Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
There’s a long whinny, but I swear that horse is laughing.
Lach sits down on the cot, his anger seeming to dissipate. “He has a point.”
“His kind always does.” It’s the nature of the phooka and other tricksters like him. They know how to go for the throat.
“Why would she ever want me? I make dead things crawl. I’m utterly useless unless you want to pet your dead dog one last time.” Lach sighs. “Maybe that’s why our connection isn’t as strong. Do you think she can feel how cold I am?”
I consider planting a fist in the phooka’s muzzle, but we really do need him. “You aren’t cold.” I start to say something else, but then I feel it. Panic. Disorientation. Pain in my head like someone is taking a hammer to it.
Bronwyn is awake.
“I can feel her,” Lach whispers, his hand going to the back of his head. “I’m going to kill those guards. Can you talk to her?”
“Only when we’re sleeping, and you know how it is then.” My heart nearly stops in my chest. Bronwyn is struggling. I can feel her panic and her intent. She’s going to try to escape. In that one moment, she doesn’t care that she’ll likely be killed. She simply wants it to be over.
Lach takes a deep breath. “We have to focus. We have to get her to calm down.”
My hands are shaking. “I’m open to suggestions, brother. She transmits well, but she never listens.”
“Make her.”
I can feel Lach’s will pressing on me. It’s a palpable thing. “What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m opening myself up. I’m done letting this thing control me. We need power to connect us to her. Well, I know where my power comes from, and there’s a trail of dead between us and her. I can feel it. I can use it to push my way into her head.”
I have to sit for a moment and let what’s happening settle inside. The phooka showed us what we don’t want to face. We fear each other. We fear ourselves. But what if we don’t have to? What if we can figure out a way to control our power, to use our natural elements to fuel our power, and not the other way around?
I close my eyes, trying to push Bron’s panic aside. I feel the fire in the Harper’s hearth. The power rushes along my skin. That fire leads to another, a stronger fire, a bonfire somewhere along the road. It’s all connected, a line of flame and heat that bounces to another. Each one I grab hold of flares, possibly sending the Fae who sits around it reeling back a bit, but I keep control. The fire doesn’t bloom out, burning anyone. I can do this.
Lead me to her.
I breathe deeply, the smell of flames and smoldering embers filling my every sense. This is my home, given to me the day I bonded with my mate, connecting me to the other half of my soul.
“So many dead,” my brother whispers.
Lach’s power is a cold chill that runs up my spine. My brother is so strong, but he fears his gifts. “Yes, so many dead who can lead the way to Bronwyn. Don’t stop.”
“I have her.” Lach opens his mind and, sure enough, I feel her. The connection is right there, stronger than ever.
I grab it, letting go of my own hunt, the fires dying down for now. “Hold the connection. Can you do it?”
Lach’s voice is firm and in control. “I have it. She’s in a jail. There’s a cemetery a short distance from it, but the place is coated in death. It’s easy, Shim. I can see her. Gods, I can feel how scared she is. She’s going to try something foolish.”
“Stop, a stóirín.” I put a wealth of power behind the word. I shove every dominant trait I possess into that one word, sending it over the line that runs from me to Lach to Bronwyn.
Nothing.
“She can’t hear,” Lach says. “But I think she can feel. I clenched my fists and she clenched hers, almost like she was answering me. She’s trying to work the lock open. I think there’s a guard right outside her door. They’ll kill her, or we could lose her. She could run and we wouldn’t be able to find her. The war is about to start.”
I’m aware of all the ways this can quickly go very, very badly. “We have to calm her down.”
She isn’t listening, or talking doesn’t work the way we think it does. This connection is new to us. To be able to communicate when we’re all conscious is brand-new territory. But if she can feel, then I know what to do.
“Hold the connection, brother,” I say to my other half. “I know how to turn our mate’s mind to something that won’t get her killed.”