Total pages in book: 215
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 206625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1033(@200wpm)___ 827(@250wpm)___ 689(@300wpm)
I draw a slow breath. Holy shit, I just might live through this.
But I have to be sure they’re gone. I don’t move a muscle, even when my thighs cramp and my fingers lock as I count to five hundred in my head, breathing as evenly as possible to soften the beats of my galloping heart.
Only when I’m sure I’m alone, when the squirrels scurry past on the ground, do I finish climbing from the tree, jumping the last four feet to the grassy floor. Zihnal must have a soft spot for me, because I’m the luckiest woman on the Continent—
A shadow lunges behind me and I open my mouth to scream, but my air supply is cut off by an elbow around my neck as I’m yanked against a hard chest.
“Scream and you die,” he whispers, and my stomach plummets as the elbow is replaced by the sharp bite of a dagger at my throat.
I freeze. I’d recognize the rough pitch of Xaden’s voice anywhere.
“Fucking Sorrengail.” His hand yanks back the hood of my cloak.
“How did you know?” My tone is outright indignant, but whatever. If he’s going to kill me, I’m not going down as some simpering little beggar. “Let me guess, you could smell my perfume. Isn’t that what always gives the heroine away in books?”
He scoffs. “I command shadows, but sure, it was your perfume that gave you away.” He lowers the knife and steps away.
I gasp. “Your signet is a shadow wielder?” No wonder he’s risen so high in rank. Shadow wielders are incredibly rare and highly coveted in battle, able to disorient entire drifts of gryphons, if not take them down, depending upon the signet’s strength.
“What, Aetos hasn’t warned you not to get caught alone in the dark with me yet?”
His voice is like rough velvet along my skin, and I shiver, then draw my own blade from the sheath at my thigh and raise it as I spin toward him, ready to defend myself to the death. “Is this how you plan to handle me?”
“Eavesdropping, were we?” He arches a black brow and sheathes his dagger like I couldn’t possibly pose a threat to him, which only serves to piss me off even more. “Now I might actually have to kill you.” There’s an undertone of truth in those mocking eyes.
This is just…bullshit.
“Then go ahead and get it over with.” I unsheathe another dagger, this one from beneath my cloak where it was strapped in at my ribs, and back up a couple of feet to give me distance to throw them—if he doesn’t rush me.
He pointedly looks at one dagger, then the other, and sighs, folding his arms across his chest. “That stance is really the best defense you can muster? No wonder Imogen nearly ripped your arm off.”
“I’m more dangerous than you think,” I flat-out bluster.
“So I see. I’m quaking in my boots.” The corner of his mouth rises into a mocking smirk.
Fucking. Asshole.
I flip the daggers in my hand, pinching them at the tips, then flick my wrists and fire them past his head, one on each side. They land solidly in the trunk of the tree behind him.
“You missed.” He doesn’t even flinch.
“Did I?” I reach for my last two blades. “Why don’t you back up a couple of steps and test that theory?”
Curiosity flares in his eyes, but it’s gone in the next second, masked by cold, mocking indifference.
Every one of my senses is on high alert, but the shadows around me don’t slide in as he moves backward, his eyes locked with mine. His back hits the tree, and the hilts of my daggers brush his ears.
“Tell me again that I missed,” I threaten, taking the dagger in my right hand by the tip.
“Fascinating. You look all frail and breakable, but you’re really a violent little thing, aren’t you?” An appreciative smile curves his perfect lips as shadows dance up the trunk of the oak, taking the form of fingers. They pluck the daggers from the tree and bring them to Xaden’s waiting hands.
My breath abandons me with a sharp exhale. He has the kind of power that could end me without him having to so much as lift a finger —shadow wielding. The futility of even trying to defend myself against him is laughable.
I hate how beautiful he is, how lethal his abilities make him as he strides toward me, shadows curling around his footsteps. He’s like one of those poisonous flowers I’ve read about from the Cygnis forests to the east. His allure is a warning not to get too close, and I am definitely too close.
Switching my grip to the hilts of my daggers, I prepare for the attack.
“You should show that little trick to Jack Barlowe,” Xaden says, turning his palms upward and offering me my daggers.