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)
I am bound. I am bound. I am bound.
And yet I am alone.
The hag continues her tour of my brain, seeking knowledge. I feel her satisfaction that I’m bound to Bronwyn. It’s something she can use, but where is the bitch? The question pounds through me.
Where is Bronwyn?
Each time she asks, my heart squeezes tighter. The hag is everywhere, in every cell of my being, crawling across every inch of my skin. I smell the rank scent of the hag filling my nose and the clammy touch of her hand on my head.
This is what she wants to do to Bronwyn. I can see it plainly. The hag wants Bronwyn for much more than a quick execution. She wants to take her time with Bronwyn. She’s curious. Bronwyn survived when she shouldn’t have. The hag wants to know why, and when she figures it out she will find a way to make that power her own.
The vision of what the hag wants makes me gag. I feel bile bubbling up. The hag has me in her hand. I don’t know where Bronwyn is. I say it like a mantra. Over and over until I am singing it in my head.
Then you are of no use to me.
That cold hand squeezes, and my heart skitters and freezes, an aching agony invading every inch of my limbs. I’m not Lachlan anymore. I am pain. I am despair. All the loneliness I ever felt seems distilled and poured down my throat like a noxious poison.
This is how I end. This is what I was moving toward all of my life.
And then it stops. The hand on my heart pulls away. I feel the dirt on my face, but I can only groan.
“Your Highness, we need to move.” Roan has a hand on my arm, pulling me up.
“What he means is we’re getting our asses kicked. Move yours, McIver.” Dellacourt doesn’t mince words.
I force myself to focus. The dead lie all around me, but the hag cut my connection to them when she found her way inside my brain. Without the added soldiers, we’re woefully outnumbered, and I’m still feeling muddled.
I struggle to my feet, reaching for my sword. The villagers are out in mass. They fight for their daughters and wives and sisters. They fight with pitchforks and frying pans and bows and arrows.
“What made her stop?” I ask.
“Bron.” Roan points to a spot a hundred feet to the left where Bronwyn stands staring at the hag.
As though the hag has a direct line to the remaining soldiers’ brains, they all turn, abandoning their personal fights and starting toward Bronwyn.
“No.” I don’t give a shit how unsteady I am. I’m not letting that hag get close to Bron. I pull free of Roan.
“Lachlan, don’t.”
But I’m not listening. I have to get to Bronwyn before those soldiers do.
Gillian stands to the side and Duffy close to her. Shim is next to Bronwyn, his eyes watching as the soldiers come near.
“I want that bitch alive.” The hag’s voice echoes through the square.
Of course she wants Bron alive. She wants to dissect her and find out what makes her tick. The image of what the hag intends to do to my bondmate makes me run toward her, willing to do anything to keep it from becoming truth.
Bron puts a hand out to Shim, who stands there doing absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. My twin simply stands there like he’s perfectly happy to let the soldiers take her. Duffy turns, and his small face goes white with surprise. He drops his axe and starts running my way.
“Lach, no.”
Duffy hits my waist with the force of a small but stubbornly powerful train. I’m knocked back, my ass hitting the dirt, sword falling from my hand.
Duffy stands, putting a hand on his chest. “Let Shim do his job.”
I sit up, ready to get to my feet and throw myself in front of my bondmate when I notice that the fighting has stopped. The villagers move back, disappearing into houses or creeping close to walls. And all eyes are on one woman. Bronwyn.
The soldiers begin to rush, but Bron nods Shim’s way and there’s a whooshing sound that fills the air. Heat smolders as a ring of fire appears, surrounding the soldiers and trapping them in a neat cage of flames.
But my brother isn’t satisfied. The flames grow and engulf the soldiers, their dying cries filling the air.
It’s all over in seconds, the flames so hot they disintegrate everything that stood in the ring.
Shim turns to the hag, a smile on his face. With a flick of his wrist, he sends a long line of white and blue flames toward her.
“Damn it. Get down!” Roan roars over the crowd.
I hit the deck, taking Duffy with me as Shim’s flames hit the shield the witch has in play and bounce back toward us. Scalding heat brushes over me, reminding me that I know what it means to be caught in my brother’s power.