A sanctuary and yet… a place of evil.
Like a camera lens shifting focus, something was pulling out of the white landscape… a bed. A bedding platform—
She gasped.
There was a male lying on it. He was naked and sprawled on white sheets, his blond hair gleaming, his body absolutely magnificent.
Her thought was he was just like a Birkin, lying on its tufted, contoured tissue, inside the white interior of its orange box.
The camera-like angle changed again, swooping around to zero in on a patrician face with high cheekbones and sensual lips, his arched brows arrogant even in his repose, that pale hair so thick and gently curling. And then the visual altered once more, shifting to his shoulders, going across his well-developed pectorals, floating down over his abdominal muscles to his—
“Holy fuck.”
Yeah, that’ll do just fine. Yup. Juuuuuuust fine.
And then she was back up at his face.
It was all perfect, what she would have asked for if she’d had to check off what she’d thought was attractive. And she had the strangest feeling that this was like a virtual shopping trip—and she got to choose whether or not to buy him.
Devina stared at that face. The masculine beauty of it was on a par with what she saw in the mirror any time she checked her makeup, and she liked that high standard. But could she look at this for an eternity?
“I want to see his eyes,” she demanded.
There was a rustle, and at first she thought it was the sheets, as if a plane of sound had opened within the connection. But no, it was the Book.
She looked across at where the tome floated in the air. “His eyes. I need to see them.”
The ruffle was a clear “nope,” although she’d have been hard put to define exactly how she knew that.
“Please?” What the hell, she figured, the polite route had gotten her this far. “Pretty please with sprinkles on top?”
Wasn’t that a human saying?
When the Book just repeated the same ruffle of pages, she cursed under her breath and stared back into the Birkin-window. The male was perfect—and he would adore her, just as she had adored the bag. What did she care about his eye color?
“Fine,” she announced, “I’ll take him.”
Having made the pronouncement, she set the Birkin back on top of its stand and sent the little coffin away. For this service, she would keep the bag permanently in its place, ruined or not: Finally, after so much heartache, she was going to get what she had always wanted, what she deserved.
A male who loved all of her unconditionally.
And they were going to live happily ever after.
Or she was going to beat his ass.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Talking.
Super-fast talking, right above Nate’s face. Also… some beeping… electronic beeping that reminded him of the old-fashioned video game that one of the staff at the lab had taught him to play, the one where the black screen was cut in half by a straight vertical line and two slashes volleyed a dot back and forth. Except this beeping was rhythmic and even—
Oh, God. The smell. It was just like the lab, an antiseptic waft in the air, and layered on top of that the saltiness of tears and a copper tinge that suggested someone had been bleeding.
Yup, he was back in the lab. He was having one of his lab dreams where he…
No, wait. He had been bleeding. He was the one who’d had blood shed.
His brain was slow on the uptake, but then it all came back: Being at the club with Rahvyn and telling her they could go. Her pulling a yes-please. Them heading out the door.
Andthenacarhadscreechedaroundthecornerandsomeonehadshot—
Nate popped his eyes wide, jacked right up, and threw both hands out in front of himself.
Like that could stop the bullet from hitting him in the stomach.
Except… he instantly realized he wasn’t out on the street, and there was no car, and he wasn’t shot—
Arms were suddenly around him, hugging him, holding him close and comforting him. Two people. One on either side of him. Tears, now, lots of them.
His parents? What were they doing in the lab?
Wait, this wasn’t the lab. This was a hospital room.
His awareness struggled to catch up with it all—until he breathed in deep and smelled his mom’s shampoo, the Pantene kind that she liked and always used.
“Mom?” he said hoarsely, because he was still so confused.
His human mom, the one who had adopted him along with his new father, put her face in his. She looked—well, she looked awful, her cheeks blotchy and slick with tears, her breathing rough like she was about to pass out.
And then his father’s visage was right next to his own, too. In contrast to his mom, his sire was paper white. Murhder had been crying, too, though. Was crying now—
“Am I okay?” Nate blurted. Then he looked down at his stomach.