Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
My spite flares, coaxing me to lean in and inhale deeply. “Maybe the siren healed you of more than your leg wound,” I whisper. “What if that poison is no longer there?”
Tyree’s body stiffens. “That is not something you should risk finding out, Annika.”
“Why not? You wanted me dead, anyway.” I flatten my tongue and slide it across his jugular, tasting the salt on his skin.
His breath hitches, and his heart rate leaps. It’s not the speedy pulse of fear, and it’s certainly not hatred. Though, he can still hate me while wanting to fuck me, I suppose. But he knows what it feels like to be fed upon—he admitted as much. This Jada who wounded his heart for his blood, I’m sure she taught him how intimate the act could be, and I’m sure he thoroughly enjoyed it.
“If I am to die soon, anyway …” I repeat the tongue drag, this time letting my teeth scrape along with it.
Tyree seizes my chin within his grasp, pulling my face far enough away to check for fangs. A shallow breath skates across my cheek. “You are teasing me.”
The simple but dominating move stirs a need deep in my belly. I’ve always preferred a male with a little fight in him—a rare treasure to find when you’re a princess in line for the throne, bedding mortals and foolish elven with lofty ambitions. “As you are me, except your version is far crueler.”
Long lashes flutter as he meets my gaze, showing me odd sincerity. “You are right. I am sorry.”
Any response I could dig out from my gaping mouth is cut off as heavy footfalls approach. I recognize the sound of armor. We twist in our net sack to see a horde of soldiers marching forward.
“Let me do the talking,” Tyree whispers, studying them intently.
“Oh, you suddenly speak their language?”
“They’re soldiers. Trust me, they’ll manage to get their point across.”
With violence, he means.
The one at the front barks something at us.
When we don’t respond, he yells it again while patting his sword.
“We do not understand,” Tyree calls out in a deep, authoritative voice, reminding me of that day he was hauled before Zander in Cirilea’s throne room, a captured enemy, bloodied, but still somehow regal as he demanded a parley.
The soldier removes his scabbard, points at us, then drops his to the ground.
“He wants me to surrender my weapon.”
“Don’t do that!”
“And what am I going to do with it otherwise?” Tyree hesitates long enough for the soldier to yell at him again, his agitation growing.
Unfastening his sword is as tricky as Tyree anticipated, forcing him half on top of me again as he squirms. Finally free, he feeds it through a hole in the netting and lets it fall.
Another soldier swiftly collects it and moves out of the way.
The leader issues a command, and another draws his sword, moving for a rope affixed to another tree.
Tyree grabs onto my hips. “This is going to—”
The net gives away and we drop to the ground, landing in a heap.
“Hurt,” Tyree groans, somehow having positioned himself beneath me to take the worst of it.
Before either of us can move, soldiers collect the corners of the sack and tow us through the clearing.
“Where are they taking us?” I wince as stones and twigs scrape and tear at my skin and dress.
For once, Tyree doesn’t have an answer.
Past the row of trees are small huts with thatched roofs, surrounded by wagons and washbasins. Clotheslines hang between the houses, draped with linens. This must be the farmers’ village. Small children in ragged tunics and breeches cling to their mothers’ legs as they watch the parade of soldiers drag us past.
A wooden door sits in splinters, likely broken apart by force. A few houses down, another. Other houses are marked with raking claw marks on their sides, from some manner of unruly beast. It appears a battle was fought here recently.
And that stench grows stronger.
Angling my neck, I get my first look at the firepit ahead. It’s sizable, the flames licking wood stacked high into the air, and it blazes, even in the day.
That’s … a foot in there. And another. And an arm.
There is no mistaking the charred limbs stacked within, feeding the fire.
Human limbs.
Or maybe elven.
And the soldiers are moving toward it.
Terror seizes my lungs. “Fates, they’re going to burn us.” I should have given Tyree the dagger; we should have risked pitchforks to break free. We should have done everything we could to escape. “I endured an uprising and a kidnapping, and sirens and the sea, and now I am to be burned alive?” I grapple at my affinity, aiming to tangle the soldiers’ boots in the lengthy grass, to pelt them with the stones, but I can’t grasp anything, my hysteria too strong. “Do something, Tyree! You have your affinity. Use it to stop them—”