Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
“The queen is dead,” I remind him. “We have no queen.”
“But there is a possible king. Viper would like nothing more than to rule out here. And now is his opportunity to do so. Plus, more people will fight your claim. You can not simply choose to become queen.”
“Veronica did,” Tanya says.
Bronik shakes his head. “No, she planned and manipulated and sold her soul to have what she had.” Silver eyes glance at me. “Are you prepared to do the same?”
I’m not, nor would I ever, be willing to do that. The last thing I would ever do is sell my soul.
At the knock on the bedroom door, we all turn to find a wolf standing there looking in at us. “Your sister requires your attendance.” The little wolf runs off.
I go to walk off, but Bronik touches my arm. “Veronica was only the start. It will not end. Before you accept the crown, you will be challenged. When you become queen, you will be challenged.”
I pull my arm free from his grasp. “I do not want to become queen,” I say, following Tanya back into the hall where John is arguing with my sister.
“What’s going on?” Tanya asks.
John answers, “We are to be mated. Your sister said she would when the queen was dead. I happily waited. Now the time has come.”
I choke out the word, “Mated?”
Tatiana smiles and nods.
“How does one even become… um, mated?”
“It’s a ceremony,” the little wolf who came to get us tells me. She seems to be the only girl wolf who doesn’t hate us. All the others are debatable. “It needs to be done on sacred ground.”
“Well then, off to sacred ground we go,” I say, smiling. “It’s time for a wedding.”
“It’s not a wedding, witch.”
See, told you the other wolf girls hate me.
“You have things to do, we have things to do. The world is about to change.” I do not argue with Tatiana. Instead, I look into her emerald eyes and lean forward and kiss her cheek.
“The world can wait, this cannot.” John nods in agreement and turns. “Where is sacred ground?” I ask.
“Back to the wolf compound.”
“You shouldn’t go,” states Bronik.
“I’ve had enough of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t be doing. You are here to serve me, correct?” I ask him, and he clenches his jaw. “Well, I have something for you to do. Go and destroy that room, you know which I am talking about. Burn it to the ground.”
He nods and disappears.
And we leave.
And I do not look back at that damn castle once.
I stand in front of my sister. She looks beautiful, more so than I have ever seen her. She plays with the flowers that cascade around her hair, fiddling with them. I can tell she wants to pull them off, but she simply messes with them instead.
“Leave them.” The wolf behind her taps Tatiana’s hand away as she finishes adding the last of the flowers.
“You look beautiful,” I say, and I mean it.
“It’s stupid, really.”
The wolf, who is still fixing the last of her flowers, grunts at her, and my sister steps away and points to the door for her to leave. She begrudgingly does so. When the door shuts behind her, Tatiana starts swearing.
“Fuck, I was so lost in those damn eyes that I said yes to this. So lost in him that I would willingly give him anything.”
“You love him,” I tell her.
She is practically naked, her body covered in a thin cloth and nothing else.
“Yet, here I am, signed up for this. I have to let him fuck me. Did you hear that right, Talia? Fuck me in front of his people.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “I’m not sticking around for that part, just the ceremony, and then I’m out. Not watching that.”
“Me, too. Sorry, but that’s the last thing I want to see,” Tanya chimes in.
“And I had to fall in love with a werewolf. Couldn’t have been a… oh, I don’t know, an angel?” I laugh at her words as a knock on the door sounds.
“It’s time.”
She looks to the door, sucks in a deep breath, and goes.
When we get outside, I’m surprised to see the change. White flowers have been hung on anything they could land on, and the ground is covered with them. It’s like a white winter wonderland but with flowers. Tatiana’s bare feet press the flowers into the ground as she walks over them to reach John. When they are face to face, a circle is formed, and their hands join.
“It’s actually quite beautiful,” Tanya says as we listen to their words. They talk of connection and how they are now going to become one.
The wolves start to tear off their clothes and I turn to Tanya.
“I can’t,” she says, shaking her head.