Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 579(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
O’Shea pulls a scrap of paper from his pocket I would recognize anywhere. It’s my article from Out of this Realm about the battle in the tunnel. I gasp.
“You read my story?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
“This and the others in the series.” O’Shea crosses the room, hauls me out of my chair, and grabs my shoulders. “You’re the reporter? What else do you know?”
Suddenly, Caden steps between us and forcibly removes his hands. “Don’t touch my—the woman.”
Tynan pins him with a contemptuous gaze. “You’re clearly a MacTavish.”
“Caden, Lucan’s younger brother.”
The distraught man grabs me and hauls me close again. “Until someone gives me information, I’m going to keep asking her questions. She’s talking, at least.”
The murderous look O’Shea tosses Bram chills me. He’s deadly serious.
“She’s already told you all she knows,” Bram insists.
He’s trying to look unconcerned. But I sense the tenseness in his shoulders, the slight pull of his mouth.
Tynan looks ready to explode. “Let me fight with you.”
Caden snarls his way. “Let her go and leave. There’s more here than wand waving.”
Tynan raises a dark brow. “Meaning?”
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Bram grumbles. “Mathias is ‘recruiting’ Anarki involuntarily, using human soldiers for his army once he rips out their souls. They don’t wield magic and seem impervious to it, so the only way to defeat them is through human methods. Ever punched a man? Fired a gun? Sliced someone in two with a sword?”
Tynan gives everyone the once over, seemingly gauging whether the others know these methods of war. Slowly, he releases me. “I’ll learn.”
Bram shakes his head. “I can’t risk it.”
“A handful of weeks ago, few of us knew any of those things, either,” Hurstgrove points out.
“I can teach the lout quickly, should he manage to curb his temper,” Marrok adds. “An emotional warrior is a sloppy one.”
“I’ll curb it. Just…damn it, let me fight.” Tynan curls his hands around the sides of an ornate dining room chair, his knuckles turning white.
“If I let you fight beside us and you’re killed, your grandfather will do everything in his power to see me separated from the Council and my head severed from my body. No.”
“You need more warriors,” Caden argues. “I’m not staying. Lucan…” He shrugs painfully. “He may never fight again. Shock comes, Shock goes.”
“Shock Denzell?” O’Shea asks, incredulous. “His family has always supported Mathias. Isn’t he on the other side?”
Bram doesn’t answer. He turns to Caden instead. “Your point?”
Hurstgrove jumps in. “Mathias is quickly swelling his ranks with human soldiers he’s conscripting. O’Shea is willing to fight. You allowed everyone else here to participate with the understanding that their safety was on their own head. Why change the rules for him? We need him as much as he wants to join. It’s not as if we have more appealing options.”
I wince at the blunt truth.
“I absolve you of any and all blame if something happens to me,” Tynan assures.
“Your family won’t.”
“Burn my body, then. They’ll simply think I disappeared. The great Bram Rion has ways to protect his precious reputation, I have no doubt. But don’t exclude me because you’re afraid of an old man like my grandfather.”
Oh, that’s a shot across the bow.
Animosity hangs thick in the air.
Marrok stands suddenly, clutching the hilt of his sword, always strapped about his hips. “Have you brought your wand?”
Tynan looks at Marrok as if he’s gone mad. “I never go anywhere without it.”
“Come with us. I will test your fighting prowess, and Bram your magical skills. If you have aptitude, mayhap you can join. Bram?”
Obviously, he doesn’t like being boxed into a corner, but he sees the logic. “If you possess skill with a wand and can demonstrate the ability to learn human combat, I’ll consider it.”
At Tynan’s eager nod, Bram shoots Marrok a rancorous glare and follows the pair. A moment later, the back door slams. Hurstgrove rises next and exits after them. Then Ice. Olivia and Sabelle follow.
Suddenly, Caden and I find ourselves alone. I rise and take a few steps toward the hall—until Caden wraps his hand around my arm and pulls me back.
I whirl to him, certain that what’s about to happen will make a great story. “I want to see.”
“And I don’t want you involved any deeper.”
I’ve always been independent, and that will never change. Besides, while this is a story that could make me, it’s also a consequential one every person—human or magical—should read.
“Unlike you, I’m not one to bury my head in the sand.” I jerk free and stomp away.
He grabs me again. “What does that bloody mean?”
“These people need you. And you plan to turn your back on them because you think it’s not your fight? I never knew Marines were afraid.”
Caden’s blue eyes narrow. “Is that what you think? I’m not afraid. If I survived two tours in desert shitholes, I can survive this, I assure you.”