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)
“What is wrong with you?” Thane demanded.
“Nothing that will no’ keep until tomorrow.”
The first lie Lowell has ever told me?
His right hand continued, “We’ll focus on Straegan now, since his beast is at the fore.”
Straegan had been battering his own cage, his howls carrying through the kingdom. Could Ditch feel that aggression? Was she draining herself to handle a burden that should be Thane’s?
“Aye,” he growled. “Do it.”
Lowell dispatched all but two warlairds down to the dungeon for even more support.
Straegan’s howls escalated—wild, seductive, promising freedom from control. Instead of men possessed by wolves, they would become wolves possessed by the shadow of men.
From the far edges of the kingdom—lands where the most feral Lykae roamed—answering howls rose. That dark, calling chorus. Would Thane be able to hold the pack together when the ferocity swelled like a tide?
Even Lowell, ever-steady Lowell, started pacing. Kept glancing toward the Witchwood. A suspicion arose, but Straegan’s howls quelled critical thought. Why wouldn’t he shut up?
If not for Straegan, the pack might not even be enemies with the witches. They wouldn’t be allies but not adversaries either. No Red Riders at all…
As the moon climbed and Straegan’s howls only worsened, Thane’s wild thoughts circled back to one thing: her.
Her scent. Her taste.
He felt her magic caging him, and it made him even more crazed.
When the bell tower tolled the hour, Lowell said, “I’ll check on Straegan’s guards. Ensure they’re sharp.”
A reasonable statement. Yet the flicker in his eyes before he turned away set Thane’s hackles up.
Did my right hand just tell his second lie?
Chapter 50
Meera
Can I die from this? No immortal outside a Valkyrie could perish from a broken heart, yet Meera wondered if she might be the lone exception.
Why couldn’t she have what she wanted most in the worlds? Why had fate slighted her and Lowell?
If only I was his mate.
The thought hit her again as she slunk home for the first time since moving to Strix Keep, and her already swollen eyes burned with fresh tears. Angry ones.
She hated being trapped in this pain with no obvious escape. She’d tried to get over him, only to sink deeper, unable to eat, unable to sleep. With no lifeline coming.
Her chaotic emotions fed her power, and it swept over the ’Wood. Witches fought. Hexshots cracked through the trees. Rage simmered like steam from the roots.
Terrifying to her, because her magic had once ended the person she’d loved best.
Swept up in one of Meera’s storms, infected by frenzy, her practical, battle-hardened mother had run headlong into a fight she could never win.
A senseless death.
Ditch had been right about maddened opponents; they were easy to vanquish.
Tears stung Meera’s eyes again. She’d repeatedly tried and failed to control the fury, as her mother had commanded. Meera’s best bet for help was Ditch. Which wasn’t a bet at all.
She meandered down the path to retrieve her thesis, but she dreaded stepping inside her house and facing the memories waiting to ambush her.
The coffee table where she and Lowell had first shared whiskey.
The couch where he’d made her come for the first time.
The bed where they’d discovered each other with greedy fingers and hungry mouths.
As she neared her cottage, she frowned. She hadn’t sensed any of Ditch’s magical traps. Strange. Yet she was too hollowed out to care. The sight of her dark, forlorn home made grief well even more.
She opened the door, disturbing a letter on the floor.
Lowell’s handwriting!
She dove for the lifeline.
With trembling hands, she tore open the seal of the Seneschal of Craigdúr.
Meera,
This is my last letter to you, my last plea, and I will never bother you again afterward.
But I needed to tell you what’s in my heart.
Her glowing palms dampened the paper. Tears blurred everything. She swiped them away, devouring each word.
I told you I thought I might be in love with you. These days apart have erased any doubt. I do love you.
So much.
You’ve stolen my heart forever, and I never want it back.
She gasped, hand flying to her mouth.
You said fighting fate is impossible. Isn’t fighting love even more futile? What I feel is real. True. Lasting. It’s yours, if you’ll accept it.
What if he was different from other Lykae? What if he had fallen for her? If she’d truly enchanted him, he wouldn’t have lasted a week without her.
Maybe her own insecurity had twisted everything.
Oh.
How could it not?
She read on:
You spoke of factions and war. But what if we could leave all that behind?
The letter described a portal to the mortal world opening on Mount Nothrior under the Hunter’s Moon—midnight only—before closing for three more Accessions. No wonder Thane couldn’t be contained there tonight. Ditch had said another party had “booked” the venue.
Had it ever.
Meet me at the base of the Mount. Walk through that threshold hand in hand with me. In the mortal world, we’ll live like gods—travel, taste every cuisine, feel the kiss of fabled oceans. We can learn what happened in the Exile.