Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
“Which would keep us from learning anything at all.” Tyche sighed.
“Do not worry, Little God,” Haru purred, his mood improving by leaps and bounds. “I can make you fierce and frightening. We will make Ruben ruin his pants, and then we kill him.”
Yes, this is a much better plan than simply waiting…
CHAPTER 30
Tyche
Apowerful hand slowly cut through Tyche’s field of vision, and the tips of the fingers landed on his endlessly bouncing knee, applying the smallest amount of pressure. It was enough for Tyche’s entire body to still. His eyes snapped up to Shey’s gently smiling face.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll watch your back,” the prince reassured him.
Tyche’s throat tightened, and he forced a crooked grin onto his lips. “Yeah, but are you going to be able to stop me from clawing his eyes out or making him explode with bad luck?”
Shey drew his hand to his own lap. “I could probably handle the former, but not the latter. You’ll have to exert a little self-control.”
“We’ll see.” He wasn’t making any promises.
But his sudden case of nerves didn’t have anything to do with facing Ruben. It was the fact that he was taking any kind of confrontational action at all, and that he had companions to support him. He was part of a team. A strange team, with a prince infused with the power of the God of Storms, a dragon, and a royal guard who had this interesting thread of magic from the God of Hope. Sure, he was a god, but he was a rather useless god and didn’t have any kind of fight training like this trio. Of all of them, he was the most likely to have his head lopped off.
Of course, if he were being honest, the past week had been too strange for words. He’d been living in this posh hotel penthouse with Haru, Adrian, and Shey, eating the most delicious food and wearing amazing clothes. Mostly, he lounged about, read books, and had the oddest conversations with the dragon. Haru had the perspective of a long-lived being—unlike the humans—but he’d lived a sheltered life on the Isle of Stone. He’d missed out on so many things that were happening in other kingdoms. While Tyche had been happy to fill him in on thousands of years of random history for Ilon, New Rosanthe, and more, Haru told him about life on the Isle of Stone and the various dragon clans.
However, his favorite time was at night, after they all turned in. Shey had offered to share a room with Tyche, despite there being three bedrooms. Adrian and Haru shared, though Tyche didn’t miss that occasionally he found one of them sleeping on the sofa in the morning. Very confusing. The third room was reserved for Vitor, who was absent more often than not.
At night, with all the lights turned out and darkness soaking into the room, Tyche and Shey would whisper silly things to each other like they had when they were locked in their cells. They never talked about anything serious or important as they drifted off to sleep in that giant king-sized bed with an ocean of space between them. Yet, there was a strange comfort in hearing that familiar voice reach out to him, reassuring him as it had so many times before.
He glanced over at Shey, viewing the man beside him in the car from the corner of his eye, and he looked perfectly at ease. Of course, he thought little of running off to confront bad guys and save the populace.
“Answers first, people,” Adrian called out from the driver’s seat as he maneuvered the black car through midday traffic to Ruben Deinum’s house. “Answers and then killing. We can’t get answers from a dead man. Unless you’ve got some tricks you haven’t told us about yet, Ty?”
“Nope. Can’t make the dead talk,” Tyche replied.
“He will die today,” Haru grumbled from the passenger seat next to Adrian.
The guard shot him a dark look. “You know, I really resent all of you turning me into the responsible one. I’m beginning to understand why Rayne was so grumpy all the time during our travels. I liked it better when I got to be reckless and stupid with Drayce.”
Tyche had questions about Rayne and Drayce, but he let them go as Adrian pulled up to a guard shack and announced that Yujian Visconti had arrived for his meeting with Ruben. The guard in the neat uniform took a couple of seconds to check his tablet prior to pushing the buttons needed to open the giant swinging iron gate.
He moved around in his seat, peering through the different windows to take in his extravagant surroundings. It had always struck him as strange for humans to erect such elaborate homes and landscaped gardens. They had a tiny number of years to enjoy it all. In the blink of an eye, the owner was dead, the home had been sold and the land often divided up to make room for several new, smaller homes. All memory of their existence was gone. At least with royal palaces, they lasted for a few hundred years and were viewed as magnificent monuments to the kingdom and not just one royal family.