Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
From behind him, Coștin drew his golden sword.
And he struck.
Neculain’s head rolled from his shoulders and tumbled to the carpet. His body collapsed beside it.
Chiyo breathed something in Japanese. “He just…he just assassinated the king.”
“Great Freya,” Ven said. “What was he thinking?”
Coștin calmly wiped his sword on his father’s robes, then sheathed the blade. He collected Neculain’s head and hurled it through the balcony doors. It sailed over the canoe and hit the water.
Splash! Neculain’s head bobbed, eyes blinking in shock, mouth still working—until a creature closed its gaping jaws around it. Gulp.
Then Coștin easily hefted up the body and tossed it out into the Shallows.
Thud!
King Neculain’s corpse had just landed. In their boat. Would Coștin have heard the wooden boom?
Blood from the severed neck slicked the water around them, chumming it. The current heaved; the canoe steadied, then lurched.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ven said. “If we smuggle this trophy out, we’ll never have to buy drinks again.” Not that they drank.
She and Eyrun paddled, yet they didn’t move.
“Uh, what’s happening?” Eyrun said.
Below them, something rolled, and they rose—up and up—on the back of a breaching kraken. They were trapped aboard the giant creature.
“Is it sleeping?” Chiyo whispered.
“It’s twitching like it is,” Eyrun whispered back. Muscles rippled along its spine, jostling the canoe.
Coștin crossed to the balcony railing to gaze out with narrowed eyes. At that moment, clouds parted and the moon detonated white above them.
There sat Ven, Eyrun, and Chiyo with the body of Neculain in their boat and no way to escape without getting eaten.
Eyrun’s lightning flared across the moon.
But Ven kept a cooler head. “The three of us can handle whatever Bloodreach can muster.”
Coștin traced away, demonstrating a new skill the Valkyries hadn’t suspected. A split second later, an alarm blared over the castle.
Suddenly, teleporting vampires appeared on forgotten ramparts with weapons drawn and intent gazes. More and more appeared. The castle was like an ant mound disturbed by a stray leaf, now boiling up with defenders.
Coștin returned to his spot on Neculain’s balcony, peering down at them with a triumphant sneer.
Eyrun gaped. “Where are the soldiers coming from?” Contingents of swordsmen and archers continued to populate every old battlement, all wearing crimson and black, the ancient colors of Bloodreach. “And why do they look like they know what they’re doing? We would have seen vampires training!”
“You weren’t meant to. No one was,” Chiyo said gravely. “Coștin is like a fox who buries a treat for later.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The crypt. He must have been stockpiling an army down there, always planning to usurp Neculain.”
Ven’s lips parted. “Then the Horde of long ago has returned.” In the past, teleporting vampires had given even Valkyries pause. Much less an army of them.
Eyrun frowned. “They’ll never follow Coștin now though. The Horde revered bloodlines. Plotting an overthrow is one thing, but even the leeches frown on regicide.”
“Kill the Valkyries!” Coștin bellowed to his troops. “They have my father! Murdered!”
Eyrun murmured, “Fuckity-ugh. He just pinned the assassination on us, didn’t he?”
Arrows rained down, blotting out the moon.
Chiyo cried, “I think we’re in a pinch.”
“Dive!” Ven yelled. She snatched Chiyo and Eyrun as she sprang off the waking kraken into a whirlpool of blood and fangs…
Chapter 49
Thane
“My beast is strong this eve,” he grated from his cage. “It claws me from the inside.”
“Tonight proves grueling,” Lowell muttered absently, almost as if he spoke about himself.
His mind might be elsewhere, but he’d done the preparations well. He’d briefed the two dozen warlairds on what was at stake—an enemy queen’s refusal of her fate—and he’d situated Thane’s cage atop the roof, as far from the belowground dungeon as possible. With visible distaste, he’d scattered Ditch’s hexed grains around both cages, Straegan’s and Thane’s, each speck vibrating with magic.
“Try the bars again,” Lowell said.
The warlairds kept hands on weapons as Thane pulled. Metal groaned but didn’t budge. As promised, Thane felt Ditch in every inch of that cage, her magic threaded through steel.
He still couldn’t believe they were trusting a spell. Thane’s Instinct practically snarled: —The fuck are you doing?—
Lowell gave a nod. “Your beast might be strong, but it’s contained.”
“Barely.” It prowled just beneath his skin, close enough that Thane felt its hunger and its thoughts: dark, fixated on one thing.
A delectable witch beneath it.
Though his beast hadn’t risen on the Mount, it’d gotten a hint of Thane’s meal of her, of feeding on Ditch’s orgasms as if they were sustenance. It had well liked its meal and demanded more.
Claim. Possess.
Yet even with the moon climbing higher, the beast didn’t break through. “But I believe it will no’ rise.”
Several warlairds exhaled, relieved. They stood fast anyway. Everyone knew the stakes. This night would end in triumph. Or in war.
“Verra well,” Lowell said. “Seems the spell will work.” His tone didn’t match his words. He kept cocking his head as if listening to something far off, unease twitching through him.