Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
My lips parted. They were a kaleidoscope of colors: a warm shade of brown, the dewy green of the newly grown patches of grass outside, and the blue of the Stroud Sea. Bursts of silver were sprinkled throughout the colors like stars.
I’d seen those eyes before.
During my Ascension, when I’d seen how the realms were created.
“What the fuck?” Ash snarled, his flesh thinning. Shadows appeared along his throat.
The being’s strange eyes flicked to Ash, his head moving in a way that sent a chill of unease down my spine. There was something utterly inhuman in that simple movement. Almost as if the entire realm shifted around him to accommodate the gesture. One side of his lips curled up, and instinct warned me that smile was not a good thing.
“It’s okay.” I stepped around Ash—or tried to. He sidestepped me. “He’s an…” I trailed off as the being’s gaze shifted to me. He waited to hear what I said. What I would reveal. My throat dried. “He’s a Fate—an Arae.”
The other side of the Ancient’s lips rose then in a close-lipped smile. It reminded me of Kolis’s smiles—the ones that were practiced and shallow as if he didn’t understand the emotions behind smiling and was simply copying others’ expressions.
How could Holland be an Ancient? He was nothing like this being standing in front of us.
“I don’t give a fuck what he is,” Ash fumed, the shadows deepening as they spread up his throat in nearly the same pattern as the one on the Ancient’s skin. “I only know he had better have one good fucking reason for arriving unannounced and uninvited in our home.”
Our home.
It was just two words, but they suddenly made me feel all warm inside—
The Ancient laughed.
Okay. Now was not the time to focus on how those words made me feel all ooey-gooey. Like, at all. Because the Ancient’s laugh was even more creepy than his smile.
Dark tendrils of eather gathered on the floor, wrapping themselves around our legs. “I’m not sure what you find funny.”
“Many things,” the Ancient replied, his voice carrying a lilt I’d never heard before, one with a melodic quality.
The power growing around Ash caused the air to crackle and stirred the eather inside me. “You want to key us in on those things?” Ash said.
“You want to tell me why you speak for the true Primal of Life?” the Ancient countered.
I stiffened. “He doesn’t speak for me.”
The Ancient’s head moved again, tilting to the side as he focused on me. “I suppose I should be relieved to hear that.” He paused, his gaze moving over me in a way that said he was sizing up my worth and wasn’t exactly impressed with the end result. My eyes narrowed. “But that is yet to be seen.”
Between the tone that dripped disapproval and that look, it was like the Ancient had reached inside me and shattered any self-restraint I’d developed after my Ascension.
Eather rushed to the surface of my skin and seeped through. “I was wrong,” I said as, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw wisps of silver-laced golden eather streaking through the dark shadows whirling on the floor. “He did just speak for me when he said you’d better have a good fucking reason for appearing in our home as if you belong here.”
The churning colors stilled, and the bursts of eather brightened in the Ancient’s eyes.
“Careful,” he replied softly. “You may harness the eather of the realms, but you are only a…” The stars in his eyes pulsed, and while his lips didn’t move when he spoke, I heard him clear as day anyway. Two words.
Baby Primal.
I sucked in a sharp breath and jerked. The shock collapsed my hold on the essence.
“You’re the one who needs to be careful.” Ash’s chin dipped. “You may be a Fate, but that won’t stop me from flaying the flesh from your body if I even perceive your words to be a threat to my wife.”
Yet again, I felt myself melting inside, and really, not the appropriate response for several reasons. But most importantly?
Ash was a badass. But he could not defeat an Ancient.
Likely, none of us could.
That tight-lipped smile returned, almost as if the Ancient had heard my thoughts. “I do have a reason for being here,” he announced as a shimmer of awareness swept through me.
“I suppose I’m relieved to hear that,” Ash mimicked with a smile just as unfriendly. “But that is yet to be seen.”
“Charming,” the Ancient murmured, and a not-too-distant rumble echoed from outside. He glanced at the ceiling, and I could’ve sworn I saw a flicker of something skittering across his features. Not an emotion per se, but something like…wariness.
I thought about the dragon I’d seen taking out an Ancient during my Ascension. “Whatever your reason is, you’d best get to it.” My lips curled into a smirk. “Because I think we’re about to have company.”