Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
She swallowed. He was nothing if not impatient.
I’ll send someone for what you have now. Keep enough to do your research. I’m counting on you, Emmaline.
Emmaline shivered. She considered destroying the blood and everything else she had on the girl. It would be safer. But it would end in Emmaline’s death, and she didn’t want to die.
It made her a coward, but she packaged up the blood, setting it in a cooler for safekeeping, and then, with her conscience weighing heavy on her that night, she got back to work.
PART III
THE IMMUNITY
Chapter Nineteen
Kierse could have forgone the makeover, but Isolde had insisted that appearances were everything. After all, it must be important if Graves had hired an entire team of people to pluck, wax, and prod her skin into shape. By the end of it, she was as soft and supple as a newborn baby. Even her hands, which she’d destroyed sparring, were smoothed over and made new, like magic. Her hair was parted severely down the middle and smoothed back into a low bun. The makeup was mesmerizing. Layer after layer after contouring layer until her features were both amplified and obscured. She was just a canvas for the artists.
At the end of it all, Isolde appeared with the dress. If you could call that thing a dress. No wonder Graves had said no weapons.
Still, she put it on along with a thick jacket. To complete her outfit, she had a bejeweled black clutch and four-inch heels that she was already cursing as she headed down the stairs. She was just missing her wren necklace, which Isolde had insisted she leave behind. She already felt lost without its comfortable weight against her chest.
Kierse huddled into the warmth of the fur-lined jacket. Thank god for Isolde’s forethought. The snow had finally let up, but it was still below freezing out there.
As she reached the landing on the second floor, she noticed a light on in a room down the hall. When she had done her perusal of the residence, she’d guessed by the way Edgar and Isolde carefully avoided the area that these were Graves’s quarters. Though she was incredibly curious about what lay beyond those doors, she’d respected his privacy.
Without another thought, she walked toward the light and knocked on the door. There was a stillness on the other side. As if Graves had even stopped breathing at that knock.
She cleared her throat. “Graves? Are we leaving soon?”
A second passed and then another before suddenly, the door opened. Her heart stuttered in her chest at the first sight of him. She’d known he was attractive underneath the hardened exterior, but in the all-black suit, he was something to behold. She could see the outline of a tattoo forming around his wrist as he slipped gloves over his long, strong fingers.
He cleared his throat, and she jerked her eyes back up to his, heat flushing her cheeks.
“Miss McKenna,” he said. She barely got a glimpse inside of an office before he pulled the door firmly shut behind him. “I was just about to come fetch you. George was on an errand. He should be back any minute to escort us to the airport.”
Kierse stumbled back to reality at those words. “The airport?”
He reached into his suit coat for his buzzing phone. “That’s him now.”
He held his arm out for her. A gesture of good faith, but her stomach was roiling. He hadn’t mentioned that they’d have to fly to the party. She’d never been on a plane.
Right before the Monster War, the three major airlines had consolidated into a monopoly that the government hadn’t even blinked at. They controlled the prices of transportation, weeding out the competition that tried to stay afloat. Then planes had been all but entirely grounded during the ten years of conflict. Transportation between cities was greatly reduced. National, let alone international, travel had been off the radar. Only in the last three years had any travel become common again, and the rich tourists had begun to flock back into New York. There was a whole world out there, and now . . . it all seemed to be possible.
She slid her hand into the crook of his elbow and allowed him to escort her to the garage, where George was indeed waiting. He’d traded out the limousine for a more practical black SUV with heavily tinted windows.
“Here,” he said.
She pulled her attention back to him and found him holding out a worn copy of a small, brown leather book.
“I brought this for you.”
“A new assignment?” She took the book from him with relief.
“You finished the last one.”
She flicked through the pages. All the edges were worn thin and almost crumbling from use. The binding barely held the shoddy thing together. “Why did you choose it?”
“You have an affinity for wrens. The best story of the wren can be found in that book.”