Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Tor turned to the railing and stared at the city that seemed to have been built of the black stone that covered the coast.
The structures might be extraordinary, but the overall sense was gloomy.
Lahn came up on his left side.
“I do not have a good feeling, my friend,” Lahn stated.
“I don’t either,” Tor replied.
The two kings studied the unwelcoming city.
If this was their first taste of Triton, neither were looking forward to what was to come.
76
The Pet
The Priest
Ancient Ritual Ground, Lesser Thicket Forest
WODELL
Finally, they were back on track.
They had the men.
The new recruit had been trained.
They’d retaken their vows.
They had the sacrifice.
They had the moon in the sky.
And tonight, the Beast would be appeased.
Their sacrifice was staked to the ground, and his nemesis, who was also, regrettably, his brother in their undertaking was undoing his trousers in order to use her when the ground shook.
The priest smiled.
He’d been missed.
So much so, the Beast couldn’t even wait for the offering to share his gladness to have his master back.
His smile began to fade as the quake didn’t stop and it was not the same as the last ones. It did not seem to shake the trees beyond, meaning it could be felt from sea to sea.
It was just there.
At the Ritual Ground.
More to the point, right where they were standing.
The moist dirt seemed to be breaking apart all around them.
He braced to run but got not that first step in as he cried out, the men also emitting shouts and grunts of surprise, the sacrifice screaming (again), and they all started falling.
Not sinking.
Falling.
But through the dirt.
As he dropped, the soil was all around his body and face, thus, he could not pull in breath for fear of getting a lung full of loam.
He tried to fight it, scratching and clawing at the dirt above him to cease falling and start climbing, but it only proved to take energy he needed to keep holding his breath.
The priest did not know if it was fortunate, or other, when he stopped dropping through the earth and seemed to be tumbling through air.
He gulped in a huge breath right before he landed in a heap on a hard floor.
“Not that one, he can go,” he heard a woman say.
Lifting a hand to his face, the priest brushed away dirt.
And then froze.
For they were in an underground chamber that seemed to be made of stone lit well by an abundance of torches on the walls.
And there was a fair-haired, ludicrously attractive and ridiculously well-built man approaching his nemesis who had landed about six feet from the priest.
His brother in the cause, but also his foe began to try to take his feet.
He did not make it before his body dropped to the ground.
Without its head.
That fell to the ground where the fair one tossed it unceremoniously.
The priest gulped down bile.
By the gods.
That man had torn a head from a body with his bare hands.
What was happening?
“Not that one either,” the female voice came again.
The priest started scooting away as the fair one approached their new recruit, who was scampering clumsily, making mewing noises of terror.
The fair man seemed unhurried, but he moved eerily swiftly.
The new recruit had his back to the priest when that…not a man, it had to be a creature, caught hold of him, again at the head.
Lifting him up by said head.
But he did not tear it from his body.
He twisted it so that his brother’s back was still to the priest, but a ghastly crunch sounded, and the recruit’s head was facing the priest at his back, eyes still filled with fear.
But now lifeless.
“Not him, or him,” the female voice said.
She was indicating the last two, and the priest sought to escape, when suddenly he froze again for the woman’s face was an inch from his.
“I don’t think so,” she whispered.
He daren’t move.
Vaguely, he saw she was attractive (he supposed). Voluptuous, but petite. Very thick chestnut hair. Brown eyes.
He heard a scream, a grunt and his eyes jerked in that direction.
One of his brothers had his throat torn out, the bloody gaping maw where it had been a vision of gore the sight of which made his innards shrink.
The other was lying on his side, but his vacant gaze sat above his chin that was resting on the back of his shoulder.
The creature did this in but seconds.
Barely a blink.
“There, there, dear,” the woman cooed, moving to the sniveling, scuttling offering who began cowering against the stone wall when she had the woman’s attention. “You’re safe. Come!” she called, and the girl they would have sacrificed that night jumped. “See to our new sister.”
The priest had shifted carefully away, but his back struck stone, and he realized he was stuck with no escape as a gaggle of women came forth out of an opening in the wall of this strange cave.