Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Ethna, my lord.” She bowed low, then didn’t make it all the way up—hanging her head. “We have but one request.”
“We?” I asked. No one else stood at her side, or looked in her direction.
“We ask that you allow us to kill the stunted queen.”
I froze, eyes blinking rapidly. I couldn’t have heard what I thought I did.
“What did you say?” Alisdair hissed, obviously suffering from the same roaring that sounded in my ears.
“When we heard that she broke the treaty and destroyed our chance for peace, we knew she was dangerous to you and Lumenfell, my lord. Now after what we’ve just witnessed? Her dissolving the borders so that the wolves can descend and devour us all...” She shook her head. “It’s clear her only goal is to ruin us. The stunted have taken so much from us”—she raised her head, revealing an expression that wasn’t nervousness, but hate—“they will not take anymore.”
“Guards,” Bradach roared, but it was already too late.
The entire line of villagers burst into action. Half split in every direction, running to meet the guards. The remaining, including Mousy, ran straight at me.
Scales, fangs, claws, feathers, fur, and cursed hybrids I couldn’t begin to name rushed me in a horrifying parade. Clapping their hands together, they ripped them apart. Stone broke off from the wall dozens of places, shaking the throne room on its foundation.
The stone collided together, then flew at me.
“Aahhh!”
“Ana!”
A flash of feathers, then a hard force smacked into me and threw me out of the chair. I screamed as I was lifted into the air. This was the end. After everything I’d done. One day away from escape and freedom, I would die.
I kept going up, and up, and up. Why aren’t I falling?
Prying my eyes open, I came face-to-red-face with Bradach. He held me tight, forehead dripping sweat, and soared away from the madness below. “H-hold on—"
“Are you okay? Why are you—? Ahh!”
Claws sunk into his back, hooking into muscle, bone, and sinew. The cat faeriken grinned at me with sharpened teeth. “Release your prize, little bird.”
I shuddered. I didn’t think anyone else could make that awful pet name sound worse.
The stones pummeled my throne, burying it under a brutal grave that was meant for me. One by one they fell off the pile, took to the air, and narrowed on me.
“Bradach, look out!” I screamed, but as the cry left my lips, I knew it was too late.
He was slowing down—wings beating furiously to carry me, and our hanger-on.
Stones converged on us from all sides, flying together to crush us into nothing. Fur flew at my face, making me shoot back screaming as she sunk her teeth into Bradach’s neck.
Bellowing, his wings crumpled.
We fell.
Bradach released me. Hand slicing through the air, a wave of magic blasted my body—plunging me cold. My descent slowed. The rocks slowed.
Bradach didn’t.
“Ferramenta!”
The dais rushed to meet him. Out of nowhere, a large mass erupted beneath Bradach and the platform, catching, then bouncing him groaning to the floor.
A sofa? Where did that—?
His hold on his magic broke, and I plummeted. A rain of stone fell to meet me.
“Ana!”
Arms caught and held me to a hard chest. We collapsed on the dais, and the rocks fell—pummeling his body too hard and brutally, I felt every strike resound through his body into me.
Alisdair pulled me in tighter, shielding me so completely with his arms and body, he had no protection for himself.
The last stone struck... and silence fell.
My chest heaved—eyes rolling in my head. I almost died. They tried to kill me! If it wasn’t for Bradach. If it wasn’t for... Alisdair.
He saved my life. Protected me. When only minutes before, he glared at me like he hated me, and wanted nothing more than to go back and plunge the sword through me at the altar.
“A... na?”
My breath caught. I didn’t dare to move. To think.
Alisdair lifted his head as far as he could, resting his forehead on mine. A true grimace of pain ravaged his features. “Are you... okay?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
I tried to stop myself. With every ounce of will and hatred in my soul, I rebelled against my body, but I couldn’t stop the hand cupping his cheek. I couldn’t stop the words leaving my lips.
“Thank you.”
Yes, he was a terrible, brutal monster who killed innocents and chopped off children’s hands, but I couldn’t get back to my family if I was dead. He saved me. He saved them from believing for the rest of their lives that I ran away and abandoned them. How could I not say—
“Thank you, Alisdair.”
He tensed.
“Alisdair?”
Head snapping up, he inhaled deeply—growls leaking through his growing fangs.
“Shit!” Bradach shouted.
Alisdair leaped off me. I flipped over as he launched at Bradach, claws lengthening to tear him limb from limb. Bradach took to the air and flew out the village entrance—Alisdair hot on his tail.