew, though. And so did Dr. Manello.”
Nalla shouldn’t have been surprised. The female was mated to Lassiter, who was the spiritual head of the race. She probably knew a lot of things, about a lot of people.
“Can you tell me anything about Nate?” Nalla asked. “How… he is what he is?”
Rahvyn seemed to blanch, and a sadness came over her. But all she did was shake her head.
“I will leave some clothes at the end of the bed while you are in the shower,” the female said before stepping away. “Take your time in the hot water. Sometimes it is a balm for so much more than what ails the battered body.”
As the door was closed, Nalla glanced at the faucet of the sink and thought of her hands under the cold rush. “If you can feel anything, that is.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Umm, hi, Uncle V. Do you have a minute?”
As Bitty hovered in the doorway of the steel and glass office, she had to talk loudly to project over the old-fashioned Post Malone, but she knew she wasn’t surprising the Brother who was staring so intently at the bank of computer monitors. Vishous, son of the Bloodletter, mated of the healer Jane, was in charge of security for all the sites the Black Dagger Brotherhood maintained, and he’d known the instant she’d materialized onto the Audience House’s driveway and approached the entrance to his this-is-just-an-old-barn.
F.T. Headquarters was the hub for security, and she’d had to be cleared to get through its door.
The Brother swiveled around in his chair and exhaled a stream of Turkish tobacco as he turned down the music. “What do you need. Name it.”
For as long as she had known the male—and it had been decades—he’d had a goatee, tattoos at one temple, and a black glove—and always a hand-rolled cigarette with a little orange glow at the tip close by. He also had a razor-sharp stare that had taken her a while to get comfortable around. He wasn’t exactly a softie under the hard shell. But his reply was his whole character: For those he considered his own, he would do anything.
“Can I talk to you?” She glanced over her shoulder, at all the people sitting in front of computers out in the open area. “I mean, I know you’re busy—”
With that black leather glove, he motioned for her to come in, and as soon as she did, the frosted glass door shut by itself.
“Not too busy for you.”
“Thank you.”
She approached his glass desk, and as she sat down on the single chair next to it, she was grateful that she’d changed back into her normal, comfortable clothes. No hem to worry about. No cleavage showing. And she was keeping her parka on because she felt badly about disturbing the Brother.
“I won’t take long,” she tacked on.
“I’m good,” he said briskly. “I’ve been cleaning up a mess, but I think it’s finally taken care of.”
He leaned forward and tapped the cigarette into a glass ashtray. Everything inside the office, from the shelves that displayed all kinds of Victorian medical equipment, to the lighted tiles on the floor and ceiling, to that see-through desk, was glass. With the bright illumination streaming from all angles, it was as if he and his office full of computer equipment were being projected from a monitor, the Brother becoming the very technology he spent so much time with.
“You clean up a lot of things, don’t you.”
He nodded to the screens. “I’m like Farmers Insurance. I know a thing or two because I’ve seen a thing or two.”
Bitty smiled, but she couldn’t manage to keep the expression going.
“Someone giving you a problem,” Vishous said in a low voice.
“Oh, no. Nothing like that.”
“You sure?” He put up his dagger hand, the one that was covered. “I won’t go behind your father’s back, but if you need something done and don’t want the person ripped apart, I can take care of things in a certain way. If you know what I mean.”
She tangled her hands in her lap. Looked around at the frosted walls of the office. There were screens that could be lowered inside what she suspected were dual panes of soundproof glass, and with them currently down in place, she wondered what he’d been doing in here that even his most loyal programmers and security personnel couldn’t know.
And she was glad no one could see in, even though none of his subordinates at those black desks and anti-glare monitors would be able to hear what was said. Sometimes you needed a little extra privacy because faces and body positions revealed a lot.