Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
He turns to his fingers, my arousal coated across them... as hard as ice.
I pull my dress down, taking backward steps but he keeps coming.
Panic flares and I throw my hands up to keep him away. He goes flying, his back crashing against the opposite wall.
My mouth falls open and my knees begin to shake.
“Oh shit. I am … my Lord, I … please don’t kill me!” I finally beg. “Please, I—”
“Your eyes,” he says quietly, climbing to his feet. “They’re black.”
I swallow, blinking, fighting the urge to run to a mirror and see for myself.
“I saw it before, at the sanctuary.” His words are lost on me. “But there they are.”
His words, they're not angry, they’re... awestruck.
I tense as he grows closer but don’t dare move, in case I accidently use some other kind of magic against a fucking ruler.
He approaches and I stay perfectly still as his eyes search nine. I stare, transfixed as his gift comes to the surface, his eyes glowing solid white, like every other Gifted I've seen so far.
But he said mine are black, and Zeke mentioned something too.
Knight nods. “Zeke saw them. The Ministry, they saw too, in his memories.”
Knight's white orbs continue to swirl, and heat explodes in my chest.
Energy pulses through me and a low rumble tremors from some deeper part of him.
“Knight.” I don’t mean to use his name.
“She’s...” He stares into my eyes as if he’s not seeing me. As if he’s seeing someone or something else. “She’s fucking perfection.”
An instant later, his face transforms. Anger and frustration flaring, and he backs away from me. His lip curls as he bares his teeth.
“Stay the fuck away from everyone, do you understand me? My family especially, and if I see you near Zeke again, I will fucking strangle the life out of you over and over again, and only when you're a pile of worthless fucking flesh on the floor begging for it to end, will I kill you.”
With that image seared into my mind, he leaves, and nothing in my life has ever been clearer than the thought that assaults my mind a moment later.
I have to get out of here.
I have to get the fuck out of here and now.
The thought shouldn’t bring sadness. This is what I want.
To leave. To go home.
So why the fuck does my heart feel like it’s breaking and not for the first time?
Knight
It worked. My acceptance the night I stole her memory of me and our bond, of the way I killed Ben in cold fucking blood.
Her Ethos has been set free, and she’s fucking magnificent. Strong and dark and growing more restless by the day.
Fuck! I need to get her out of here before she slays everyone who stands in the way of what she wants.
Me.
My bond.
My fucking monster that weeps for her behind the cage I've locked around him. Not that I could set him free if I wanted. She has to accept me as hers for that to happen, and I’ve erased the only fucking chance of that. I stole my own fucking mate from me.
I can’t fucking keep her. They will kill her if they find out who she is, I remind myself.
Or they’ll try and she’ll end up doing what they all feared—she’ll tear through them all one head at a time just like her father did.
Or I'll kill them all for trying to touch what's mine and lead my people into war before the crown is even placed on my head.
I need her away from here. I could make it happen with a single sentence like I did the snake chick, but the words won’t fucking form. It’s why I haven’t picked a fucking Queen.
I can’t give her up. Not yet.
Maybe not ever...
Twenty-One
London
There’s a shift in the air. A bad one.
Tonight, dinner is being served in the same hall as it has been since I arrived, but this time, not only is the entire councilmen table empty, the Royal Family’s table is too. Or almost anyway.
Queen Cosima is here.
She sits alone in the center chair; the chair Knight has occupied every day but today.
It's not the fact that she’s the only one here that has me on edge, it’s the way she stares solely at me.
Every few moments, there’s this prickling feeling in my mind, as if she’s trying to break down a barrier, one I had no idea I had thrown up, but I’m beginning to think I might not have to.
The defensive spells all Gifted are required to learn that help keep others out to prevent persuasion is a simple one, but I think Zeke was right in his assumption. I think I have a shield of some sort, because there is no way the bit of magic I’ve come to learn could keep the strength of a Queen out of my head.