Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 663(@200wpm)___ 531(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Another crack echoes through the room, and then Konner drops his hand from my neck. He flies against the opposite wall, smashing against it with a thud.
My knees hit the floor, then my hands. Konner falls to the ground in a heap beside me.
“Hurry,” Misha says, extending a hand.
I stare at it, skeptical. Is this another one of Konner’s illusions?
“Easy.” His big hand spreads across my back and I want to press into the warmth of it—into him. I want to go back in time to the moment I kissed him good night before the palace was attacked. I want to curl into his arms and never leave.
The thought is so pathetic it tears a sob from me. He never wanted you. He wanted the woman he thought you were. The only place he wanted the real you was in your dreams.
“Just breathe.” He rubs gentle circles on my back. “You’re okay. I’m here.”
He slides an arm underneath mine and pulls me to my feet.
“Are you ready?”
I blink at him. “Ready?”
A hint of a smile on those beautiful lips. “To get out of here.”
And that’s the first moment it occurs to me that I don’t know how he got to me. Or even where we are.
He makes a fist and then flicks his fingers toward the wall. A spinning disc of light appears, growing larger and larger. A portal.
But before we can take a single step, Konner surges to his feet, standing between us and that glowing portal—between us and freedom.
“I should’ve killed him,” Misha mutters, but when he releases me to deal with Konner, another figure appears in the room, dark and menacing.
He grabs Misha from behind and puts a knife to his neck. “How does it feel to be king of a magical realm and find yourself powerless in this one?”
“Orlen,” Konner growls. “Don’t show off.”
Powerless? Misha is anything but. And yet . . . I reach for my own weak, unconditioned magic and find myself grasping at air. There’s no magic in this room.
When Konner grabs me again, I barely register it, too stunned to spin from his grasp.
Misha is locked in place with that blade against his neck. I see the anger in his eyes.
The man holding Misha—Konner called him Orlen—he’s a silencer. It’s a rare and highly valued kind of magic and so long as he’s able to wield it, we won’t be escaping through any portals.
“You think he wouldn’t kill you?” Orlen asks Konner, his blade biting into Misha’s skin.
“Everybody calm down,” Konner says, still holding me in front of him like a shield.
“I’m only protecting you, Kon,” Orlen says, and I wonder what he means by that. Who is this male to Konner? “He’s going to ruin everything.”
A trickle of dark red blood stains Orlen’s blade, and rage boils inside me, but then I realize Misha’s staring at me hard, trying to tell me with his eyes what he would say into my mind in any other circumstance. His gaze flicks to the sword strapped at Konner’s waist before coming back to meet mine.
“Sol will kill you with her bare hands if you take him out,” Konner tells Orlen. “We need—”
In a sudden burst of movement, Misha frees himself from his captor’s hold, and I act without letting myself think. I shift in Konner’s grasp, throwing my weight just like Misha taught me, then grab my brother’s sword. When I lunge at Orlen, I have only a split second to make my choice. This stranger or Misha. Only one will make it out of here alive.
I plunge my blade between Orlen’s ribs.
He stumbles back and slides down the wall. His dark eyes meet mine.
Those eyes condemn me for this choice.
With a sob, I yank the blade free before driving it home again—this time at the hollow of his neck. He gasps and gags and then falls to his knees, then onto the floor. Blood pools onto the stone around him and bubbles out of his mouth.
I’m frozen. I can’t take my eyes off him.
The moment Misha’s power returns, the energy in the room changes. He throws out a hand toward Konner, but before his magic can land a blow, Konner disappears.
“We have to get out of here before he comes back. Before he brings another one like that,” he says, sneering at the dead male on the floor.
I can’t move. I took a life.
“Felicity!” Misha snaps. “Are you listening to me?”
I tear my gaze off Orlen. Off the pool of blood and those lifeless eyes. “What?”
He slides an arm around me and yanks me roughly against his side. “Just hold on.”
The portal appears and Misha drags me through it and into—a living room?
As quickly as the portal appeared, it closes behind us.
I look around, trying to get my bearings. Misha just created a portal inside what was surely a well-warded cell.