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)
A man appeared at her side, slicing casually through the goblin’s throat with a sword. His head clattered to the floor next to his body, and she would have gone down with him if the stranger hadn’t gotten an arm under her.
“This one yours, Graves?”
“Fuck, Wren,” Graves said, assessing the knife still lodged in her side.
“I’m…I’m fine.”
“Vale,” Graves said with a desperation she’d only heard in his voice once before, when he’d thought she was dying.
“We’ll take her to my place,” Vale said.
She was hoisted into Graves’s warm, comforting arms, and darkness beckoned.
Chapter Seventeen
Kierse awoke to the tangy scent of blood. Her eyes fluttered open to reveal a bare room. Just a twin pallet on the ground and a hanging lightbulb.
“Don’t move,” Niamh insisted.
“What happened?” she groaned.
“You got a knife to the ribs. I’m currently healing you.”
“How?”
Niamh winked at her. “High Priestess, remember?”
“Oh,” she said as the groggy memory returned to her. She wasn’t in her apartment back in Dublin. Niamh hadn’t come to check on her. She was in the goblin market. And it had almost taken her life.
She winced at the pain in her side, but it was already much better than it had been. If Niamh hadn’t been here, would she have died?
Then she remembered the sound of Graves’s voice when he’d seen her injury. No. No, she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have left her for dead. He would have found a way.
“You’re awake,” Graves said as he entered the bare room. “How are you feeling?”
“Like someone tried to kill me.”
“All in a day’s work.”
She blew out a harsh breath. “Going to try to not die anymore for a while.”
“That would be satisfactory.”
“What happened while I was out?”
“We’re at Vale’s…apartment,” Graves said, looking around at the four walls as if they offended him.
“He saved me.”
Graves nodded. His expression was carefully blank. Was he beating himself up because he’d let her get hurt? Or because he’d almost lost his prized thief?
“Does he have the information we need to find Rio?”
“Maybe we should end this fool’s errand.”
She glared at him. “I made it this far.”
“You almost died,” he snapped back. His calm evaporating for a moment. “Is your memory worth all of this?”
She’d asked herself the same question. Wondered if all of it was worth dying for. And no, she didn’t want to die.
“Aren’t you at all curious what happened to me?” she asked instead.
Niamh glanced back at Graves, then eyed Kierse consideringly. “Who do you know who can take memories?”
Graves’s gaze hardened. “It was the spell, which is nothing like my magic. It’s more likely a Druid.”
“You don’t know that!” Niamh fought back.
Kierse winced. “Can we bring the volume down on all of this? I still have internal bleeding. I don’t know who did this or why, and I need to know, okay? I don’t want to die for it. I just need answers.”
Graves sighed. “We’ll move out when Niamh gives you a clean bill of health.” He disappeared from the room, and Kierse knocked her head back against the pallet.
“He’s infuriating,” she muttered.
“Tell me about it. I’ve known him for like five hundred years, and he’s always been like this.”
Kierse turned her face to Niamh. “Even when he was young?”
“Especially so,” she said. “Now quiet and let me finish.”
It took another hour before Niamh agreed that Kierse could get up and move around. She felt nearly 100 percent better. Still stiff, and she wasn’t going to be performing any big swinging motions anytime soon, but much better than she had been. Niamh looked a little worse for wear, as if it had taken a lot out of her. Kierse wanted to ask, but Niamh went into the kitchen to scrounge for something to replenish her.
Kierse found Graves and Vale seated at a card table. Graves was engrossed in a book, clearly recharging his magic. Vale, meanwhile, looked like a medieval cosplayer. He had dark, shoulder-length hair and nearly black eyes in a pale face with a full beard and mustache, and he was wearing dark, fitted pants, a brown jerkin, and leather bracers. A sword hung at his waist, and an actual bow and arrow rested in a corner. In fact, the only decoration in the otherwise empty room was the sheer display of weaponry of every type. A chest full of knives, maces, axes, throwing stars. A wall of samurai swords. A dozen full-length spears. A dented metal shield, two wooden crossbows, and what looked like an actual halberd. The guy clearly had a weapon fetish.
“You look hale,” Vale said with a head nod.
“Thank you for your help.”
“I was surprised Graves would ask for help,” Vale said. His smile lit up his face. “Though I can see why with such a beautiful woman at his side to protect.”
Graves glanced up at that. “She doesn’t need protection.”