Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 86702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86702 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“It’s too late.” He takes his glasses off and hands them to me. “It’s done.”
“You fool,” I whisper. I never thought he’d go to such lengths to preserve the fantasy that I need protecting. But then, of course he will. Eli insists on seeing that woman instead of the one in front of him. It’s why our relationship has devolved to smoking ruins of the love we once had.
He gives me a quick grin. “He’s already fought seven people. I can take him.” The way he speaks is so relaxed, as if we’re about to go out to lunch instead of enter a fight that will decide the future of our faction. It’s a lie, just like everything Eli presents the public is a lie.
There was a time when he didn’t use it to try to lie to me. Gods, I am so angry, I’m shaking. “If you do this, I’ll never forgive you.”
He flinches, the tiniest of reactions. “You can hate me later, when I’ve saved you from this.”
I close my eyes and strive to push back the panic and rage coursing through me, strong enough to have me weaving on my feet. “You have to win.” There’s no other option, not one our people can live with.
“I will.”
I open my eyes as he crosses the sand to Abel. The Herald raises her hand. “Begin.”
In every fight except the last, Abel has waited for his opponent to make the first move. He’s taken them down with a handful of strikes, ending the fights almost as soon as they began. But his opponents always started it.
Not this time.
The word is barely out of the Herald’s mouth when he’s on Eli. They meet in a spray of sand and the heavy impact of fist meeting flesh. They’re nearly the same height, but Abel is built thicker than Eli. For all that, I think Eli might be faster. It’s hard to tell when they’re moving so quickly.
For a moment, just a moment, I think Eli might have a chance. He’s stronger than he appears—deadlier, too. Not just anyone can hold our faction together, and he’s done it since his father died five years ago. He intentionally leads people to underestimate him.
He lands a punch that snaps back Abel’s head and sends the other man staggering a few steps away. Hope wars with fear, and I press my hands to my chest, trying to school my expression.
But when Eli moves to finish Abel off, the other man grabs his wrist and yanks him forward. They hit the ground with a dull thud that makes my body hurt in sympathy. Then they’re off again, first Eli on top, and then Abel, and then Eli again. Fists fly. Blood flows. They beat each other with a brutality that leaves me breathless. This is nothing like the cold efficiency with which Abel took down his other opponents. No, he goes after Eli like he wants him dead.
Stop.
I clamp my lips shut to keep the word inside. No one can stop a fight during Lammas, not once it starts. We must simply stand by and witness.
Abel pulls some move that lands him on top again, and this time, he uses his legs to pin Eli’s arms to his sides. He delivers punishing blow after punishing blow, snapping Eli’s head to one side and then the other.
Eli goes limp.
I look at the Herald, but she watches Abel beat Eli and doesn’t call the fight. Abel shows no signs of slowing down.
He’s going to kill Eli.
I don’t stop to think. I simply react. The sand gives beneath my feet as I sprint to them. I throw myself at Abel’s back and wrap my arms around him. Not fighting. Not hurting. Not doing anything that would make me another opponent to battle. “Stop.” I cling to him as his blows slow. “Please stop. You’ve won.”
Finally, a small eternity later, he sits back and exhales roughly. He ignores me clinging to his back and looks at the Herald. She lifts her brows and raises her voice. “Abel wins. Eli will be his Bride alongside Harlow. The Raider faction returns to the Paine brothers.”
Around the amphitheater, the crowd begins to seethe and move. Everyone is talking over each other, and it creates a din that makes this situation even more unreal.
Abel reaches up with bloody hands and easily breaks my hold on him. He doesn’t hurt me. He simply removes me from his back and rises to his feet. Without looking at me, he motions to the Herald. “We’ll hold the ceremony now.”
The ceremony.
It’s been a long time since anyone has claimed a Bride as a prize during Lammas. It’s an old tradition, dating back to the beginning of Sabine Valley. If a Bride is won, they renounce all former personal ties and handfast with the victor for a year and a day. At the end of that, the term is finished, and they can go their separate ways, but for the duration, they might as well be married. Not even marriage to another person is enough to stop the handfasting from happening. Either they annul their marriage or return to it once the handfasting is done, but for that year, the only partner they claim is whoever won them.