Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“If you kill me, it kills her,” Lorcan told him.
Graves halted. He visibly strained at the threat. “It didn’t kill you when Saoirse died.”
“Our magic was connected, not entangled. Right now, I’m holding her magic, and if you sever it, she dies,” Lorcan told him. “I’ll come back after the solstice. We’re connected that way. She won’t.”
For a moment, Kierse thought that Graves would do it anyway. That he was so mad at Lorcan and the fucking audacity of the situation—the horrible ordeal he was now going through a second time—that she thought he might just kill him and get it over with. Even if the Oak and Holly cycle would keep bringing them back, continuously. But then Graves whirled the spear and buried it into the ground between Lorcan’s legs.
It was then that the solstice roared through Graves, the Holly King coming fully into his own. His arms spread wide as the surge of magic rushed up from him and blasted forward into Lorcan, reducing him from the height of his power to his weakest.
Graves fell to one knee at the end of it, drained to the bone. The Holly King had returned to his reign. A chill ran through the room. A promise of winter to come.
At the head of it all, Niamh sat down on the Oak Throne.
Chapter Seventy
Lorcan’s head whipped to the front of the room. He cradled his injured shoulder in his other arm, his eyes wide with alarm at the sight of the robin on the oak throne.
“Impossible,” Lorcan said.
“I am the new head of the Druidic Order,” Niamh declared to the room. “You answer to me now.”
No one spoke. The Druids who were still unharmed from Ethan and Gen’s attack stared in apparent shock. A change in leadership, after the death of Lorcan’s second, in the midst of Lorcan’s ascension, had to be…terrifying.
Niamh’s eyes settled on the lot of them in the center of the room. “You may leave. I have no quarrel with you.”
Graves stood and then dropped to a knee before Kierse. “My wren.”
“You came. I called for you, but I didn’t think you could hear me,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
“I’ve always been here. I’ll always be here,” he reassured her, offering her his hand. She hesitated a breath of a second. His voice was soft but firm. “I’m not like him. I won’t hurt you.”
“I know,” she said and set her hand in his.
He helped her to her feet. “Let’s go home.”
“And me?” Lorcan asked.
Niamh tilted her head. “You’ve defiled our sacred oaths. If you complete repentance, you can return to the fold.”
Lorcan looked like he was going to spit at her feet as he dragged himself to his feet. But all he said was, “And if I don’t?”
“Then you are in exile,” Niamh said simply.
Lorcan snarled. “This isn’t the end of this, Robin.”
Niamh leaned forward on the throne, the power humming through her. “Looking forward to it.”
Kierse left them to their new feud. She wanted no part of it. This was the last place in the entire world she wanted to remain. She couldn’t even look at Lorcan as she walked to the doors. But she could still feel him burrowing down inside her.
Kierse exited the throne room, holding Graves’s arm. Padded barefoot onto the hardwood floors with Gen and Ethan hurrying to keep up. They went outside into the midnight summer air. It wasn’t until she slid into the back of Graves’s limo, finally safe, that she felt the jagged pieces of her begin to pierce her skin. The ache and the pain and the horror of what she had experienced hit her full-on.
A sob ripped from her throat, and she buried her face in her hands. No one said a word as George pulled the limo away from the Druid headquarters. Gen slipped her arms around Kierse’s body. She wanted to push her away and tell her that she couldn’t accept comfort right now, but it was Gen, the one person in her life who had always been there to put the pieces back together. Gen who could heal anything. But Kierse knew she couldn’t heal this.
“How are you okay?” Kierse asked through her tears.
Gen rubbed her back gently in small circles. “Cauldron.”
“You got it open?”
Gen nodded. “Group effort between Walter, Laz, and Graves. They followed the instructions you laid out for yourself. They had to or else I would have died.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”
“I don’t think you had a choice about that.”
No, her choice had been ripped away from her. Her eyes lifted to Ethan. The shame on his face was wide and apparent. He’d always worn his emotions on his sleeve. They were so visible that it was almost painful to witness.
“Kierse, I’m so sorry.”
“Did you know what was going to happen?”