Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 935(@200wpm)___ 748(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“What is funny?” Meallan barked. “The only joke here is you!”
My laughter ceased abruptly, strangled by my disgust. “No, you whining, mewling pup. You’re the joke. A stupid, pathetic, delusional joke if you truly believe you’re meant to rule Wind and Wild, or that if you even tried, the people wouldn’t rip you off the throne and tear your ass limb from limb.”
I sensed the other hit coming and jerked back, catching the tips of his claws across my cheek. Vicious pain sliced my face open, but I didn’t stop.
“You’ll never have Wind and Wild, and you’ll never defeat Alisdair. You can’t even open your eyes wide enough to see I was never a threat to you. Alisdair doesn’t l-love me.” My voice cracked. “He never has, he never will, and he’d never wanted to. You underestimate your enemy, and that’s why you always lose, Meallan.
“It’s why you can’t rise higher than a dirty, dark pit.”
“Argh!”
The shadows lunged and I jumped—hands reaching blindly, and smashing against their salvation. Seizing a limb, I heaved myself onto the branch and climbed as fast as my adjusting vision would let me.
It was so dark. I couldn’t see past what was directly in front of me, but I was a child of the forest. The trees were my natural home, and the beasts below were the bastards of curses, mud, and dark holes. All I had to do was keep moving, keep climbing, keep jumping. They would never catch—
A hand grabbed my ankle and yanked me down.
“Ahhh!” I screamed, falling hard on the snow and dirt.
A chuckle sounded over the wind. “I may underestimate Shadowsoul”—a kick landed square on my middle, sending me flying into a tree—“but I overestimated you, War Wife Emiana, Queen of Nothing, wanted by no one.”
Their laughter echoed through the forest as I lay wheezing—pain wracking me with every shuddered breath.
“Kill her,” Meallan announced. “Slowly.”
Furry bodies pounced on me, their claws penetrating my arms, legs, stomach, and neck.
“Alisdair!”
“Scream for him all you want, whore.” Meallan laughed. “You’ll never—”
“Argh!”
Meallan oomphfed as a large, quick-moving shadow slammed into him.
I couldn’t see where he fell. I couldn’t see anything but the knife-tipped canines closing on my throat.
My captor was ripped off me so violently, I went flying along with her—torn out of the grasp of the others. Their claws raked gashes across my arms and legs, leaking excruciating tears from my eyes.
I crashed on a bed of snow—smothered by the freezing cold. All around me, all I heard were snarls, barks, roars, and the grim squish and snap of torn flesh and crushed bones.
Heat and light ripped through the dark, assaulting my eyes. Meallan staggered to his feet, bleeding heavily from a cut on his forehead. Fire magic consumed his hands—twin deadly torches aching to return the favor. But it wasn’t that bastard I cared about.
“Alisdair!”
My husband swayed on his feet, panting like he felt every mile of his run from the castle. And I had no doubt that he did. Never had Alisdair looked more... human. Not fae. Not faeriken.
Standing there wheezing in the snow, covered in blood and bruises, but not horns, claws, or fangs. He seemed smaller. Weaker. Harmless. As harmless as the clunky, awkward humans with their blunt ears and magicless bodies. He didn’t look like he could win this fight even if he had iron weapons.
The wolves picked themselves up, laughing as they circled him as if they were thinking the same thing.
“You fool.” Meallan’s laugh was nasty. “You came running to the rescue of a traitorous whore who poisoned you? She threw you off a cliff, then came to me to help her get away from you. That was our plan the whole time,” he taunted. “From the very beginning, she poured nothing but lies in your ears, all so you and I could end up here on your last day.”
“Liar!” I screamed.
“Every word is true!” Meallan crouched, preparing to strike. “She stole the flower. She gave you a deadly kiss. Last night, she laughed about how easy it would be to tempt you into your own downfall—”
“So?” Alisdair sliced in—voice steady even as he swayed on his feet.
Meallan stiffened. “Excuse me? Did the poison stuff your ears? She planned this! Luring you to your death. Throwing you off the throne, and then running back to Lyrica and her stunted little life. She doesn’t love you.”
“Shut up!” I cried.
“She never loved you,” Meallan hissed, “and she never will.”
A strange, husky growl dropped from Alisdair’s lips. “And again,” he said, laughing, “So? What does any of that matter? She is my wife. She can murder me a thousand times, but no matter what, it is my honor to die for her... and my pleasure to kill for her.
“No one who wishes to keep their hand lays it upon my queen.” Alisdair began circling him, keeping in pace with a growling Meallan, but with his stumbling, it was more accurate to say my husband was tripping in a circle. “But since it’s you, I’m going to rip off that filthy paw and feed it back to you.