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)
And watch the death.
She would find them.
Oh, she would.
She would find them all and the things she’d do.
The things they would do.
It came, not as normal—a hum, like a lullaby, soothing her mind and soul, but further heating her skin.
Instead, it was a small trembling, not the likes of what was felt in the beginning of the quakes.
Something different.
Something Marian fancied was not about her destiny.
Or perhaps it was.
Something she did not like in the slightest.
That trembling came and was gone so fast, it was almost like it did not happen at all.
And then…
Nothing.
Moments fell into minutes and more and more of them ticked by and there was still nothing.
No hum.
No lullaby.
As she waited even longer, she grew concerned.
Was he angry at her?
On this thought, suddenly, she cried out as she found her waist captured in a strong grip on either side.
This hold coming from below.
But by what?
She could not then find an answer to that question as she was instead finding herself drawing dirt into her throat instead of air.
She closed her mouth, her eyes, as she went down when there was no down to go.
But she was going.
Down, into the earth, the roots of trees scraping her flesh.
Down deeper, her lungs beginning to burn at holding her breath, her eyes shut tight, her lips drawn in and pressed together by her teeth to keep her mouth closed and not scream in terror.
She did not writhe in the hold on her. She had far more prevalent concerns. And they weren’t simply that she could not breathe.
Primarily, the weight of the dirt on top of her the deeper she fell—or was pulled—was bearing greatly on her.
Like it would crush her bones.
Crush her entire body.
And then she was in free fall and she did cry out, spluttering and spitting out dirt as her body was jarred with a landing.
However, she did not fall to the ground.
She was being held.
Held to…
She shook the dirt from her face, turned her head, opened her eyes and abruptly found herself on her feet as the creature before her took two steps back.
He was very tall.
Lean of frame, but broad of shoulder.
He had golden hair and bright blue eyes.
Winged dark brows and pleasing angular features.
Like her visions.
Just like her dreams.
That gilt head bent, and his voice rumbled forth toward her.
“Patrona.”
Marian’s skin came alive.
“Me Brutum,” she whispered.
He lifted his head and stared directly at her.
Her vision.
Her dream.
Her destiny.
Her Beast.
Yes.
It was happening.
43
The Setback
The Priest
Ancient Ritual Ground, Lesser Thicket Forest
WODELL
He had to join them via the astral plane.
Which he did.
When he arrived, he saw the others were not happy.
They couldn’t possibly know it was he who killed one of their own.
“You are most lucky you’re not actually you,” his least favorite spat the moment the priest took astral form.
They knew.
“Beware, my brother,” the priest warned.
“Beware?” the man asked, throwing both of his arms wide in fury. “Beware of you setting a Firenz asp on me? Do you think we were foolish enough not to have consumed the antidote every morn since we heard how Rupert expired?”
Less clever brothers should have been chosen.
“The news is everywhere,” another of the men joined in. “We must cease. We shouldn’t even be here. If anyone deduced what we’ve deduced,” he indicted the two men at his side with a hand, “investigators from four realms will be set upon us and the Go’Doan won’t keep their noses out of it. With but a few tomes reviewed, at the very least, this sacred site will be breached. You know that best of all, being a bloody Go’Doan yourself.”
“You can’t possibly imagine my brothers in the Go’Doan haven’t been poring over those tomes already and yet, we have not been discovered,” the priest noted.
“That was before the Beast roared in conjunction with three people in two different realms losing their lives in the same but uncommon way,” the second man returned.
“No one will put it together,” the priest assured.
“The night of the mightiest quake where a roar could be heard across Triton, a life was taken at the king’s palace in Firenze, and within hours, a member of Airen’s landed gentry dies the same way, an unusual way, especially considering a Firenz asp, a creature that doesn’t leave the sand, was the result of all the slayings,” his least favorite summed things up snidely. “You don’t think anyone will put that together?”
“Why did you kill the woman at the palace?” the third man asked.
The priest couldn’t tell them he’d made a mistake. He’d meant to kill the betrothed of Prince True. He’d meant to put an end to the prophecy before it began.
Learning that he’d failed, after he’d seen to the death of his Rupert and Rupert’s slut, was equally bad news that sorry day some weeks before. A day that should have been joyous.
“It was not me,” he lied.