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)
I’d seen Cyderial angry over the years, but that whole-body vibration was new. A shaking rattle blending with the internal thump of his drum. A moment later, the wooden top of his desk snapped under his grip.
Wisely, I eased a step back.
The stranger stopped laughing long enough to rebuke his unwilling host. “You’re making her nervous.”
“Nervous? I should be putting her over my knee and beating some sense into her!”
The general was infamous for his cold-blooded composure. On rare occasion, he’d marginally raised his voice to me in the past, but I had never heard him rage. Not like this.
Never could I have imagined him capable of it.
Eyes wide, I took another step back, trying to find words. “I—"
The stranger stepped over my sorry attempt at speech as if anything I might say held no consequence. “Your little girl here had her talons at my carotid artery not an hour ago.” He lifted his chin to show the dried, crusted blood. “She drew blood. Swore she’d shred my throat to ribbons if I didn’t let my Maeve go.”
He’d had the nerve to say it as if the general should be impressed.
I was not about to allow the man who assaulted Maeve to spin the story in his favor. Turning on him, I snarled, “You had no right to touch her without permission! Maeve is not on the list!”
The amusement was back, darker in tone and full of malicious intent. With an audacious wink, the stranger said, “Do you really think one foolish miscreant can prevent a mate from taking what’s his?”
I could certainly try. He’d made her cry, now I was going to make him pay for it. “A man of honor would not behave the way you did. She’s terrified right now.”
That knocked the smirk right off his face. Hands in supplication before him, he said, “Maeve does not need to be frightened of me. Ever.”
Bullshit.
“Don’t say her name like you know her. My sister is special! She deserves to be treated with gentleness and respect.” Before the overly large one might interrupt me again, I turned my attention to the unmerciful general slowly distorting the shape of his cracking desk. “General Cyderial, everything was my fault. Maeve was only trying to stop me and would not have been there if—”
I had no idea hybrid males could sound like true vorec, but he hissed and drummed a pitch so awful I was very tempted to cover my ears. As he roared, wood splintered in his grip. The once beautiful piece of furniture snapped in half, and the general shoved the remaining bits out of his way, approaching at a measured, dangerous pace. “If you lie to me one more time….”
Petrified down to my bones, I only held my ground out of sheer inability to move, whispering, “She was only trying to help me.”
Savage, each breath stretching his uniform jacket, he snarled, “And what were you thinking, entering a bar full of unmated males?”
I was thinking I might never have to see his face again, that the only thing I’d need fear was the beautiful wild waiting for me. Instead, I whispered, “I needed to find someone.”
Voice a demonic pitch, I swear he went a bit more insane. “Who?”
I had no answer clever enough to give. Not one that wasn’t going to see him snap my neck before I might advocate for my friend.
Shouting, he demanded an answer. “What man, Lorieyn?”
I’m not sure when my back hit the wall, but I found myself cornered. “Someone who could help me.”
“What could another man give you that I have not provided?” And then it seemed to dawn on him. My dress, the cosmetics on my face. The fact that my hair was styled like one of the women in my magazines. I had been trying to entice male attention.
The drum in his chest hitched, breathing suspended.
The room was deathly quiet without that noise, tomb-like, only my labored breathing to be heard.
He never broke eye contact with me. “General Thayer, you may leave now.”
General? What could possibly be worse? Maeve was going to lose her mind, everything, if that man got his hands on her and spoiled her future.
And it was my fault.
An unexpected voice of reason, General Thayer seemed to come to my defense. “She can’t possibly understand what she was trying to do, Cyderial. She’s a child.”
Answering General Thayer but glaring at me, Cyderial grew icy. “She’s a fully grown woman. The same age as Maeve.”
Thayer countered, “So… she was curious?”
A muscle twitched in Cyderial’s cheek, the man taking in my dress and lips once more. “This wasn’t curiosity. Her scheme was planned to achieve a specific outcome.”
Yes, it was. Chin ticking up a notch with the last of my tattered dignity, I made no secret of my intentions.
The stranger’s dark scoff wasn’t comforting in the slightest. “What could she possibly want? Chaos in the streets? Lovesick boys banging at the academy door?”