Total pages in book: 161
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162269 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 541(@300wpm)
He then said, “He would have spoiled you, his love for you would have been so great, giving you your every heart’s desire. And I would have thought you were an awful brat. You would probably steal my dolphin friends and charm octopi, which are surly, which would make me jealous so I would have had to play tricks on you to get mine back. But now I am jealous of the men down the ramparts, especially your True. For he loiters there, due to the history of the love he has for you. And I find myself needing to build it new. For even if you grew up a terrible brat, you would be my sister, my princess, thus you would have my love. And the only heart I can take in not knowing you until now, is that even far apart, you always were.”
Another hiccup came, lurching my body as I gave forth a little sob.
“You have made her cry,” True accused, suddenly, so True, right there.
“True,” Mars murmured low.
“I’ve got her,” Jorie said.
I peeked to my cousin through spiky eyelashes, but I moved not another inch of my body.
“He has me, True,” I whispered.
“True,” Mars said again.
True glowered at me.
“And I’ll always have you,” I went on.
Only that made his face soften.
He nodded, then moved away.
I sniffled.
My brother held me.
I sniffled again.
He continued to hold me.
Then I asked, “Can we go swimming soon?”
I heard his smile in the single word he spoke.
“Absolutely.”
133
The Adrift
Jellan
Easternmost Edge, Argyll Forest
AIREN
They were lost.
He knew it.
Daemon just would not admit it.
And Jellan was loath to approach him about it, considering the fact he did not wish to know what response the creature would have to such a discussion.
Marian did not seem to have trouble with meandering aimlessly, seemingly cast adrift.
She also didn’t seem to have trouble going head to head with him, Jellan had noted. She had not changed her manner in regards to the Beast at all.
And for all intents and purposes, considering he’d been utilizing obsequiousness from the beginning, Jellan hadn’t either.
It just chafed, raw, watching those two together.
Along their meandering, Daemon had stolen not only clothes and food, warm, woolen blankets and some twine and tarp for a makeshift tent, but the steeds they now rode.
However, he’d only stolen two, for Daemon rode with Marian tucked close to his front and they whispered together as they journeyed.
Though there was no whispering when they fucked under the tarp at night.
Jellan did not like it.
Not any of it.
Not one bit.
He further did not like it that the creature seemed to listen to Marian. Take her advice.
Jellan would not admit it was good advice, say, sharing with Daemon that he might not wish to leave a string of bodies in their wake. Not after what they had left behind at the Ancient Ritual Grounds. What Daemon had done to that family at that farm. Telling him that all of that would eventually be found, and questions would be asked, and they would be sought, and they didn’t need to leave a trail to make it easy to find them.
Daemon had, rightly, argued it mattered not if they found them as he had much power, so let them find them.
“You have work to do, do you not?” she’d queried cuttingly, causing Daemon to look chastened. “Do you wish to delay in that by having to murder investigating constables or angry townspeople? Only in doing so, having more seek you, causing further delays?”
Daemon had seen the wisdom of this and thus his short killing spree had ended.
Which was what Jellan suspected Marian wished.
And Jellan had further suspicions Marian wished them to be lost.
Indeed, with some of the routes Daemon selected (about which, Jellan was not finding it surprising, Marian gave no guidance), that took them nowhere, he suspected she was making them lost.
For, as the days passed, even though it was clear Daemon was seeking something, and it was clear she still had his ear and he listened to her, she did not make that first effort to discover what he wished to find or where he wished to go which meant she did not put herself in a place where she would need to assist him in getting there.
At least not that Jellan had heard.
Then again, they excluded him much of the time and he could not hear most of their whispers.
What concerned Jellan most of all, however, was this “work” Marian referred to.
What work?
In the legend of the Beast, he had ravaged the continent haphazardly. He killed. He raped. He pillaged. He destroyed. He tortured.
There was no rhyme or reason to it. This being one of the varied reasons he was terrifying.
Evil with a purpose was ugly. But understanding that purpose, tempering it, eradicating it, gave hope.
Evil run amuck with no purpose was chilling.