Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144404 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
“I never said that.” She was back to frowning and looking broody.
“No. You said something about Myrddin is the way and the only way and he’s also light and dark, and all things should bow to the master.”
She snorted. “I know I never said that.” She sniffled. “I didn’t want to have to clean up the blood.”
“There wouldn’t have been any blood. That sucker would have swallowed Puff whole.”
“Oh, there would have been blood when the princess went in after her dog,” Liv assured me.
“Thank you for sparing me that.” Evan turned toward the stairs. “I’ll go grab him some pants. He’s too used to being naked, and I see we already have prying eyes. Yeah, she-devil. I see you, and I can use a bow and arrow.”
There was a rustling from the bushes and then something running away.
“Hey, baby.” My wolf had joined us. Like our son, Trent was standing there in all his glory. “Sorry I’m late. Fenrir is fast. It looks like you have it handled. What happened? Did the hounds scare it away?”
“The hounds were it. Evan, grab some pants for Trent, too.” Trent was also accustomed to being naked, and he was superhot. Normally I liked to look at him, but there were a lot of hungry eyes around this place, and I’d been told things could get freaky here. “Someone spelled the hounds.”
Liv walked to where one of the collars was on the ground. She picked it up and examined it while Casey moved in around her, obviously keeping watch. “There’s a symbol.”
Casey whistled. “It’s the same as the brand we found on the Hell cat. We were in the library trying to figure it out when…”
“We did,” Liv announced. “We found the symbol. It belongs to the Daybreak Kingdom not far from here. It belongs to Lilith’s kingdom.”
Well, shit. I’d only just learned the woman existed, and she was already a pain in my ass.
* * * *
Liv
“Hey, what’s going on? I tried to get to you, and this fucking house kept me out. What happened in that library?” Casey asked the question quietly as we stood to the back of the salon where everyone in our party seemed to be meeting.
How many times had I stood in a group like this, offering up my advice as we tried to figure out some mystery or the next best step because some asshole demon was coming after us? We would sit and eat and argue and work it all out.
When I was in conference with Myrddin, I sat silently. I agreed. I praised. Nothing more. Nothing less.
“It led me to the right book.” I wasn’t about to tell Casey I’d made a deal with the embodiment of the house to smuggle her to the Earth plane and have no regard whatsoever for what she intends to do there. I was sure she’d live a fun, safe-for-humans, never-criminal life.
Yeah. Even I wasn’t buying that, but so far she was my only real option to get out of here. I didn’t see how I managed to escape without my powers.
“Why didn’t it let me come up with you?” Casey wasn’t letting this go, and I was starting to get annoyed.
We had other things to worry about. “I don’t know. It’s a house. Why don’t you ask it.”
“I find it interesting that the house always leads you to me. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure it nudged me to the trellis I used to get inside last night. So I don’t know why it wouldn’t let me protect you.”
“From books?” I wasn’t about to tell him that several times during that brief exchange I’d felt threatened. “What were they going to do to me?”
“All right. How did you know Kelsey was in trouble? Don’t deny it. There wasn’t any decipherable screaming when you took off. If I couldn’t hear her, you certainly couldn’t.”
“The house told me.” How to salvage this? See, this was where I’d fucked up. I’d acted emotionally and stupidly, and now I had to lie. Well, twist the truth. “It wasn’t like it whispered. I got the sudden feeling that I should go to the garden, and I knew it was Kelsey. Who else would it be? She’s the one who’s always in trouble.”
“She wasn’t the one you saved.”
Yep. I’d acted stupidly because it was obvious Kelsey and Lee could handle the hellhounds, and the only one who would have died was the farting puppy.
And I’d seen it happen in my head and my body reacted. I’d launched myself across the yard, truly willing in that moment to do almost anything to save that dumb dog.
“The princess would have been intolerable if her dog got eaten.” I tried to shake off how relieved I’d been when Puff didn’t have to try to grow back any of his parts. He’d wriggled in my arms and licked every bit of skin he could find. He hadn’t seen me as a threat in that moment.