Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
“It wasn’t personal,” Kensley stammered. “It was just a job.”
Diana tilted her head, watching her. There was a gap between Diana and Whiskey, ten feet of clear space that led to the slope down the hill. It was Kensley’s only chance.
“It wasn’t—”
Kensley charged, her hand swinging in a punch, aiming at Diana’s face. A distraction, designed to force her to shy back, opening the way to escape.
Diana caught Kensley’s wrist, pulled her forward and hammered a vicious sidekick into the assassin’s ribs.
Bone crunched.
Diana let go, and Kensley staggered back, clutching her side with a whimper. Her first deep breath would be pure agony, and the pain on her face was intoxicating.
Diana stalked toward her.
Kensley spun, trying to run, but Diana was faster. Grasping her shoulder and pulling her backwards while sweeping her legs out from under her was child’s play. Kensley’s back hit the ground, and Diana landed on top of her, her knee resting on the exact spot her foot had connected with.
Kensley howled, a scream ragged with pain.
Diana pulled her knife.
The assassin’s eyes focused on the blade. She struck at Diana, aiming for her throat. Diana knocked the blow aside, pinned her arm to the ground, and thrust the knife into her shoulder joint.
Another hoarse scream. Kensley’s right arm was a useless lump of human flesh. Diana raised her knife.
“Adrian Woodward!” Kensley groaned. “It was Woodward. He wanted the creature. He wants to make a construct out of it. He was very specific. It needed to be alive and delivered today, because he is flying in this evening. He’s going to kill it tonight to see what’s inside it. He needs to know how it works.”
Diana gripped Kensley’s throat.
“Canyon Lake,” Kensley croaked. “Compound. I can show you… It wasn’t personal. Just a job.”
“You hurt my family. You killed. You stole. You made orphans.” The magic sang in Diana’s voice, ancient like the howl of a wolf and the snarl of a panther.
“Please. Please. I will do anything.”
“Bring Kayson back.”
Kensley stared at her, her eyes bottomless with horror.
Diana’s knife sliced.
[ 6 ]
Augustine tripped on another fucking rock and killed a curse before it escaped his mouth. He’d been stumbling through the brush, half blind with the darkness closing in. It was ungodly hot, more fucking hot than it had any right to be in April, and there was no trail. Just jagged chunks of limestone, thorny bushes, and clumps of trees that looked starved of water. This place was a barren shithole, and he forced his way through it, not knowing if he was going the right way or if he’d been walking in circles.
He'd heard gunshots fifteen minutes ago. They’d rolled through the hills, a twin burst of sound that came from everywhere, echoing through the scrub, then another pair of shots a few moments later. He’d tried to aim for the direction he thought the shots had originated. It took him up another hill, and then, a short time later he heard a howl. Some deeply buried part of him recognized it wasn’t a coyote. No, that was something bigger. A threat that resonated through his spine, and he hated the way it made him feel. And then he went toward it.
He ran most days, a standard warm-up before a regimen of weights and sparring. He knew he was in superb shape, and yet this damn hill felt like it would end him.
Diana had shot through it like she had wings. He had expected her to sic the wolves and follow. But he did not expect her to charge up the wooded hillside at the speed of an Olympic sprinter. How the fuck did she do that?
He had been expecting something like this to happen since the moment she jumped from her chair straight onto Sutton’s desk and put a knife to his throat. But he didn’t expect that. She bounded up that fucking hill like she was a metamorphosis Prime, except she did not transform. She just ran.
Nothing in his research said that animal mages gained any kind of enhanced capabilities. Was it just the Harrisons, or was everything he knew about animal mages catastrophically wrong? He needed to solve this damn mystery, the sooner the better.
Augustine pushed his way through the brush, wincing at the thorns catching on his clothes. A massive tree rose before him, a clump of trunks curving from it like some giant, gnarled version of a monstera plant done in oak. It jutted from the spine of the hill, ruling over a stretch of clear ground. He registered a body by its roots and two huge wolves sitting beside it. They looked at him. He noted the blood staining their mouths. It should have alarmed him, but there was a bigger threat, and she commanded all of his attention.
She lay sprawled on the curving trunk, twenty-five feet above the ground, a lithe, graceful creature with glowing golden eyes. Her hair had come loose, and it spilled over her shoulders, framing her face. She watched him step out from the brush with predatory focus, and when he met her gaze, it sent a shudder through him.