Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 13969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 70(@200wpm)___ 56(@250wpm)___ 47(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 13969 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 70(@200wpm)___ 56(@250wpm)___ 47(@300wpm)
And then her attention traveled the same path, but in reverse, and despite the absurd Halloween mask that covered half of his face, she saw him, her gaze clashing with his for a single, excruciating heartbeat, long enough for most humans to lose whatever trivial thought occupied their minds and move directly toward him. But strangely, the lamb’s pulse didn’t lurch, her lips didn’t part in a gasp, her eyes didn’t ignite and then glaze over. She simply blinked away, uninterested.
Shock flooded him, and he was immediately—desperately—curious.
In a world where every second was predictable, the sensation of surprise was blissfully foreign to him. Turn around, he murmured to her, using the low, vibrating voice that seemed to run down a human’s spine, compelling them to unquestioningly do his bidding. For much of his existence, he’d used this power greedily, to amass property and riches, to wordlessly coerce humans to dance and sing and make general fools of themselves to his great amusement, but in recent decades, he’d mostly used it to direct them away.
The lamb frowned, turning her head to the side as if she’d sensed something behind her, someone speaking in her ear. But then, to his utter disbelief, she turned forward again.
Can you not hear me? he said to her. If a heart still beat in his chest, it would be pounding in anticipation. I said turn around, little lamb. Look at me.
This time she did turn, confused, and peering all the way over her shoulder to where he stood at the wall behind her.
Their eyes met again, and her brow creased in confusion. Her expression spoke of uncertainty, thinking perhaps that she couldn’t possibly have heard a man whispering to her from all the way across the room. When she tore her gaze from his, returning her attention to the group of humans before her, he pushed from the wall, his entire body vibrating with thrill.
She’d heard his command but been unaffected by it.
How?
He needed to get her alone.
He studied the other humans gathered in the living room. The man she’d come with had yet to return. What kind of idiot brought the most beautiful girl to a tawdry, cacophonous party like this and deserted her? If only he knew there were monsters out there, waiting for their turn.
Chapter Two
The brownstone belonged to Harry’s father, a man douchily named Royal, who Cat vaguely remembered Jake telling her was an asshole but seriously loaded. What Harry apparently lacked in parental love he had in spades when it came to housing. Cat had moved to the city for graduate school only a few months ago, but she knew living here for even a decade she’d be unlikely to meet another twentysomething with a house like this all to himself. The party was on the ground floor—mostly contained to the common living spaces—but there were three levels to the place, and Cat was tempted to escape the party to explore them all.
But first: a restroom.
The one on the first floor was occupied, so she peeked into the empty bedrooms, ducking through the doorway of one with an en suite. With a sigh of relief, she crossed the room and closed the bathroom door behind her, sealing herself up inside.
At the mirror, Cat studied her reflection and exhaled a slow, annoyed breath. When Jake suggested the coordinated costumes, his idea that she be the lamb to his shepherd struck her as vaguely patronizing and overtly patriarchal—not to mention the unspoken expectation that she somehow manage to be a sexy lamb. But she’d agreed because, frankly, she was lazy about Halloween and happy for once to not be asked to be a sexy Cat. That Jake hadn’t even remembered the plan felt like salt rubbed into a paper cut. She wore all white—white leggings, white sneakers, and a fluffy, cropped white sweater. Her woolly hat had soft lamb ears, and she’d drawn a circle of black over the tip of her own nose.
“You’re dressed like a toddler,” she told her reflection, swiping off the hat. She turned on the sink, washing the sticky, dried beer from the back of her hand before wiping the black makeup from her nose.
Drying her hands and then leaning back against the counter, Cat ran through in her mind how and when she would end things tonight. She’d been the dumper and the dumped enough times to know that this breakup was unlikely to come as a surprise to Jake, but she still dreaded it, in part because there could be no brunch with girlfriends tomorrow to process it all. Everyone she knew and loved was hundreds of miles away.
Can’t I just text him? her mind whined, before deciding: Yes. A text was exactly the level of engagement this three-month mistake deserved. Pulling out her phone, she typed the simple ending: