Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 120974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120974 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 403(@300wpm)
“Touch her and die,” a deep, familiar voice growls.
Fiery eyes flash in the torchlight and there, standing behind my brother, is Valen, looking like an avenging god.
79
VALEN
I grip his neck harder, pulling him away from her. He tries to fight me, but it’s not even close to an even match.
“Let…me…go!” he chokes out.
I spin him around to face me and squeeze his wrist so hard I feel the bones grind together.
With a cry, he drops his dagger. It tumbles to the ground and clangs against the flagstones.
“You tried to hurt my mate…” My voice comes out double—the voice of my Drake overlapping my own as we speak as one.
“What…who…how?” he sputters. His eyes widen as he recognizes me. “The beast!” he exclaims. “You’re the beast I captured!”
That’s right—I have a bone to pick with him beyond what he tried to do to Irena.
“How does it feel, Prince Kellis?” I growl, shoving my face into his. “To face me when I’m not drugged or chained? How does it feel to face me in a fair fight?”
“Let me go!” he whines… trying unsuccessfully to twist out of my grip. He’s got one hand free, but he makes no move to throw a punch—he’s just trying to flee like the coward he is.
I look at Irena.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?
“He…he was going to stab me.” Her eyes are wide as though she can’t believe her own brother would hurt her.
Then again—why would she be surprised? I’m sure he’s the one who had her chained down here in the dungeon—just as she was in my vision.
My eyes flick over her body, searching for damage, and I see the red lines of crimson streaking down her forearms, where the manacles have bitten into her wrists. Anger begins to rise in me—no, not just anger—rage. I feel it boiling in my blood and my Drake’s rage answers it and adds to it. I feel my throat growing hot with his fire.
Our mate! I hear him growling. He harmed our mate! HE MADE HER BLEED!
“He’s never going to hurt you again,” we say together, to Irena.
Then I open my mouth and breathe out a gust of flame.
80
IRENA
Flame envelopes Kellis’s head, catching his hair on fire like a torch.
He screeches—a sound even higher pitched than the shrill squeals and whining cries of the Head Healer, who is still feeling his new body and crying in disbelief.
Valen lets him go and Kellis beats at his head but the fire spreads. It travels down his body like a live thing—a snake intent on swallowing him whole. He runs around the dungeon in panic, shrieking and beating at himself. He even lays down and rolls on the filthy flagstone floor, but the dragon fire sticks like glue. It spreads and spreads and spreads as he shrieks and screams for someone to “put me out! Put me out!”
I can’t stop staring at him until Valen puts himself deliberately between me and the awful sight.
“Come on, Princess,” he says to me. “Let’s get you out of here before his squawking brings the guards.”
“You…you came for me,” I say as he examines the chains.
“Of course I fucking did,” he says grimly.
He’s in the process of breaking the right manacle off my wrist with pure brute strength and I know I ought to be grateful. I ought to be horrified, too, at the way Kellis is shrieking and dying—being burned alive before my eyes. The sight is awful and the smell—that of roasted pork—is nauseating.
But a heavy numbness has come over my mind…it’s like all my feelings have been wrapped in cotton which muffles them…dims them, somehow.
As the second manacle breaks in his powerful hands, I feel myself sagging—it’s like my legs won’t hold me up anymore.
“Whoa, sweetheart!” Valen catches me and lifts me into his arms. “Be careful!” he exclaims and frowns as he looks into my face. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I try to say. But it comes out as, “I’mmmm finnnne.” I frown. Why are my words slurring like this? Why does my tongue feel like lead in my mouth.
“Irena? Princess?” His deep voice sounds panicked, and his eyes are worried, but it barely registers in my tired mind. I feel so sleepy all of a sudden…I just want to sleep.
“Soooo…tiiiired,” I sigh, my eyelids fluttering closed.
“No—stay awake! Irena, stay with me!” he exclaims. He shakes me—trying to wake me up—but somehow I just can’t stay awake. It feels like someone had tied lead weights to my eyelids and is dragging them down.
“Sooo…sleepy,” I whisper.
“No, you can’t—” Valen begins.
But I don’t hear what I can’t do because at that moment darkness eats the world and I know no more.
81
VALEN
Fuck…FUCK!
I shake her and pat her cheeks, but her eyes stay closed and her heads lolls limply against my arm.
A mixture of fear and fury fills me. It’s just like in the vision that fucking Door of Uncertainty showed me! Is she dead, like she was in the vision, or just sleeping?