Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76857 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 384(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Voice little more than a whisper, Maeve said, “I’ll be executed, Lorieyn.”
“Not if you can learn to lie in the next five minutes.”
A single shrill alarm blared, Maeve jumping with a screech. “He’s here!”
Code Yellow. Someone was trying to breach the academy’s front gates. “It won’t be much longer before they upgrade the threat from yellow to red. If we go into full lockdown, every door will lock, and my opportunity to tell the general my version of the story first will be gone.” I held her wet eyes, demand in my voice. “So, I’m going to ask you one more time. What happened in the city tonight, Maeve?”
It was hard for her to speak the words, knowing what the outcome would be for me. “I… I went after you to stop you.”
Smiling, I urged her to go on. “That’s right. You were just trying to help a sister who wouldn’t listen.”
Crying as she squeezed me tight, she said, “A sister I love very much.”
“I love you too.” A warm tear fell down my cheek. “Tell everyone I love them, okay?”
With one last look, I left my friend to find her way back into the women’s dorm, rushing at full speed straight toward the lion’s mouth.
Straight for General Cyderial, where I would fall on my knees before him and beg him to spare Maeve’s life.
I’d give him mine instead.
12
Breathless, I burst through General Cyderial’s office door, breaking every rule of protocol, to shout before I could even see him, “Sir, I am to blame for all of it!”
Racing past the vestibule, I charged into the office proper, only to practically knock into a large, golden beast.
One who grinned at me. “Hello again, Private.”
Maeve’s behemoth had beaten me there.
Huge, he took up way more of the room than any one person should, smirking at me as if this were actually amusing.
Panting, sweating from exertion, I tossed loose hair over my shoulder and showed my teeth. Unsure how he’d managed access to the building, I flexed my fingers, claws ready. Circling the stranger who’d had his hands all over my friend, aggressive drumming left my breast, violent intention clear in my snarl. “You!”
Collected, he fiddled somewhat with his sleeve, indicating that he saw me as no threat whatsoever. “Me.”
Perhaps I wasn’t. But if I’d had my sword, I would have drawn it, tip pointed right at his thick throat. “You can’t have her until she’s ready! She’s not on the list, so get out!”
The intruder turned his golden head toward the very man I had come to see. A man leaning over his desk as if he might rip it in half.
Cyderial’s eyes…
They were running all over me, burning with rage.
I was disheveled and sweaty, chest heaving for breath from the manic insanity of the last hour. The dress. The lipstick. My hair half-fallen from its pins and on display in a way that was highly inappropriate for an academy girl.
That green-eyed glare promised painful retribution, as did the inhuman growl he aimed right at me when I nervously tried to smooth a stray lock behind my ear.
Moving my hair had exposed the cut of my bodice, a tasteful swell of exposed breast pale against the black material. Breasts that were not bound down tightly, but very much female and there. It was there he leveled the full weight of his gaze, leaning closer, animal noises warning me to not so much as move.
Drinking me down, he took note of every sin.
I’d dared to appear as the woman I was before him, no uniform hiding my body. No tight bun securing my hair at my nape. Everything was in stark opposition to what was permitted.
Everything honest.
All of it forbidden.
The length of the skirt displayed strong, well-shaped legs. The shape of my waist highlighted where fabric nipped in. And my bare feet, dirty from a long run through city streets, were still dainty without boots to hide how I was formed.
When that weighty gaze came with all its judgment to rest on my pink-stained lips, I felt a powerful urge to wipe the lipstick off before he might have another reason to break my neck.
I could not be killed until I might advocate for my friend.
Fingers to my mouth, I smeared the pink wax, only to jump when he barked a savage, “Stop!”
Frozen, never having heard such a guttural tone, I could barely swallow.
“You’ve been keeping secrets, Cyderial!” the large stranger bellowed with laughter. “Oh, this is rich.”
The intruder was not addressed by my commanding officer, not until the man began to tease, “Two of her suitors, one ranked highly enough to access the list, are outside right now. The younger fellow is so smitten all he can do is keep asking for her name.”
The general’s eyes left me to cut a dangerous glance toward the loudmouthed giant.