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)
“Climb.”
I froze. “What? What are you talking about? Climb what?”
Without bothering to glance in my direction, Erlik pointed up. “This is your final trial. Climb to the top of the mountain. Anyone who reaches the pinnacle may consider themselves a new student of Abaddon Academy,” he stated. “Anyone who falls and dies may consider themselves dead.”
My nostrils flared at his uncaring delivery.
“Anyone who doesn’t try,” he continued, “may also consider themselves dead, because I will eviscerate all cowards.” Erlik blew sharply on his fingers. “Begin.”
“Wait,” I screeched as the men rushed the cliff face—knocking, shoving, and punching each other aside as they did so. “Don’t we get climbing gear, protection, something!”
Erlik raised one surprisingly thin and delicate brow. “No.”
“Of course not!” I burst out—fear, pain, and exhaustion bringing me to snapping point. “Could you have made these stupid trials any harder!”
“Oh, yes, of course,” Erlik breezed. “Thank you for reminding me.”
His reply didn’t have time to penetrate my brain before he snapped his fingers and howling lit the air.
Whipping around, I took one look, and screamed.
Wide, red, angry eyes. Foam and drool dripped from snarling maws. Grotesquely muscled bodies covered singed, black fur, and razor-tipped paws bigger than my head pounded the ground as not one, or two, or twenty, but dozens upon dozens of these horrible creatures appeared from nowhere and raced across the valley... straight toward me.
“Hellhoundssss,” she 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. The cliff was rocky and jagged, boasting nothing but protrusions to grab on to. That should’ve made things easier if it wasn’t for the fact the cliff wasn’t made of natural rock and dirt. My hands closed on smooth, slippery obsidian—just about the worst fucking thing you could try to climb freehand.
I jumped, grabbed, and scrabbled at the rock—hands slipping on the stone and opening seams in a dozen little places, but still I didn’t stop. “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.
Everything went white. I think I was screaming. I think the hidden passenger in my shirt was screaming too. I couldn’t comprehend of either as I climbed—climbed, climbed, and climbed with no more thought in my head but to get away from those horrifying monsters.
“No! No, no, no!” My bloody hand slipped on the rock. “You’re not dying here! Dora needs you! Keep going!” Tears cut tracks down my cheeks as someone else fell from the cliff, and their dying screams pummeled my eardrums. “Keep going! She needs—”
A tight grip closed on my wrist, snapping my head up. Blinking, swimming eyes latched on to a wide, gleeful grin, and just above it, the pinnacle.
I’m almost to the top. My eyes saw it was true, but my heart could scarcely believe it. Only a few more feet and I’m there. Oh my gosh, I’m going to do it. I’m going to get into the academy! Dora, I’m coming! “Th-thank you,” I rasped, tugging on my wrist. “But I think I can climb the rest of the way on my own. I don’t need hel—"
“Sorry, worm.” Impossibly, the smirk grew wide—curling in on itself like the Cheshire Cat. “This is as far as you go.”
“Wha—”
Yanking sharply on me, he broke my hold on the rocks... and let go.
Screams echoing through the valley, I plummeted through the air... into the eager, waiting maws of the hellhounds below.
Chapter One
One Month Earlier
“Carter Hathaway.”
I bounced in my seat, my phone high over my head and capturing everything. I was cheesing so hard, my face hurt, and they hadn’t even gotten to—
“Adora Hunter.”
“Whoo!” Leaping to my feet, I whooped and cheered my head off. “Dora! Dora! Dora!”
The camera got the exact moment she blushed bright red and slapped her hands over her face, trying to pretend she didn’t know the crazy shouting woman. But when she got to the stage, she spun and held her diploma up high—beaming from ear to ear as applause filled the auditorium.
I ran up to her after graduation, pouncing on her as she came out of the double doors.
“Whoa!” She tried and failed to catch me and the flowers I was holding. Shrieking, we tipped over into a bush. “Char!”
Cracking up, all we could do was lie there tangled in bush and limbs, and laugh as worried people swarmed and helped us up.
“What is going on with you, woman?” Dora cried, brushing the flower petals off her dress. “All I did was graduate from high school. It’s hardly a presidential inauguration.”