Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
His face quickly tightened into a look of rage. “Tell me.”
“I found the dagger at a Plunderer outpost, alright? That’s all I know.”
His narrowed eyes scrutinized my face, tried to catch the lies in my eyes.
I seemed to have passed his test because he didn’t press me. “We have two options. I can feast on your soul and have the most exquisite meal of my life. Or I can turn you, and you can be the Second Queen.”
In either case, I lost my soul. If I were alone, that revelation would bring me to tears. Ian was probably already dead. Queen Rolfe had been eaten, no doubt. I was the last one left, and when Huntley arrived, he would see that he’d lost everything. “Kill me. I’d rather die than be bound to you.” The most difficult part about this was the helplessness. I couldn’t even fight back. I just had to lie there and wait for the end.
His eyes shifted back and forth between mine as the anger tightened the corners of his eyes. He straightened his back, and he continued his stare down at me. “You will be the Second Queen.”
“I just told you to kill me!”
“Death would be a waste for someone as beautiful as you.”
Now I wished I had my own dagger just to stab myself straight through the heart. I fought against the chains to break free, to slit my own wrists, to work my body so hard that I collapsed.
His enormous palm flattened against my chest, and he pinned me in place.
“No.” I tried to buck him off.
He was so strong that it was no use. It was like fighting a mountain.
“Fuck you!”
His eyes glazed over before they brightened and turned a deep blue. They glowed as if lit from within, as if he were in some kind of trance. His body was stiff as stone, and he held me in place, the magic making my body weak.
It’d already begun.
Then a blade tip appeared straight out of his chest from behind. The blood oozed out, blue-gray like the ocean on a cloudy day.
I stilled in fright when I saw it, unsure what was going on. “What in the gods…”
The blade was pulled out and stabbed back in, hitting him in a different spot.
It was Ian. My brother had come for me.
Kronos was still for a moment, processing the stab wounds that made his body bleed. He was in as much shock as I was, probably because he had been in the middle of performing a trance. He jerked upright and turned on his assailant.
“Kill this motherfucker, Ian!”
Kronos pulled the knife out of his own body and attacked. I couldn’t see past his body because he was a foot taller than the average man. Their bodies struck the wall, and then fists were flying. Kronos threw Ian’s body across the room until he hit the opposite wall with a loud thud.
Ian righted himself quickly—but it wasn’t Ian at all.
It was Bastian.
Kronos came at him with the bloody knife and aimed for his throat.
“No!”
Bastian ducked at the last minute and maneuvered out of the way.
Kronos pivoted back toward him. “You’re a servant to the Three Kings. Bow so I may take your life.” He came at him again, with a speed I couldn’t even follow with my eyes.
I fought the chains to be free, but they were locked in place. “Don’t you fucking die, Bastian!”
Bastian kept dodging and moving, sidestepping the blade at the very last second. With just one hit, he would be gone forever. The fight continued in the room until they disappeared into the hallway.
Now all I could hear was the sound of heavy footsteps, of bodies slamming into walls, an ongoing fight with no end in sight. Helpless, I just lay there, my eyes closed even though I couldn’t see anything anyway. “Bastian…please.”
The sounds stopped. It was quiet. The fight was over.
“Bastian?” My weak voice pierced the silence, afraid of the echo that would come back at me.
Nothing.
“Bastian…?” Tears already formed in my eyes because I knew the outcome without seeing it. “No…”
Footsteps sounded as they approached the room, the gait slow, like the victor was deeply injured. It must be Kronos, still bleeding from his stab wounds, and once he rounded the corner, he would finish me off.
A hand gripped the doorframe before he came into view.
Bastian.
Beaten and bloody, he was hardly recognizable, but he was alive.
“Gods…”
The sight of me seemed to invigorate him because he moved to the bed at a much quicker pace and got the chains free.
I was on him right away, my arms wrapped around him tightly. “Are you okay?”
Like he wasn’t injured at all, he grasped me tightly, his chin on my head. “I’m fine, Elora.”
I pulled away and examined his face, seeing the dark bruising around his eyes, the blue blood that dripped from his beaten eyebrow and the cut in his cheek. “What happened?”