Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154735 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 774(@200wpm)___ 619(@250wpm)___ 516(@300wpm)
With that, she stood L.W. up on her lap. “That is how we are going to handle this. It is not only what my hellren would wish us to do, it is the best thing for those he served and his father served and his father before that.”
Lassiter swallowed through a tight throat. Holy fuck, he thought. These two females just saved the whole fucking vampire race—
It was hard to know which of the fighters unholstered his dagger first. But soon enough, those who were sitting were up on their feet, and every warrior, whether they were a member of the Black Dagger Brotherhood, or of the Band of Bastards, or one who had fought alongside the others… they were all raising their blades overhead.
As Lassiter caught an image of all those daggers, black and steel alike, a chill went through his entire body.
And then came the war cry, so loud that it surely blew the mansion’s roof off.
So loud… that surely Wrath heard it in the Fade.
Moving as one, with a coordination that was as if practiced, the whole of them dropped to one knee before the Queen and the image of her beloved hellren—
And buried those blades through the fancy rug, and into the solid floor beneath it.
The sound, like the sight of all those proud heads bent in supplication, was something, for all his immortal life, he was never, ever going to forget.
The Black Dagger Brotherhood and their allies, unified, once again.
Serving Wrath’s bloodline, as always.
Ready to fight for the survival of their kind.
Forever.
EPILOGUE
Thirty-three years, nine months, three days…
… and nine hours in the future.
I.
The pair of black shitkickers tromped through the snow, leaving treads that were unseen, and not only because of the strong wind that almost immediately covered them with drifts. For the male who had arrived, the change in season was a shock, and confusion was the name of the game—and neither had anything to do with his blindness.
Where the fuck had spring gone? Wrath wondered.
The last thing he had felt was a blast of heat, and then an elemental turbulence. After that… nothing.
And now he was here and it was winter?
Stopping, he moved his head left to right, his hair whirling around his face, lashing at him. There was a strange smell under the familiar currents of pine up on the mountain… burning dirt and something like soggy firewood?
He kept going, without panicking. Then again, he knew where he was—
Clonk.
The steel toe of his shitkicker hit something hard, and his shin followed along for the ride, the cracking impact turning his body into a tuning fork for ow. As he dropped another f-bomb and jacked over to rub away the pain, he put his hand out. More snow—yeah, no shit—but the curve and scale of the marble feature that had done him in was unmistakable: The fountain in the mansion’s courtyard.
Navigating with his fingertips, he continued around to the far side and knew the distance and direction to the first of the grand entrance’s stone steps. As he walked straight ahead, the whistling sounds in the mansion’s eaves confirmed his rock-solid instincts, and in a way, it was as if he could see. In his mind, he conjured from memory the variegated roofline and the diamond-paned windows, the gray stone walls and the gargoyles.
A piercing longing went through his chest, the emotion so vast, so fundamental, he faltered. For some reason, he felt as if he hadn’t been home for a very, very long time, and he didn’t get the sentiment. Where the hell had he been?
He was halfway up the steps when his bullshit meter started firing. Nope, this wasn’t right. Nothing about what was going on with him made sense, not the weather, the way his mind was working, or that fucked-up smell.
And then he was at the carved cathedral-worthy door that opened into the vestibule.
Just as his hand reached forward, he heard a voice right beside him… an old, familiar voice that he hadn’t had in his ears for a long time.
The King returns.
He looked to the right. “Analise, what the fuck is going on here.”
The Scribe Virgin had never allowed questioning of her, and her name was something that he had only used once before in his life, but he didn’t give a shit about all that right now. And anyway, that was a demand, not an inquiry, he’d put out there.
As always, your charm precedes you, the mahmen of the race communicated dryly.
“Look, I don’t… understand what’s happening.”
All at once, she appeared in the dense void of his blindness, and not because he’d conjured her out of memory. The diminutive entity draped entirely in black robing, with a brilliant white glow emanating from under the hem of what covered her from head to foot, appeared sure as if she was standing before him. As ever, she was floating just off the ground—