Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
“Fuck,” Nyktos growled, his breath hot against my cheek. “You will be the death of me.”
I must’ve projected, but this was a rare moment when I didn’t care. “We both know that’s not possible,” I whispered as the draken landed on the other side of the Rise.
He made a rough sound as the hand at my wrist slid up my arm. I opened my eyes, able to see the row of pointed horns framing Nektas’s head. His grayish-black wings swept back, pushing Ector and Rhain to his side. The world below turned silver as fiery eather poured from the draken.
“You’ve been injured,” Nyktos growled low in my ear. “Again.”
“Barely.”
“I can smell your blood.” His palm grazed the side of my breast. I jerked. He skimmed his hand down my side to where there was a burning ache. “It makes me want to taste you.”
His words sent a wicked pulse of desire from my pounding heart to my core. “I wouldn’t stop you.”
“Of course, you wouldn’t.” The arm below my breasts flexed. “You don’t value your life.”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“It has everything to do with that.” His breath was a caress against my throat. “If I tasted you again, I don’t know if I could stop.”
“Yes, you would,” I whispered, believing that more than I did anything in my life.
Nyktos made that sound again, part growl and curse as he dropped his arm, angling his body as he turned to the road. Surprised to find that I still held the spear in my hand, I willed my heart to slow as I peeled myself away from the wall and followed Nyktos’s gaze to the road—
Nektas snapped forward, catching a Cimmerian between his powerful jaws. He shook his head, severing the god in two.
“Ew,” I uttered.
“I’ve seen him do worse.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that,” I murmured.
“Try to listen for once and stay here,” Nyktos said, and then he was gone, leaping over the side of the Rise.
I shot forward, grasping the stone edge. Nyktos was on the road, prowling past the bodies of his fallen men. Five had…five were gone. The warmth swelled in my chest as I stared at them. My palms heated—
Nektas’s head swung toward me, his crimson eyes with their thin, vertical pupils locking onto me. His lips vibrated, pulling back with a warning growl. I swallowed hard as I rested the spear against the wall. It was as if he’d sensed the eather gathering inside me. I pressed both hands against the stone, pushing down the urge and burying it as deeply as I could as Nyktos stalked toward the only standing Cimmerian.
Dorcan’s balaclava gathered at his throat, no longer shielding his face. The man appeared to be in his third decade of life, but as a god, that could mean he was hundreds of years old if not more. “I’m assuming you have a message you want me to deliver to Hanan.”
The way he spoke as Nyktos approached him made it seem as if this were something that had happened between them before.
“Nyktos,” Saion called out from where he knelt by one of the soldiers. “He’s seen her.”
I tensed.
“Then my generosity has come to an end,” Nyktos said.
Dorcan showed no reaction. “I don’t know what you’re thinking by refusing Hanan, but whatever it is, it will end badly for you. He’ll go to Kolis, and more will come.”
“I’ll be waiting.” Nyktos unsheathed a sword, striking as fast as a pit viper and severing the Cimmerian’s head from his shoulders.
Chapter 12
Rhain eyed me as if he expected me to run out of Nyktos’s office at any given second and into the middle of a firestorm. He hadn’t taken his eyes off me longer than it took to blink. Ector, on the other hand, was sprawled across the settee, eyes closed and quite possibly napping.
“It would calm my nerves if you sat,” Rhain advised with a tilt of his golden-red head. “Instead of pacing.”
“Pacing calms my nerves.” I made another pass in front of Nyktos’s desk. “And trust me when I say you’d prefer me to have calm nerves versus the opposite.”
“You’re probably right.” Rhain inclined his head. His eyes appeared more gold than brown as they tracked me in the glow of the wall sconces. “But trusting you…”
I muttered a curse. Bad word choice on my part. I kept pacing, even faster now, the skin on the back of my neck tight. Nyktos’s speech obviously hadn’t had that much of an impact on Rhain, and that left me a little sad. Rhain had been all smiles before, less guarded and friendly.
“You should trust her,” Ector chimed in. His eyes were still closed, but apparently, he hadn’t been sleeping. “Besides what she tried last night for us—for all of us—that Cimmerian was gunning for you. She saved your ass out there. If she hadn’t hit him right between the eyes, you might be standing here with a couple of extra holes in you. Or not standing at all. The least you can do is thank her.”