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)
“George,” Jason confirmed. “It was worth pushing her for it. Poor girl. She’s inept, but she has her uses.”
“You’re terrible.”
“I’ll likely kill her after this for keeping the rest of the conversation from me,” he said with another careless shrug. “Traitors only have to lose their usefulness once.”
“And so what? You wanted to get at me?”
“We have unfinished business, you and I.”
“You mean you’re not dead,” she snarled.
“That’s the unfinished part. You still walking and talking and ruining my plans.”
“What plans, Jason?” she asked. “What was all of this for besides just building your own kingdom and slinking through the shadows like a snake?”
“It was for power,” he argued as he took a menacing step forward. He stamped his cane against the hard-packed ground. “Power is all anyone desires. And it is going to put me on the top when the world falls again.”
“You’re wrong. There’s more than power in life. You just are too selfish and self-centered to care about anything else.”
“What I care about hardly matters,” he said with a wild laugh.
Kierse was fed up. She’d been over listening to Jason talking himself into circles long before this meetup.
This was one of an endless list of reasons that she hated Jason, but today was the day that she felt strong enough to do something about it. She could stop Jason from hurting anyone else. Her, Maya, any of his other acolytes. That thought bolstered her, the anger a well that activated something within her. And when she reached for her magic, a hot fount of it pushed through her. More than she’d seen since that night in Edinburgh when Lorcan had flooded her with their combined powers.
She stepped forward through time, stopping it and moving within arm’s reach of Jason from one beat to the next. His eyes widened in shock as she grasped him by his lapels.
“It matters,” she snarled at him.
She stared down into Jason’s eyes, looking at the murderer and monster of her life and knowing that he deserved everything coming for him. The little buzz of magic hummed in the back of her mind. All she had to do was pull at the string and she’d have her answers.
She pulled.
Jason had done nothing but ruin her life at every single fucking turn. She remembered the abuse and torture. The years of ruthless training where he beat her to a pulp. The number of times he’d gotten her caught just so he could escape.
She might have gotten justice by killing Kingston, but Jason was just as responsible. He’d worked for the Fae Killer. He’d given Kingston her parents’ location. He deserved everything that was coming to him.
And finally, finally her persuasion awakened in response.
Chapter Fifty-One
The golden glow of her persuasion wrapped around Jason’s twisted mind. He resisted, pushing back with his centuries of Druidic magic and the training they’d all had in avoiding it. But she wasn’t alone here. Lorcan’s Oak King magic backed her. It was all right there.
“What is your plan?” Kierse asked.
He twisted away from her persuasion, trying to get away and under it, using his own Druidic magic and the tree of Sansara to escape. She pushed harder.
“Tell me.”
“The Ash Door,” he admitted through gritted teeth.
Her surprise was evident. “What about the Ash Door?”
“It’s a portal door. It can find anything that I want.” The answers were like syrup, and his fury turned his face red with struggle.
“What do you want from the door?”
“It opens to other sacred trees,” he spit out.
Kierse jerked back in surprise. To other trees. There were other trees than Sansara and her new tree? And her tree could let someone—anyone—pass through from one to the other. That was powerful and…a very, very dangerous thing to have sitting around in Brooklyn.
“What will you do with the other trees?”
“What I did to Sansara,” he snarled.
“Combine with it?”
His look of surprise was excellent. He didn’t know Maya had told them.
“Jason,” she pressed.
“Yes. Unlimited power for every tree that I take on. I’ll be unbeatable.”
Kierse nodded in understanding. “Do you know how to open the door?”
“You can do it when you combine with it,” he said, his entire body shuddering with fury as she held him in her grasp, forcing answers from him.
“And what will you do after you get the other trees?”
“What I always planned,” he said, biting off his words.
Her persuasion was fading. She couldn’t hold him for much longer.
“What was the plan?”
But he just shook his head.
She grasped more power and pushed again for the answer. “Tell me the plan, Jason.”
“Seize control,” he said through gritted teeth.
Then he pushed back against her, breaking the hold of her magic. His teeth were bloody from biting his tongue to stop from giving her the answers she so desired. He looked as she had always remembered him—powerful and wholly sadistic.
“Now it’s a party,” he said as he threw a punch.