Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Last time, I stopped at the loose stone where I found the journal. I didn't go any further. Didn't see what lay beyond.
This time, I keep walking.
The passage descends.
Gradually at first, then more steeply. Steps appear—uneven, worn—carved directly into the stone. I count them as I go. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The air gets colder.
My breath fogs in front of me, and I wrap my arms around myself, wishing I'd thought to grab a jacket. The light from my flashlight catches dust motes swirling in the air, dancing like tiny ghosts.
Forty steps. Fifty.
And then the passage ends.
A door.
Not a panel that slides open at a touch. Not a hidden entrance disguised as part of the wall.
A door.
Ancient. Heavy. Made of wood so dark it's almost black, bound with iron bands that have gone orange with rust. There's a lock on it—massive, medieval-looking—and when I try the handle, it doesn't budge.
Locked.
Whatever's behind this door, someone didn't want it found.
I press my ear against the wood. Listen.
Nothing. No sound, no movement, no—
Wait.
I step back.
Sniff.
There's something else in the air. Something underneath the dust and the cold and the ancient stone. Something that wasn't there when I started down the steps.
Sweet. Cloying. Wrong.
I know what that means...unfortunately.
Chapter Eight
THE TRAIL MARKER HAD said two miles.
That was three hours ago.
Carrie Dela Cruz was not, by any reasonable definition, an outdoorsy person. She was a paralegal from Hartford who'd let her sister convince her that hiking would be "good for her soul." What her sister had failed to mention was that soul-healing required a basic sense of direction, which Carrie did not possess.
Her phone had died an hour ago. The protein bar in her pocket was long gone. And the trees—the endless, identical, mocking trees—had stopped looking majestic and started looking like a very green prison.
"This is fine," she muttered, pushing through another wall of undergrowth. "This is totally fine. People survive in the wilderness all the time. I'll just—"
She stopped.
Blinked.
Squinted.
Rubbed her eyes.
There was a clearing ahead. That wasn't unusual—she'd passed a dozen clearings in the past hour. What was unusual was what was IN the clearing.
Four men.
Four men she recognized.
Everyone in New England knew about the four kings. It was an open secret, the same way everyone in certain parts of Mexico knew about the cartels. The difference was that these kings weren't villains—they were protectors. Ruthless, yes. Dangerous, absolutely. But they kept order. They kept people safe. And they were, according to every society page and whispered rumor, absolutely loaded.
Carrie had seen their pictures in magazines. At charity galas. On the news, always in the background of important events, never quite the focus but somehow impossible to ignore.
But pictures didn't do them justice.
The first one—Quinn Haydraugh, the King of the North—was tall and lean, with silver-blond hair and features so perfectly symmetrical they almost hurt to look at. He stood with his arms crossed, impossibly still, like the air had frozen around him. He looked like winter given human form. Like he'd never raised his voice in his life because he'd never needed to.
The second was Wolfe Sideris, King of the East, and Carrie's heart nearly stopped. She'd heard the rumors about him. Everyone had. Borderline sociopath, they whispered. Unpredictable. Dangerous in a way that went beyond normal mafia dangerous. He was broader than the others, darker, with a scar cutting through one eyebrow and a feral edge to his stance—weight forward, shoulders loose, like a predator waiting for an excuse. His eyes scanned the clearing constantly, tracking movement, and even from this distance Carrie could feel the violence coiled inside him, waiting.
The third was Skye Wyndham, King of the West, and he was... different. Where the others radiated danger, he radiated ease. Relaxed smile. Open posture. The kind of man who looked like he'd help you change a tire and then invite you to dinner at his estate. Carrie knew better, of course—you didn't become a mafia king by being nice—but looking at him, it was hard to remember that. He seemed so genuinely friendly.
And the fourth—
Devyn Chaleur. King of the South. The one they called the Dark Prince in certain circles, though never to his face.
He had dark hair pushed back from a face all sharp angles and barely contained intensity. His eyes were wrong—too gold, too bright, catching the light in a way that made Carrie's breath stutter. He was speaking to the others in a low voice, and even from this distance, every line of him said I'm in charge and you already know it. The impatience. This was a man who solved problems with money or violence, and if you were smart, you took the money and disappeared. If you weren't smart—
Well. People who weren't smart around the King of the South didn't tend to stay problems for long.
He was so—
Thwip.
Something stung her neck.