Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
He swallowed hard, and his thick throat bobbed. “She was the light that burned inside me. A beacon. My only destination. And when I found you, Aria . . . when I saw you for the first time standing in front of me, you rearranged everything I’d thought I’d known. Every part of me. You brought me to life in an instant, when I’d long accepted that the only thing my meager days would encompass were gore and violence and death.”
Tears blurred Aria’s eyes, and her chest expanded as her Nol laid himself bare in front of their entire Laven family.
“And then you showed me that I had it all wrong. You showed me there was so much more to live for, and the one thing I was made to do was live this life with you. For you. So yes, I accept you as my wife both here and on Earth. Through every storm and sunrise. In the chaos and the peace. In all of eternity.”
A deep fervency swathed them all as their family watched, rapt.
The energy she and Pax shared wound and glowed.
Ellis cleared the coarseness from his voice before he again lifted his chin and said, “Then it is my great honor to declare you husband and wife. In every way.”
Pax didn’t wait to find out if Ellis would tell him to kiss her. His arms were already around her and a hand was already twisting up in her hair, holding tight as he possessed her mouth in a mind-bending kiss.
One that trembled the ground beneath her feet and rocked her to her soul.
Commanding.
Proclaiming.
A vow that he sealed.
One that could not be undone.
She felt branded by it. Uplifted and taken.
Whole in every way she could imagine. The hollowness and vacancies and loneliness that had wept inside her for so many years had been completely obliterated.
Lights flickered and flashed behind her eyes, a blinding warmth that surged through the clearing.
And she wondered if the others felt it, too, as a chorus of soft gasps echoed around them, before there were shouts and claps cheering them on as everyone began to stand.
A gathering of hearts.
The hearts they were fighting for, only she knew that number was far greater than the small group that had come to shower them with love and well-wishes.
Aria and Pax finally parted, though their spirits remained tied, their gazes entrenched in the truth that vibrated between them.
Forever.
Forever.
“Now we must descend. Our work is far from over,” Ellis said, breaking into the rapture. Pax and Aria gave him their assent.
He was right . . . they had much work to do.
They had all of existence to save.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Pax—Faydor
They hit the floor of Faydor with a thud, both crouching low as they slammed against the frozen ground. They used their positions to catapult themselves forward and into a sprint, though their hands remained forever twined.
Except the second they’d stepped through the gauzy portal that lured them toward the sordid, Pax had known something was off.
He’d still been impaled by the cold slice of the frigid atmosphere, but there was something missing.
Something that left him feeling unsettled and agitated.
It took him a second to catch up to what it was.
To what sent a slick of apprehension clawing beneath the surface of his skin.
The howling.
The howling that whispered calamities into the ears of the weak.
The howling that imparted deviant thoughts into the subservient below.
It had been quieted. It was there, but it was different.
At the realization, he and Aria both skidded to a stop, their expressions troubled as they shared a confounded glance before their attention turned to race across the barren terrain to take it in. The Kruen were in a frenzy, racing as vapor across the pitted, rocky ground.
It was like they were lost.
Searching.
Their thoughts had mutated as they flailed.
“It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.”
The beasts chanted the chorus, no longer pausing to drip their venom in the minds of the willing.
Pax might have found comfort in it if it weren’t for the sickening sense that crawled over him, penetrating flesh and bone.
His gaze scanned their surroundings, and he noticed that many of their Laven family had also taken off in different directions where they would walk in the darkness. Where they would fight. Only they’d also halted, rooted to the spot in varying states of confusion.
Turning in circles as the Kruen swept by them.
“It’s time. It’s time. It’s time.”
“What is happening?” Aria wheezed. He could sense her horror. The questions that spiraled through her mind.
“Don’t know.” It was a low rumble of caution.
Aria inhaled a steeling breath before she whispered, “We have to find out.”
She yanked at his hand before she darted out into the nothingness, taking him with her.
Running.
Tracking.
Searching.
Despairing when they ran for what felt like for hours through the Kruen who seemed to seek the same thing. All being driven toward one place.