Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
And now, the flames were licking all the way up the walls, and because they were, I could see they were stories high.
The heat had to be immense.
I felt the scorch.
But strangely, I also didn’t feel it.
“Okay,” I snapped. “I think you have some explaining to do.” However, before she got to that… “Where the fuck is Tanyn?”
“He, Nayden, and the castle guard are battling another, much bigger, contingent of these assholes in the garden.”
I felt my blood run cold.
She cocked her head.
“Or, now…he’s racing to you,” she amended.
“He’s okay?”
“No. He’s pissed and freaked. But otherwise, he’s okay.”
“How do you know that?” I shook my head. “No. No. Let’s just get to him. He’ll be going out of his mind if he finds our bed empty. You can expl—”
I had started toward the bridge, but she caught my arm and stopped me.
“Mon, we need to—”
It was me who cut myself off when I saw the expression on her face.
“I will never leave you,” she said.
And my blood turned to shards of ice.
Why would she say that?
“What?” I whispered.
“I’ll always be there.”
“What are you talking about?”
“But now, they’ll know the Sisterhood of the Tribe is not extinct. I must go.”
Oh.
My.
Fucking.
Gods.
“As we have been, we’ll continue to watch over the four of you as best we can,” she continued.
We?
Who was we?
There were more of her?
More of the Sisterhood of the Tribe?
This was…
It was…
Crazy.
I went to grab her, but she took a step back.
“You sent the text comm that I was in danger.” It came out of my mouth like an accusation.
She nodded. “I did.”
“You saw one of those…beings”—I threw out an arm—“at Laura and Aleksei’s party.”
“I did,” she repeated. “I also chased after the being who tried to kill Laura. He was not after her beast, Cat. He was after her. And he would have ended her after he quelled her beast if I didn’t intervene.”
Suddenly, I was shivering. “You weren’t working for renos on your place.”
She shook her head.
“You were watching over us.”
She nodded.
“I don’t understand.”
“We will die for you, Catla, the Sacred Queen of Sky’s Edge, the fated mate of Tanyn Firefierce,” she whispered, and my insides seized. “As we will die for the others. We will not let it happen. We failed the last time. Not again.”
Her gaze moved beyond me, to the bridge, then it came back to me.
I watched a genuine Monique smile spread on her face.
I did this before she blinked out of sight.
Entirely.
One second there.
And then she was just…
Gone.
I knew no one who could do that.
It was then I heard sounds on the stairs.
And I felt him coming.
I turned just as I saw a streak flash across the bridge.
And Tanyn was standing in front of me.
Out the sides of my eyes I saw Nayden come out of his sprint behind him, but I could pay no mind to Nayden, because Tanyn’s hands were all over me.
“Fuck, fuck me, fuck, baby, fuck.” His fingers were smearing the blood that covered me.
“I’m fine. It’s not mine.” I grabbed hold of him. “Listen to me, look at me,” I urged when he seemed unable to process I was okay. I finally latched onto his face and held it to mine. “Honey, I’m fine.”
For a second, Tanyn didn’t move.
Then he crushed me in his arms.
He’d been so all over me, I hadn’t had a chance to get a good look at him.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Unscathed,” he grunted.
Okay.
Phew.
“How the fuck did you cut this one in half?” Nayden growled.
Tanyn twisted his head, looked down, and I felt his powerful frame jerk in surprise.
“I didn’t. Monique did.”
It was like Nayden didn’t hear me, because his next question was, “And are those…feet?”
Tanyn did hear me, however.
His arms around me spasmed and his voice was scary when he ordered, “Say that again?”
“First. Are you okay? Really,” I asked him.
“I’m fine. Nayden’s fine. We have some injured, one dead, as far as we know. But I felt your danger, and once we dealt with them, we didn’t hang around to assess.”
One dead.
Gods dammit.
“What the hells is this place?” Nayden asked, peering around. “And just to say, I have a lot of fucking questions. So maybe someone could start answering them.”
I felt his pain.
So I did my part. “Monique said she was a Sister of the Tribe.”
“Fucking hell,” Nayden bit.
Tanyn just held me tighter.
“They’re lore,” Nayden asserted.
“Apparently, they’re not,” I replied.
“Right, if that’s so, they don’t exist anymore,” Nayden said.
“Trust me, they do,” I replied.
“They fell off the face of the earth like a thousand fucking years ago,” Nayden clipped.
“I sense they did not,” I fired back. “I sense they went underground, because Mon used magic. She conjured weapons. These beings were demons.” I did another sweep of my arm. “And there were more of them that went into the flames. As such, she had to fight with demon speed. She also had no trouble moving through the castle in the dark, even in the levels where it was dark.”