Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 579(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 723(@200wpm)___ 579(@250wpm)___ 482(@300wpm)
“What are you doing out here, wandering the grounds?” he asked in a highish voice with a strange lilt.
“Looking for you, actually. I was hoping for some fashion advice. My goal is to confuse everyone while also making them pity me. This is my start…” I flowed my hand down my front. “And I can only assume you’ll be my finish. Nice pleats.”
“You smell…off.”
“You look ridiculous.”
His eyebrows dipped. “Is this your pathetic means of rebelling?” Claws elongated from his fingers, shiny black things. I got the feeling he meant it as a threat.
My animal took it as an invitation.
I drifted my hand toward my dagger, careful to keep her far enough down that my eyes wouldn’t glow. I wanted his death to be a surprise.
“Rebelling?” I said nonchalantly. “Kind of like what you’re doing with that hair? The demon king must have a sense of humor.”
“Your kind are to remain in the castle until the king can assess who is left.”
Who is left…
My animal tried to rise to the surface on my sudden blaze of fury, but I held her down. He hadn’t made a move on me yet. I would kill in self-defense, and only then. For now…
“Why does he care?” I asked, flexing the hand near my dagger.
The demon tilted his head. “My patience is wearing thin, girl. His prolonged absence does not mean he has become any more merciful. Take note, or become one less member of this castle.”
That was definitely a threat.
Kill him! my animal roared. She struggled against my hold.
Not until he attacks!
“Be a lamb and let him know that I’m in the garden, would you? I couldn’t be bothered to send a note.”
I walked past him at an angle, giving off an air of arrogance carefully calculated to incite him. My distance away accounted for my height, and therefore my arm span, putting him at a disadvantage. The second my shoulder was even with his, he struck out, just as I’d known he would.
He was fast, but I’d been training with Nyfain for months. This demon didn’t have anything on the dragon prince.
I stepped to the side at an angle, grabbing for his reaching hand, and yanked him to me. Wrapping my arms around his neck in a sideways hug, I grabbed his chin and near his temple, and wrenched at an angle. His neck cracked, and his arms went limp.
“Yeah. I became a master at neck snapping, fucker. Now what?”
Pulling my animal closer to the surface so I could use her strength, I draped the dead demon over my shoulder and jogged toward the wood not infested by demons.
I’d read just about every book on shifters in the library by this point, and had pieced together some very interesting takeaways. Once a person could properly shift and establish a working bond with their animal, they always had access to the animal’s primal attributes. They’d always be strong and agile, have a great sense of smell, and see in the dark (in a black, white, and yellow color spectrum). That was why Nyfain didn’t have to pull and push as much with his dragon. He could use some of the dragon’s abilities without asking.
I still hadn’t shifted, though. The books referred to me as a “restrained shifter”—a person who could feel their animal, even establish a sort of working relationship with them, but still could not shift. Some people, for whatever reason, were never able to shift, although it was rare as a natural occurrence.
Of course, it was even less common for a shifter to be utterly suppressed…which cast a stark light on the kingdom’s situation. Most of the people around us couldn’t even feel their animals, let alone speak with them.
It was possible for a strong alpha to pull a suppressed animal from a person. Once that animal was pulled free, it should remain accessible. That didn’t mean the person could shift, especially if it was a genetic issue, but they could try. Often, it worked.
Nyfain and I could pull animals from the shifters around us, and often did by accident when we riled each other up. But we couldn’t get their animals to stay. The magic of the curse punched them back into suppression.
Another interesting tidbit—the demon king was known for his ability to suppress shifters’ animals. Yes, I’d read up on him, too. It was amazing the things a person could learn in a well-stocked library. The demon king was a wily cunt, apparently.
By himself, he had a certain level of power, like anyone. Quite a lot, obviously, since he was a king, but not unstoppable. His true power, though, came from making deals. When he made a deal, he could combine his and the other party’s power to bring that deal to fruition. It was why he was able to trap an entire kingdom—he used his power plus that of the mad king, who had a lot of power in his own right, to lay down the deal, or curse, in this case.