Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 563(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
He slammed her sword from her hand, sending it spinning. He sheathed his own and seized her arm, claws digging into her skin.
She twisted to look at Arctos one last time. He reached for her, his gaze saying something she couldn’t decipher. She’d seen that look before…
And then Coștin traced her away.
Not to the castle.
Darkness swallowed her. The air hung heavy with old blood, thick enough to taste. Drops ticked from above in a slow, constant cadence.
“The crypt,” she breathed. He’d taken her to this foul place, surrounding her with the very substance she’d sworn never to drink.
Coștin’s silhouette loomed. “I can trace in and out. You cannot. If you ever want to leave, sister, you’ll give me what I want.”
Her throat tightened. “What?” she whispered, but she knew. He would complete the blooding. Her nightmare was unfolding, step by terrifying step.
His voice went low and intimate. “Come now. Father had a few ideas worth keeping. We’ll start tonight.”
Comprehension settled over her like a cloak of acid. He’d murdered her husband. Beheaded the one vampire royal who might have saved her. And now…he meant to fulfill Neculain’s decree.
Her nightmare of him deepened bloodred. Screams tore from her throat, echoing off stone until her own mind felt flayed open.
Screaming.
Screaming.
One hundred babes in one hundred years.
And Coștin would father them all.
Chapter 56
Thane
No’ even near midnight yet.
Sweat poured as his beast prowled beneath his skin. Holding back his primal self—mated, beneath the moon—went against every law of the Lykae. Thane gripped the bars, drawing in any faint hint of his mate, though he felt as if he stood waist-deep in her caustic magic.
At last, Straegan’s ceaseless howls cut off.
Blessed quiet. Only the surf pounding below the cliffs and the thin cries of nocturnal seabirds. Thane let his shoulders relax a fraction…
Then his brother loosed a different sound. A long, savage roar, a call to arms.
Thane’s beast bayed inside him. The two remaining guards nearby traded uneasy looks.
“Ignore him,” Thane ordered. “We’ll get through this.” No sooner had he spoken than tendrils of light sparked across the bars of his cage. Ditch’s tethering magic—so tenacious, so strong—flickered and hissed as something else flooded in: a foreign current, both cold and malicious.
The spell was changing. The world tilted.
The fuck is happening?
His beast felt…empowered. As Thane fought to keep control, he sensed a clash beyond himself as well. Magic battling magic. Had Ditch’s own coven sabotaged her spells? Would the cages fail?
Straegan slammed against those bars with renewed ferocity.
“Lowell!” Thane bellowed. Ditch’s ward could not hold for much longer. “Lowell, get back here!”
No answer.
He turned to the pair of warlairds. “Where the hell is he?”
“We’ll find him.” They hastened toward Straegan’s cell.
If my brother gets loose, he’ll kill Ditch.
Lowell, godsdamn it.
Roars erupted from the dungeon. Shouts. Screeching metal. What sounded like a battle and the scent of blood carried.
Moments later, a warlaird lurched back into view—Duncan, maybe?—one arm clinging by a strip of flesh, the other hand pressing his lacerated chest together.
“What’s happening down there?” Thane demanded. Straegan must’ve used his speed to swipe his claws from his prison.
Duncan wheezed, “Cell’s…collapsing. Guards mangled. Swords…bounce off him. Matter of time… We need you.”
“Where is Lowell?” Had Straegan taken him out? Thane swallowed hard.
“Gone. Canna find him.”
Gone. His right hand had deserted him during the most volatile hour the kingdom had faced in centuries. After I trusted him with so much? Betrayal fanged deep.
Thane shoved it aside. The spells were failing. Straegan would soon get loose, and he would race straight to the Witchwood to murder the pack’s fated queen.
“Free me,” Thane growled. Better she face one wolf bent on claiming her than one bent on destroying her.
Duncan nodded grimly, retrieved the key, and unlocked the cage. He displaced the line of magical grains, not that they worked any longer.
The door swung open. The last threads of Ditch’s ward peeled away, and the moon took him like a leash snapping tight. “I’ll handle Straegan,” Thane grated, his voice already changing. “But we’ll be at war with the witches tonight.” He sprinted toward the stairs. “Ready the pack. Bring in more warlairds to fortify the castle.”
Duncan coughed blood. “We’ll…be ready.”
Halfway down the steps, Thane heard another metallic shriek, followed by silence. Freed already?
I’ll block the stairs. But his canny brother predicted just this; Straegan simply barreled through the castle wall.
He was all-powerful tonight. And I must defeat him.
Thane hurtled up to the roof and saw Straegan: a shadow arcing over the moon, landing on the cliff’s edge as the sea exploded beneath.
He stood far taller than a man, the outline of his wolven beast overlaying his enlarged body, spray frosting his naked skin. After ages in that dungeon, he breathed the salt, the moon lighting the feral insanity in his blue eyes.
Thane dug his claws into the stone, snarling a warning. I will kill you tonight, brother.