Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 125982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125982 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
When she and Tristan returned to their assigned seats there were two other couples sitting down as well including Sam, who was with a woman. Tristan and Kyla arrived at the same time as Dawn and a man, who Kyla presumed was the Liam that Dawn had mentioned.
The man was young-looking and attractive. He had blond hair, just past his shoulders, and dark eyes that were striking even from his dark mask. He and Dawn looked matched like Ken and Barbie. Although Kyla imagined to others that she and Tristan might look like the brunette equivalents tonight. She’d never felt so good about the way she looked before and being on his arm was exactly where she wanted to be. She only wished this was a normal banquet where she could truly enjoy herself, be herself, not a place with such high stakes.
Kyla saw that it did say Liam on a place card at the other end of the table as she walked by and it had said Guest of Liam Donovan on the card where Dawn sat. She glanced down and saw the Guest of Samuel Jasper beside her seat. A blonde girl sat there quietly, sipping from a champagne flute. Kyla’s stomach flipped, thinking about poor Julia. At least she wasn’t the only non-vampire at the table. Where Jet and Isabelle sat, their place cards had both their names on them. Their surname was Jasper, too. Ah, Jet and Sam definitely resembled one another.
Soup was being served to each person and the room was buzzing with conversation. Kyla caught sight of Andre and Rebecca three tables over. They were dressed to match in black and were cuddled up talking at their table, sitting with other beautiful “people”. One set of couples included a beautiful woman whose date was dressed in a black suit but without a tie, his first few buttons were undone and he wore a silver chain link choker collar. Kyla now had another face to emulate. He looked impassive.
Tristan didn’t introduce her to the others at their table. It was as if she and Sam’s guest didn’t exist. Judging by the conversations going on the other couples at their table all consisted of vampires. Kyla ate her soup quietly and slowly, ensuring she had something to keep her busy until the next course. If she had something to do, she felt like the likelihood of doing something to blow her cover would be minimized. The girl beside her would be helpful, too. She’d have someone to mimic.
Tristan was asked about the fire and he recounted a few vague details. Conversations about the following day’s events took place, too, and from what Kyla could gather it seemed like there were several meetings and seminars taking place regarding different elements of business. It sounded like Kovac Capital was a diversified company with a lot of different business divisions and she assumed that’d make it easy for them to operate in a variety of areas. From what Tristan had said, there were shady areas but tonight the conversation seemed to stay on very surface-oriented topics.
She wondered how the tone and conversations of the event would differ if it had been at the house instead of in public like this. Before arriving he’d told her to imagine it was a business conference, a cocktail party. He said all vampires would be careful because of the public nature of the event so there was nothing to fret about as long as she stayed at his side and had no noticeable reactions to anything.
As she got to the last of the soup, the salad arrived. Kyla felt relief for the busy room, the mask, and the fact that she was being ignored, for the most part. She’d felt Dawn’s eyes on her several times but tried to ignore it. She caught a glimpse of Dawn whispering to her date and they both seemed to be eyeing Kyla. She tried to focus on her salad.
Isabelle sat directly in front of her and ignored Kyla throughout the dinner. Through the conversation she found out that Jet and Sam were cousins. There was a definite resemblance. Tristan spoke at length to another dark haired man about biofuel.
Kyla’s cramps worsened toward the end of the main course of steak, glazed carrots, and baby potatoes. She wished she could lie down and curl into a ball but she sat quietly instead thinking about the comments about being collared. It sounded so BDSM but Tristan had told her that not only would it cover most of the bite marks on her throat but it’d tell everyone that she was Tristan’s pet, meaning that she was off limits.
She picked through the dessert course of pretty little bite-sized dark chocolate cakes arranged on small plates with edible flowers and a garnish of red whipped icing. She was full and uncomfortable. Uncomfortable with having eaten too much, uncomfortable with the environment, of course, and with dull aching in her belly. She started to feel heat in her face, almost faint. Tristan leaned over and whispered in her ear, “You’re not okay, are you?”