Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121339 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
“To survive. Yeah, I get it.” She looked up at the stormback, its wings pulled in, blocking any easy way of climbing onto its back. Not that getting up that high would be easy. It wasn’t a fence she was scaling. The odds of her looking graceful were slim to none.
“No. That would imply these games are set up for the contenders. They’re not. The games are political, like everything else. The contenders are just pawns. Some players set up their champions to fail, thereby sucking up to royalty or making another of the gentry look stronger, tightening their alliance. You never know why a player chooses a champion and what their end game is. There is a lot of maneuvering amid the show. Maneuvering I won’t bother with. No one in their right mind would form an alliance with me. I need only to buy time to get set up without the king becoming too impatient.”
“I assume using a human in these games will further your image as the butt of the court’s joke? Your champion doing well, therefore, will be a slap in the face of those same people. If I don’t die immediately, I will be a target to dispose of gruesomely and for an audience, something like they did to your girlfriend?”
He studied her for a long time as the other Fallen jumped and climbed and scrambled onto the backs of the other stormbacks, there being no stirrups to help, and no saddles or reins to hold once up there.
“I won’t have to do much schooling in the political side of things, I see,” he said. “I’m impressed. Essentially, yes. We’ll have an uphill battle from here on out.”
“I have next to zero magic except this mythical chalice situation that doesn’t help me in the least, and you’re going to pit me against powerful, bloodthirsty fae? Super. Sounds like a real fun time followed by a wonderfully peaceful grave.”
“As I said…an uphill battle.”
She shook her head. “My life has been filled with terrible luck, and you might be the worst of it.”
2
Alexis
Bria was already waiting when Alexis showed up at the Magical San Francisco Government Building, right next to one of two spots labeled “Demigod.” The other was occupied by a cherry-red Ferrari, an older vehicle with all sorts of sentimentality. It was the car Kieran had nearly (and purposely!) run over Lexi with, resulting in the first time she and Kieran had met. Good times.
He’d obviously been thinking about the past when he chose it to drive today. Thinking about how Daisy had resisted his integration into their lives and her tight family unit. Had secretly stolen money from him at every turn to create an “out” should he become power hungry and abusive like his Demigod father before him. Daisy had been thinking of the future and preparing should she need to rip them away from this life. At fifteen years old, she’d been trying to protect her family. Fifteen!
She didn’t feel more secure now, Lexi knew. Daisy had become an ace at investing—just in case—in both magical and non-magical markets. Had contacts everywhere. Had safe houses, secret offshore bank accounts, and friends in very low places. She was ready for the Demigod apocalypse, even though Lexi was now a Demigod herself. There was nothing Daisy wouldn’t do to help her family. Nothing. She was hard, but she was sweet, in her own way. Ravaged by life, but saw the joy in it, too. Above all, she relished in the love of her family.
And that piece-of-shit fairy fucker had stolen her from the only happiness she’d ever known. He’d pay for this. The Celestials, too. What the fuck were they doing? Besides not doing their jobs. They needed a hard lesson in work ethic, that’s what they needed.
Lexi planned to give it to them.
She flung open the door of the beat-up old Bronco and stepped out in clothes she’d picked herself. Let the magazines and gossip columns talk shit—for once, she didn’t care. Daisy wasn’t there to pick out her clothes and style her. Now the columnists would know Lexi hadn’t grown a sense of fashion; it was still all thanks to her “filthy” Chester ward who “didn’t belong” in the magical zone.
Fuck those people.
“Well, hello,” Bria said, her platinum-blond hair falling straight to her shoulders. She wore a light blue Nirvana T-shirt, acid-wash jeans, and a spiked dog collar around her neck. She had never cared about the fashion columns. “Love those pants. Are we preparing for a flood?”
Lexi left her handbag in the Bronco and the doors unlocked. She half hoped someone was stupid enough to steal it. It would really help her mood if she could get some of this pent-up pain-turned-aggression out of her system.
“Oh! And we’re free-boobin’ it, too?” Bria cracked a grin and stepped out of the way. “Nice! I’m diggin’ it. How’s the mental health?”