Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Chapter Twelve
Legend
The corridor splits open around me, shadow peeling back from stone, and the first thing I see is her. She’s got blood on her throat like a necklace, jacket hacked off and riding the top of her ribs, eyes full of knives, and Creed beside her looking like the world’s most exhausted executioner.
The bond slams into me the second I’m through, vicious and greedy, a hot hook under the breastbone yanking me forward like I belong in her orbit and nowhere else. I hate it. I love it. And I’m already smiling.
“Who did this?” I ask, voice low enough to rattle the floors.
She doesn’t flinch, just tips her chin like she’s daring me to step closer. “Relax, Your Majesty. Warcraft just keeps getting more interesting.”
Creed’s gaze cuts to me, a warning so sharp it could gut a god. “You should not be here.”
“Go take attendance somewhere else,” I snap.
I step in and she doesn’t step back.
Good girl.
There’s a smear of red at the corner of her mouth that isn’t hers or mine, and something feral slides through my chest like a blade unsheathed. I lift my thumb, slow, and drag it across her lower lip. She watches me the whole time, eyes bright and unbothered, like I’m a knife trick at a street fair.
The growl crawls up my throat before I let it die in my teeth. “Say it.”
She blinks. “Say what?”
“That you’re mine.”
She smiles, sweet as poison. “Buy me dinner first.”
Creed exhales in that very special way that says he’s actively choosing not to murder either of us. “Mastery of SpellChemy at dawn,” he says, like we’re not vibrating the mortar out of the walls. “She bails or is even a moment late, I will personally see to what follows. I expect both of you to pretend to understand what consequences means.”
“Consequences?” she echoes, eyes never leaving mine. “I don’t know if you even understand the meaning of the word, big king.”
“Don’t call him king. I am your only king, little monster.” I lean in so the edge of her breath is in my mouth and my ribs ache from being this close without breaking something. The bond is a storm under my skin. Static clawing at bone, heat licking vertebrae. That black lace thrum that says take, mark, bite, keep. And I know she has to feel some of it. How could she not?
The gods didn’t wire me to burn alone. There’s a fire in me and it’s alive and thriving—stealing my energy and demanding I bind it to hers.
“You feel this,” I murmur, letting the words curl against the soft part of her ear. “Don’t lie to me, monster.”
She laughs, bright and terrible. “I feel…bored.”
It hits harder than a dragon’s tail to the fucking face.
The smile stays on my face because I made it to last through wars and funerals, but something ugly rakes along the inside of my ribs. I test the bond. Just a pulse. Just a little snap of heat. Nothing she can name. And there, the smallest falter in her breath. The tiniest catch like a wire drawn too tight.
“There you are,” I breathe, triumphant and mean.
She smooths it into a grin like it never happened. “You’re hallucinating, King Gaslight.”
I want to bite her hard enough the pain blinds her.
“Enough,” Creed says, and the corridor obeys, the braziers guttering to a sterner flame. He plants himself in the middle without quite getting between us, older-brother arrogance wrapped in a funeral coat. “You’re forcing something you’re not ready for.”
“Don’t make me kill you, brother.”
“Legend, take a fucking beat before you create a shitstorm that can’t be undone. Trust me on this.”
“She is mine.”
“So you keep saying.”
My eyes slide to his, holding.
Big brother grits his teeth. “Fine. But do not start a war in my hall because you can’t manage your teeth.”
“My teeth are perfectly managed,” I say, and then I look back at her mouth and decide that statement is a fucking tragedy.
She’s close enough to kiss. Close enough to kill. Close enough that if I breathe deeper, we’ll share a heartbeat. It’s a miracle I’m even pretending to be civilized. “You smell like detergent,” I tell her, because it offends me on a cellular level. “Fix it.”
“Aw,” she says. “Does it mask your cologne? Smoldering ego? Notes of petrol and delusion?”
“Gasoline,” I correct softly. “And hunger.”
The bond drags a claw down my spine. I swear I feel her flinch though she attempts to mask it. She’s stone. She’s smoke. She’s the first thing I’ve wanted to worship and ruin in equal measure. The calm that used to live in my hands is a ghost.
“Run, then,” I murmur, stepping back half a breath because I’m either going to kiss her or break the wall with her spine. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“I don’t run,” she says.