Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156907 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 785(@200wpm)___ 628(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
I did not like the rock-solid manner in which she said that.
“I could have stopped this,” I admitted.
“Oh, but I am glad you did not. For I would not have met Gal and Brix and dealt a crushing blow to a pack of insidious malcontents if you hadn’t,” she replied, sounding partly serious, and partly caustic.
“Still, I—”
“And had a number of mind-scattering orgasms.”
I decided to leave it at that and move on to something more important.
“Did he…also, with you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. He did not fall in love with me. He followed orders. He is a Trusted One after all.”
“I fear what should have been a much different conversation between us, I have ruined,” I stated miserably.
“No,” she disagreed. “It is the first time you have spoken unguarded to me since we were girls. It is all now gone. There is nothing between us. No intrigues, no lies. And as it was only me who pushed these things between us, I feel relief that they are gone. Thus, here we start.”
“Here we start,” I said uncertainly.
“I have learned to be a friend, Elena. It is new to me, as it is not to you.” She tipped her head to the side. “Perhaps you will help to continue to guide the way?”
“I would…that would be…” I drew in breath to pull myself together. “That would make me happy.”
She nodded briskly and turned her attention to the view.
I followed suit.
I gave it time before I said, “Thank you for bringing Melisse.”
“Mother needed her, Melisse needed to see Mum, and you needed Melisse.”
A triple win in thoughtfulness for my sister.
Yes, she had changed.
We fell silent again.
Not long later, the gnomes joined us.
One walked to the very edge of the cliff and sat there with his back to us.
The other one, to my shock, dropped down by Serena. She straightened her legs when he did, and thus, when he fell to his back, his head was resting on her ankle.
By the goddess, she had very much changed.
“All right, you’re going to have to share about Galbdor and Welbrix,” I declared, even if they were both right there.
“Gal and Brix,” she corrected me. “And all you need to know is that both of them will stiff you on the tally when you’re out drinking if you’re not careful.”
“That is untrue,” Brix, at the edge, called irritably.
“It is very true,” Gal, at Serena’s ankle, stated good-naturedly. “Never start a tally with a gnome. You’ll be paying.”
Brix twisted to glare at Gal. “You need to stop telling these Nadirii all our secrets, Galbdor.”
“I told you when he had a drink with you, or twelve, he would stiff you,” Gal said to Serena.
“I never buy drinks. I have breasts. I press them together, and some fool male slobbers over himself in order to throw coin at my tankard,” Serena returned.
“This is the only time in my life I wished I had breasts,” Brix muttered.
I couldn’t believe it, I let out a little laugh.
I then took a chance and bumped my shoulder to my sister’s.
She did not bump back.
But she also did not draw away.
Prince Cassius
Night Heights Mountain Range
AIREN
Cassius moved to where Mac was standing on the ridge, regarding the slope below.
He stopped beside his captain.
“How many of them are there?” he asked Mac.
“Ten thousand, give or take a few hundred…or thousand,” Mac replied drily.
Cass felt his heart squeeze and his mouth get tight.
He also felt Mac’s regard.
“We have cliffs to the north. Cliffs to the east. Cliffs to the west. The Nadirii selected an excellent place in which their queen could die, it is not easy to get to. But now, the enemy blocks the only way out,” Mac told him.
Cassius said nothing.
“One way or another, we’re going to have to fight our way out of here, brother,” Mac shared. “And the numbers aren’t in our favor.”
Cassius stared down the dark, quiet slope.
No rustling.
No fires.
Well hidden.
Ready for an ambush.
“We attack in the morning,” he decreed.
Mac shifted and Cass knew he was turning fully to his prince.
“Have you lost your mind?” he asked.
He gave his eyes to his friend. “No.”
“We’re outnumbered, likely ten to one.”
“Yes.”
“Frey is with us. Do you intend to use the dragons?”
“No.”
“We need more time to create a strategy.”
“I already have a strategy.”
“Cass—”
“You can come out,” Cass called.
Mac jerked around, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.
“No need for that, soldier. Good gods, you Airenzian blokes are sword-happy,” the man forming from the shadows said to Mac.
He took shape as much as he could lit only by moonlight.
“Hello, Silvanus,” Cassius greeted.
The Zee doffed his hat, bent low at the waist in a mock tribute, then straightened, returning his hat to its jaunty angle.
“Howzit, Your Grace,” the Zee replied.
And with that, Silvanus’s mouth split into a smile that was blinding, even in the moonlight.