Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 107619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107619 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
I eat my meals without tasting anything. I drink to stay hydrated, and I clutch my gun, hoping against hope that he’s going to show his face. It’s going to be at the very last moment I expect it, I know. That’s why I can’t leave my post. That’s why I have to stay alert and ready.
It’s my job to bring this to a close.
Dusk. Fuck.
I wake near dawn, only to realize two things.
I’ve slept for nearly ten hours.
And Azar still hasn’t arrived.
He’s not coming. He’s not falling into our trap. Goddamn it. I clench my fists even as I rub sleep out of my eyes. Still nothing? I ask Zohr.
Nothing. His eyes whirl with gold, a hint of black at the edges. He gazes out at the empty streets, clearly frustrated. Not a sound or a scent. There is nothing. No one has even come close. The others are giving up for now. Kael and Dakh will be leaving. Dakh’s mate needs to rest and Kael worries for his mate. We will regroup and decide a new plan after everyone has slept.
I should agree with this. Go along with what they have suggested. It’s nice and sensible. We came here for help and they’re going to give it to us. It’s just…we’ve now wasted two days being sensible. How many other dragons are going to die while we wait “sensibly”? What am I going to do if Azar snares my Zohr again while we are being “patient”?
Fuck that.
I agree, Zohr says, picking up on my thoughts. He puts a hand to the back of my neck and clasps it, his touch warm. Do we do this our way?
I’m filled with a rush of gratitude and love for the guy. He gets how I feel. He understands. I don’t have to explain myself to my dragon—he knows. I nod. Yup. We go after him. You and me. We do this the way it should be done.
The expression on his face is determined. We take care of the problem so we can focus on other things. His eyes grow hooded, sultry. Like ensuring you will carry my young.
Ensuring, huh? I think that’s a polite way of saying you just wanna bang a lot.
I do not want to bang things. I want to mate you. His mouth curls in a hint of a smile. There’s so much promise in that one small expression that it makes me breathless.
Same thing, babe. Same thing.
38
EMMA
Weirdly enough, Zohr remembers the way to Azar’s stronghold. Or rather, his own scent is still thick enough on the ground, weeks later, for him to be able to trace it back. I ride atop him, my gun hitched against my side, a helmet and goggles on my head. I’m even wearing a bullet-proof vest I found at an old Army Navy store. I’m ready for anything.
No one has been through here for weeks.
Okay, ready for anything but that. “What do you mean? Do you think they left?”
Azar has not left. That much we know. Zohr’s thoughts are wry. But it is odd. His humans have very few scent trails to mark that they have been here. I do not smell their metal mounts, either.
No motorcycles and no men. I don’t understand. “Do you think we’re walking into a trap, then?”
I do not know…but I know of only one way to find out.
“Yeah, me too.” Ugh. I’m not sure I like the thought, but as long as we know it’s a trap, hopefully we can counter it. “Still want to go ahead?”
Always.
Me, too. I won’t be able to sleep well until I know the bastard’s gone. “Then we keep going.”
We move through the streets, Zohr’s big legs eating up ground. I’m not tired anymore. I’m too tense and ready for something—anything—to happen. Even a bunch of armed bikers jumping out at us would work for me, because then I wouldn’t have to wonder any longer.
But there’s just…nothing.
I mean, there are broken cars everywhere and empty shells of buildings. There are patches of burned grass on hills and weeds poking up through cracks and all the devastation that accompanies an old city that’s been abandoned. But as we get closer and closer and I see the old chain hotel on the horizon and there’s still no sign of Azar and his men? I worry. At this point, they should have had perimeter guards of some kind. A patrol.
Something.
“It’s too quiet,” I murmur to Zohr. “I don’t like this.”
Nor I. There are no scents, either. He lifts his enormous head and sniffs the air, then glances back at me with one big dragon-y eye. I smell Azar nearby, though. And one other. All of the other scents are…very old.
“How old?” I ask.
He lowers his head and sniffs again. Fresher than my trail but not recent. Maybe a handful of days or longer.