Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“How’s that wing? Gonna heal?” Her fingers danced over my wing’s edge. The hole was nearly mended now. All the time in the enemy’s hands was time my body had had to repair itself.
It was also time the enemy mages had to get out of their magical prison. Time was ticking.
“Looks good, pretty beastie.” She smiled at me, and her eyes flashed. “Let your mate unlock the power of the gargoyle, okay? Like Brochan did at that challenge, remember? We need it. Let Austin be your guide. Don’t be afraid. Sebastian said you’ve been afraid to really let go in training, but don’t be. You have friends and family waiting in the darkness for you.” She touched her chest lightly, then pointed up at Austin. “And Brochan and Sebastian and Niamh and probably Edgar. We’re all there. We all come and go as we please. Join us. We won’t let you wander too far, don’t worry. Come on in, the water’s fine.”
Austin grunted, and a shock of pain coursed through him. He turned, obviously careful to keep us under him, to combat a surge of people at his back.
Nessa scooted closer to me at first so as not to get stepped on, then looked that way. She looked behind her, then back at me. “I’ve got to go. I need to help, or we’re all gonna die. Well…the guys are. We might have a much worse fate. Find that gargoyle. Let’s make you the queen of this bitch, and then let’s go home and ride around in that carriage!” She nodded at me in encouragement before rolling out from under Austin. “Anyone seen a couple of very expensive, custom-made, and quite necessary knives?” she called before the crowd swallowed her up.
We expect everything.
I had to do this. I had to. I had to connect these two pieces of myself, past and present. I had to cement them with the ferocity Ivy House needed me to find.
I had to protect my people. It was my duty. A duty I coveted.
I reached out through the bonds to Austin, doing as Nessa had said. My magic roiled and surged within me, feeling the dangerous darkness of my mate. She was right—he’d found that darkness within him and was currently exploiting it. Our connection suddenly felt decadent and raw, utterly primal. It felt like exactly what awaited me if I sank into the dark depths of my magic. It felt like battle and wildness and bloodshed. I would follow him down and trust him to pull me back to safety again, no matter how long I was locked below.
“That is a mistake,” a familiar voice whispered. “If you trust him, he will betray you. He will be your demise.”
It took me a moment to locate the voice in my memory, but once I did, a wave of cold shivers washed over me. It was the voice I’d heard within Ivy House, the one that had been pushing me to take the magic. Tamara Ivy, I’d thought.
It had said, “Rely on no man, for it is he who will betray you. Set yourself free.”
If it were any other man, I’d hesitate for a moment. I’d contemplate her words. Trust was a risk, and I’d been burned a great many times in my life.
But this was Austin Steele. He’d earned my trust before he earned my love. He’d proven himself. If I couldn’t trust him, I couldn’t trust anyone, and that wasn’t freedom. That was a prison of fear, and it wasn’t how I would go through life.
If this was taking a chance, it was a chance I was willing to take. A demise I was willing to face.
I took a deep breath and let go. Let myself keep sliding deeper. Terror gripped me, but I continued, intent to do as Ivy House kept pushing me to do. As Austin had eventually had to do with his animal. I submitted to it, seeking the balance, following my mate into the twisted depths of our beasts.
The darkness overwhelmed me quickly, sucking me in. Magic pumped. Power slid around me. Still I sank, feeling Austin with me, all around me. Holding me and dragging me, deeper and deeper until I was no longer sure where my sense of self ended and the gargoyle began.
I mentally closed my eyes and released my holds on humanity. I released my past and my logic. I released my control.
His approval sang through the bonds. His pride. His sweet darkness.
And that was when I felt it—a sensation unlike any I’d ever experienced, like strolling through the decadent midnight wilderness. It was raw and twisted and volatile, yet somehow heavenly and serene. It was the darkness I’d feared, but there was light buried within it. Nature was comprised of both, after all—the deep night was always followed by a new dawn. A vicious killing fed a predator’s young, ensuring new life. Raging fires allowed for regrowth.