Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99935 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
I just stared at her. I was too deep in my shock to skip to the part where I was speaking merrily and normally with my new snake guide.
She wasn’t interested in waiting for me to catch up. “Let’s go. The sooner you find your nestmate, the sooner I return home.” Slithering over, she slipped under my pant’s hem, and climbed right up.
“What are you doing!”
“What do you think? Do you expect me to chase after you all day and night? Do you not see the least you can do is carry me?”
I swallowed another scream as her scales glided over my skin. I wasn’t afraid of snakes, but then, I’d never had one in my pants before!
She hissed at me. “Why do you recoil? Are you inconssssiderate as well as insolent? No wonder you’re sixty years old and have never mated.”
“Excuse me?” My tied tongue loosened quickly. “I’m twenty-two and—and I’m not a virgin!”
She sniffed. I don’t know how, but the tiny black snake sniffed at me. “Well, you look sixty. You’re clearly aging horribly.”
I bit off a hot retort. If this was really happening, and I wasn’t one hundred percent it was, I wasn’t about to get into a roasting match with my delusion. “Can you at least hang around my shoulders?”
Wrapping tight around my torso, she replied, “No.”
“Straight out of charm school, you are.”
“Shut up and get moving. We have a long way to go if we’re going to make it to the academy in time for the trials,” emerged from my shirt. “Any late arrivals are denied entry and can’t apply again for another month.” A shiver crawled up my spine as she squeezed me tighter. “I suspect you don’t want to keep your nestmate waiting any longer than you have.”
“How long a ways do we have to go?” I asked. “And which way?”
Her tail poked out from under my shirt. “That way. Ten miles.”
“Ten?!”
A strange, whispery, hissing noise bled through my fabric. It took me a second to realize it was her laugh.
“You made a fool of my lord with that contract. You should expect him to return the favor as often as he can.” She laughed again. “By the way, the trials start in an hour.”
“What!”
“Better get moving.”
I didn’t waste another second. Turning in the direction she indicated, I took off at full pace—racing through the lonely, desiccated forest.
Hang on, Dora. I ran faster still.
I’m coming for you.
All Caught Up
“HELLHOUNDSSSS,” MY snake companion bellowed from below my collar. “Get up the fucking cliff, human! Now!”
She didn’t need to tell me twice.
Racing past a guffawing Erlik, I launched at the cliff face—desperately scrabbling for purchase, and opening seams on my palms in a dozen little places. I had nothing— No, less than nothing left in my tank.
I knew from the first ten minutes into my forest run that Lucifer had done something to my body. I should’ve been winded and gasping for water, but instead, I felt great. My body thrived on the exercise like I was an athlete. My muscles were relaxed in the movement. My lungs were primed to pump at full efficiency.
I was positively flying through the desolate place... until I hit mile eight.
Maybe if I’d been running through my neighborhood park on a nice day with a bottle of water strapped to my arm, I’d have been fine.
But this was hell.
The burning, smoke-filled air irritated and ravaged my throat and lungs. The oppressive heat drained my body of moisture, and there wasn’t a single water source in sight to do anything about it. By the time the gates of Abaddon Academy loomed before me, I was in trouble.
My lungs burned. My legs ached. I was beyond dehydrated... and Erlik wasn’t hearing any of that. Thus, began the trials.
He made us walk a tightrope over open flames. That killed twenty-five percent of applicants right off the bat. Next was the footrace.
We had to sprint five miles while dodging magical attacks from Erlik, and the other applicants. Being that I was already wiped from my forced ten-mile sprint, I was dead fricking last. Surprisingly, that’s likely what saved me.
Erlik was too busy torturing the runners at the front and picking them off one by one to even see me in last place. Ditto for the gut of runners bringing up the middle. They were too busy attacking each other to hang back and worry about me.
But none of that would help me get up this cliff.
“Come on,” I bellowed at myself, climbing a foot from the ground, and then two. “Come on!”
“Ahhh!”
Someone fell past me, nearly knocking me off smashing into my shoulder before crashing to the ground.
The hellhounds were on him in a blink. Terrifying, blood-chilling horror rocketed through my body as five of them pounced on him. He was still screaming when one ripped open his stomach and started eating.