Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“Luck.”
“Pain makes it harder to sound convincing when you lie.”
“It seems so, yes. You’re a lot more pleasant after winning a challenge. Kind of like the deathwatch angel, but without having to try at it.”
“Deathwatch angel?” I repeated, cutting out his pain as I fixed up his wings.
“He means me.” Nessa raised her hand. “Though last time it was angel of hell, I think. Same difference. It’s the only kind of angel I could claim to be. But I resent that comment! I don’t have to try at it. I’m always this pleasant, dang it.”
He laughed, which turned into a coughing fit, and his large back heaved. “Naturally pleasant people don’t sneak up on their friends with knives.”
“This is true,” she said. “But what does that have to do with me? I don’t recall sneaking up on any friends today.”
“Enemies, then.”
“Miss—” Mr. Tom appeared in the doorway. “What…? Well, you’ll have to put on another dress. You can’t go down looking like that. What should I say, that you had a problem with your bowels and had a little backsplash? That would explain the delay and the change.”
“Oh my God, Mr. Tom, if you tell them that I will kill you!” I said.
Tristan started laughing. Loudly.
“Don’t you dare tell your leader he said that, either,” I told him sternly. “They’ve been hard enough to deal with. I feel like some sort of…foundling. They barely let me get a word in edgewise, and when I do speak, they argue with whatever I say. I’d assume it was because of my sex, but Austin hasn’t fared any better, even when answering a direct question.” I patted Tristan. “You can get up now. I have to get going.”
Tristan did a push-up before sitting back onto his knees. His chest was scraped and dirty and his hair wild. “They’re ganging up on you because you’re a threat. You have all the right ingredients to be a power player but one thing…”
“Gargoyle guardians, I know.”
He shook his head, getting up and offering me a hand. I took it and allowed him to pull me up after him.
“Battle prowess. Prove you are mightier than them, and they will have no choice but to submit. They might not do it right away, but they will eventually have to accept the new entity in their sandbox. Scare them, and watch them change their minds.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Jessie
“Any hint on when that raid is coming?” Sebastian asked after the evening training. It was two days after the worst dinner party in history.
I took a deep breath. “I don’t know when the raid is set to happen, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever Tristan says, the big dogs are going to try to keep my status low to maintain their placement. There are four high-level cairns. They don’t want another power player, especially one they don’t understand. The best we can hope for is to attract solo guardians to join us.”
We started walking toward the house and the back lawn where the others had already headed.
“Have you had any interest from solo guardians? I know quite a few have entered the territory.”
“They’re watching and asking questions, but so far no one has approached me. Patty thinks they’re waiting to see my status.” I ran my fingers through my tangled hair. “Everything is about status with these people! It’s frustrating.”
“You headed to the Paddy Wagon?” Nessa was asking Ulric as we reached the grass.
“Ugh.” Ulric held his muumuu, not bothering to put it on. “I don’t know. I’m beat. I don’t have the energy to fight my way home tonight.”
“What does that mean?” I asked as I picked my way through the greatly diminished flowers.
Ulric glanced back at me, and I could tell he hadn’t meant for me to overhear.
“Nothing. I’m just tired,” he said.
“I’m going,” I told Nessa. “I want to sit in when you and Sebastian talk to Niamh about Tristan. Something isn’t right with that gargoyle, and I want to know what Gimerel is hiding.”
“You’re going to finally show your face in town, huh?” Jasper said with a grin.
“I haven’t been hiding,” I said, a little too defensively.
I had totally been hiding. I’d created mayhem at the dinner party the other night, resulting in its shutting down early.
“It wasn’t her fault,” Nessa said. “She was so keyed up about my being pitched off the roof—”
“That’s the story you’re still going with, huh?” Ulric laughed.
“She was so keyed up about my being pitched off the roof,” she began again, giving him a flat stare, “she just reacted. Add wine to that reaction, and, well…it got a bit extreme. It could’ve happened to anybody. Then things…snowballed. Just kind of unfortunate, really.”
Understatement.
As expected, Tristan was an anomaly when it came to his ability to see through the potion. He’d gotten cleaned up and donned his second favorite suit before heading back down to his leader, able to watch Nessa and Sebastian meandering through the others, sometimes getting much too close for my comfort level. None of the other guardians could see them, though. Only three others seemed to feel their presence, and that was only if they were pretty close, within grabbing distance. One of them had tried, reaching for Nessa. That had apparently triggered Tristan, who casually pushed his hand forward to intervene.