Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 47623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Lizzie is in the next tree over. She’s wearing high-end workout leggings, a long-sleeved shirt, and a puffy vest. She’s added a soft headband to her ponytail today. She looks like she should be jogging in some carefully curated park…except for the rifle slung across her back.
She narrows her eyes at the compound. “I can make the shot. This is well within my range.”
I blink. I know this is why we risked asking for her assistance, but the compound has to be a mile away. Maybe more. “Even for your powers?”
She smirks. “Yes, little girl. Even for my powers. You get him where I can see him, and there won’t be much left of his throat when the hit lands.”
We estimated timeline based on the worst-case scenario. Even so, getting my father out into the courtyard is going to be a risk. He’s going to compel me. That’s the one thing we haven’t spoken about, that no one’s addressed directly. To keep my father complacent enough for Lizzie’s attack to land, I have to lose. There’s no guarantee that his power will break when his concentration does, but I’m not one of his followers, happy to follow his instructions and open to compulsion. I will be fighting it every step of the way.
It will break.
It has to.
And that’s when I’ll strike.
“Then we move.” Malachi scoops me into his arms before I have a chance to tense and drops down to the forest floor. Rylan and Wolf land soundlessly on either side of him. There’s no need to speak. We went over the plan one last time before leaving the house. They’ll deposit me just outside the sentry lines and I’ll wait ten minutes while they circle around to their respective locations.
At that point, I walk into the compound to surrender myself and seek an audience with my father. Then the fires start. That should draw the extra soldiers away from the courtyard. My father will suspect the truth—that the three vampires are attacking—but he still views me as a powerless dhampir. He won’t have reason to keep security around himself because he’s never needed help to deal with me before.
I’ll only have one chance.
The first faint hint of sunrise is fighting back the dark of the sky when Malachi sets me carefully on my feet. He hugs me tightly. “This isn’t goodbye.”
It might be. It’s easier for things to go wrong with this plan than it is for them to go right. None of that matters now. We’ve come too far to turn back, which means this isn’t the time or place for doubts. I pull him down for a quick kiss. “I’ll see you soon.”
He steps back and then Wolf is there, whisking me into a dip and planting a kiss on my lips. “Give them hell, love.”
And then there’s Rylan. He takes my hands and looks down at them for a long moment. “Fear and pain can help motivate a change. Not panic, though. It’s a fine line.” He squeezes my hands. “You are never defenseless, Mina. Not with our powers flowing through your blood. Trust them and trust yourself.” He kisses me quickly. “Stay alive.”
There’s a beat of hesitation, as if we’re all waiting for someone to speak up, to call the whole thing off. The temptation is there—I won’t pretend it isn’t—but I stay silent and so do the men. One by one, they turn and melt into the trees. I track the growing distances between us for a few moments and then turn toward the compound.
I breathe the cold mountain air and allow myself to feel all the conflicting emotions being back in this place brings. Anger and sorrow and a strange sort of bittersweet nostalgia. Things were more bad than good while growing up under my father’s tender care, but there were small spots of light in those first twenty-five years of my life.
My mother is a hazy, distant one. She died when I was still young, one of my father’s many mistresses to be felled by the very purpose he had them in the compound to serve: birthing another dhampir. My father is obsessed with his progeny, with his bloodlines.
It’s why he took my failure to manifest powers personally. That and the fact I was determined to push back against his authority every chance I got. I smile a little, though it feels wrong on my face. We’ve been working toward this end game since I was born. Now that it’s time to act, my nerves ease and my path remains clear.
If I fail, I won’t be the only one to pay the price.
I press my hand to my stomach. So much has happened in the last few days, there were moments when I actually forgot I was pregnant. It’s far too soon to see physical changes, and with Azazel’s temporary shield in place, most of the worst of the side effects have passed.