Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
“Hey.”
It took a moment, because I wasn’t sure where I was for a second, but then I turned my head to the sound of his voice and opened my eyes. I found Lorne standing next to my door, hand on the open window, smiling at me.
“The techs are done, and the state police are here, so you ready to go home?”
“What?”
He snickered.
“Why’re you—they just started.”
“No, they showed up an hour and a half ago. They’ve been gone about ten minutes now,” he said warmly, reaching for me, cupping my cheek in his hand for a moment. “You passed out from boredom.”
I smiled at him.
“I should have had you go home, but I don’t want you to be alone until I figure out what’s going on,” he explained before walking around the front of the vehicle and getting in. “I can tell you that the forensic team didn’t find anything out of place in her basement, and everything was undisturbed, so I’m fairly certain we can rule out robbery as a motive for the killing.”
“That’s good, one less thing,” I said as he put on his seat belt, started the car, threw it into gear, and pulled away from the curb. He made the U-turn in the street, and then we were headed for home. After a moment I coughed softly.
When he glanced over at me, seeing my face, his brows furrowed. “What’s wrong besides the obvious?”
“Obvious?”
“The murder,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah, I—I am. And I should have said something earlier, but your murder was more pressing than mine.”
Pulling over after going through the sole traffic light in town, he turned to me. The incendiary scowl was not good. “Your murder?”
Quickly—because the look on his face, coupled with his tone, told me I would be next on the chopping block for not sharing sooner—I gave him the rundown of meeting Thero, her news that Nott had been murdered, and that something sinister had entered Osprey through the secondary rift. “And Thero thinks,” I ended with, “that whatever came through might be something really bad.”
It took him a second. “Might be something bad?” he roared, which was really loud in the small space despite the open windows. “Might be?”
Crap. “Listen, I—”
“Are you kidding?”
I had no idea his voice could go up a whole other decibel without my brain exploding, but I remained alive, at least for the moment. “I just—”
“This woman tells you that something was so powerful, it burned up the rift when it came through and mutilated her friend, and you think it might be bad?”
“Okay, no. Sorry. That was wrong. I know it’s bad.”
“Then why aren’t you freaking out?”
It was my upbringing. The issue was, I’d been trained, for years, not to panic. Dealing with all things paranormal required one to stay calm, especially in the face of danger, and not come unglued until every possible outcome had been exhausted. Having heard about the threat to Osprey, but not coming face-to-face with it, I was on guard but not terrified. When I was scared down deep in the marrow of my bones, only then did I panic. I wasn’t there yet. Lorne on the other hand…
“What the fuck, Xander!” he roared again, grabbing hold of my hand. “What if this thing is what killed Kathy Hayes?”
“Why would some evil entity be after Kathy?”
“The hell if I know, but something is in our town, and two weeks ago a nymph was torn apart, and now a woman is dead! Think about it. Isn’t this how it started when Megan Gallagher was killed?”
“Yes, but that was done to try and take control of the rift on Corvus. Whatever this is already came through.”
“But all those wolves and the people who came with them that initially attacked you last time—this is the same thing.”
“You can’t simply jump to that conclusion.”
“And why not? To me, it seems like this thing is planning to use our rift to move on.”
He spoke so matter-of-factly, it was doubtful he had any idea how happy he made me. But even as furious and worried as he was, still, in the middle of all that, he called the portal I guarded with my life ours.
Ours.
Most people might not want to be stuck on a tract of land in upstate New York in a tiny town for the rest of their lives. It couldn’t possibly be where anyone wanted to end up. Even if you were fine living a simple life, most people still wanted to have some adventure. They wanted to see the world and reach for the stars. If you were born into my family, however, you didn’t get a choice.
There were the gifts that came with being a witch or mage, but no one would ever know beyond your family and friends. While it was true that people in town called me a witch, the fact was that very few had ever seen me do anything even remotely magical. In all honesty, it was more of a derogatory term than anything else. The thing was, though, I’d been entrusted with a sacred responsibility, and I would never abandon my post. And now, amazingly, I had a man I was in love with, who was happy to remain in this little corner of the world with me for the rest of his life. Furthermore, he wanted to marry me. I had no idea how I’d won the life lottery, and because of that, I was both deliriously happy and terrified he would change his mind. It was one of the reasons I found the idea of a justice of the peace so appealing. I wanted to put a ring on his finger as soon as possible. Not that he couldn’t ask me for a divorce down the road, but whereas normally, I would worry and obsess about that, thinking perhaps five years from now he’d want out, there were things he did that made me think he was in this for the long haul.