Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 171450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 857(@200wpm)___ 686(@250wpm)___ 572(@300wpm)
“Oh, Kierse, what have you gotten into?” Jason asked with a shake of his head.
“Lorcan,” she pleaded into the abyss.
“Kierse! Where are you? You went completely silent.”
“Jason kidnapped me.”
“The pain,” Lorcan hissed.
“Get here now. Find me.”
“Someone has been a bad girl,” Jason tutted.
Kierse found rock bottom as it swallowed her whole. She couldn’t come to her feet. The pain and blood loss left her swaying and then listing sideways. She only caught herself on the open doorway before she fell out of the van. Her once-vibrant magic was awake again, but the cuffs had drained her dry. It felt as if she had been the power source to the insidious monster.
“I hate you,” she snapped.
“We’ll have plenty of time for flirting later,” Jason said as he wrenched her out of the van by her hair and threw her onto the hard pavement.
She cried out as her ruined hands tried to save her fall. Jason loomed over her, clinking the cuffs in his hand before hauling her up and slipping them back on. The world went silent and blindingly white as her wrists shrieked in pain.
She fell to her knees, letting his weight drag her down. “You’re never going to win this, you know?”
“I’ve been living so much longer than you. You’ll learn eventually that nothing is going to stop me.”
“I was always going to stop you.”
“You’ve been barely a fly I had to occasionally swat back into line.”
She refused to cower even at her lowest. She hadn’t when he nearly beat her to death all those years ago. She certainly wouldn’t now. “At least admit that I’m the only acolyte that you cared about. I was the only one who was a better thief.”
“Debatable.”
She lifted her chin. “I was the only one who stood up to you.”
“An annoyance.”
“The only one you couldn’t keep in line. You couldn’t hold me down and you tried. You tried so hard to make me more like you. Your little sadistic protégé.”
“You never had the streak in you,” he agreed with a shrug. “What can I say? Some people really can’t be taught.”
“You wanted to break the humanity from within me and you never did. And I think I finally realized why.”
He grinned. “Tell me, doll. Tell me why.”
“Because you didn’t know what you were breaking. You never had any humanity. You’re empty. A void. So when you saw the life in me, all you could think was, ‘I want to destroy that.’ But you can’t drain the empathy from me. You can’t take what my parents made me as much as you tried. You can’t make me as lifeless as you.”
Jason stilled at those words, his jaw working. “We’ll see about that.”
“I honestly feel bad for you,” she told him. “What a useless existence to feel nothing but hate.”
“I don’t need your pity,” he snarled.
She looked up at him through her pain and understood Jason better than she ever had. She hated him. Of course she did. But he’d been her world once.
And now he was so…small. So pathetic.
Desperate for power to fill the endless nothing within himself.
“You had it all with the Druids. A family and friends and a place to belong but that wasn’t enough. You had to have Sansara and the power it gave you. You had to have worshippers and followers and sycophants. All of that and it still didn’t fulfill you.”
“You think your fucking words matter to me?” he snarled. “I’ve already won, and you’re going to die like the pathetic bitch you are.”
He hit her across the face again, but she held herself aloft, floating toward oblivion. She had to hold on for a little longer. Needed to give him the last shot.
“I’m on top,” Jason said, striking her again. “I’ve won. These fucking cuffs come from the top. I was supposed to kidnap you for him, you know? He gave me these cuffs.” He tapped the cuffs, and she screamed. “Lovely sound,” he sneered. “See, I got my orders straight from the top, but I didn’t deliver the last Fae to the Fae Killer the first time, and I’m certainly not going to give up my only chance at getting to the Ash Door now.”
Kierse laughed, a brittle thing. “Then you’re too late. We killed the Fae Killer a few minutes ago. And I’ll never give you the Ash Door.”
Jason reared back in shock. “You killed Amberdash?
Kierse’s world went black at the edges.
Amberdash.
“Holy shit! I didn’t think you had it in you. He’s practically indestructible now after sucking the souls out of all of your kind.” Jason shot her that insufferable smirk. “Well, more’s better for me.”
“Amberdash…isn’t the Fae Killer,” Kierse gasped.
Jason tilted his head as he realized what she meant. “You killed someone else.” Then he burst into laughter. “He’s had you all fooled all this time. And I sent you to work for him right under his fucking nose. I still never told him you’re a wisp. We’ll have that as our little secret.”