Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
I plunged the dagger into the next creature’s chest without hesitation because the guilt was fleeting. I didn’t want to become some wayward soul’s late-night snack.
A Shade swooped down, much as the hawk had earlier. I leapt sideways, and something snagged my cloak, tearing it.
Claws. Right. Apparently, Shades had claws you couldn’t see. I twisted, throwing up my forearm to block the Shade in front of me. My elbow connected with bone-deep coldness and something hard within the mass of gray—something that felt a lot like a throat as the sound of snapping teeth echoed from the void.
“No biting,” I grunted, pushing the creature back as I thrust out with the dagger.
Suddenly, something jerked my head back with such force that pain shot down my neck and back. My feet went out from under me as the hawk let out another staggering series of chirps. I hit the ground hard, knocking the air from my lungs.
The Shade came down over me, the thick wisps and tendrils of shadow flowing around it, clouding the entire realm. Icy shadow fingers encircled my wrist, pinning the hand that held the dagger to the ground. The touch—its hold—was almost mind-numbingly cold as I brought my knee up and shoved my left hand in the general vicinity of where I thought its shoulder might be. My fingers sank into the cold air within the mass of shadows, and my palm flattened against what didn’t feel like skin but something hard and smooth. Like…bone. I pushed up with all my strength—
And several things happened all at once.
The hawk swooped down over us, dragging its talons across the Shade’s back. The creature shrieked, spasming as the hawk flew up into the trees. My chest suddenly throbbed, heating and humming. Static erupted over my skin—my arms and hands. There was no will, no demand, but I felt the eather in my blood building and building. I tried to stop it, but a silvery glow spilled out from my palm, beating back the Shade’s shadows, peeling back the layers of dull gray, stripping away the wispy shroud until I saw the white of actual bones. A rib cage and a spine and dry, withered organs—a wrinkled heart that was a flat, gray color.
A heart that suddenly beat.
The color deepened to a bright red as pinkish-white tendons and muscles rapidly formed around the ribs and bones. Veins appeared throughout where nothing but gray had once been. A skull took shape, tendons wrapping around a jawbone, straightening a mouth full of crooked, broken teeth.
Oh, gods. Oh, gods. I was never going to unsee this. This would haunt me for however long I lived.
Lips began to take shape, turning a pale pink as they moved, and a throat that was barely put together vibrated with sound. “Meyaah,” it rasped. “Liessa…”
“What in the actual fuck?” I gasped as a milky white substance filled the eye sockets. As—
My chest warmed once more and hummed, the eather inside me—the embers of life—vibrating in response to the wave of pure, unfettered power. A silver, crackling light suddenly filled the woods, so bright and iridescent that, for the briefest second, I saw the swirling, circling Shades above me. And then they were simply…gone.
That kind of power was unthinkable.
Spitting, hissing energy swept over the Shade above me, filling the newly formed veins with burning white light as it threw the Shade into the air, and it shattered into utterly nothing.
I lay there, hand still raised as the intense, silvery light receded and faded, and the world turned gray and almost lifeless once more.
Above and among the warped branches, the silver hawk called out softly and then lifted into the air. My heart thundering, I watched it spread its wings and disappear from view.
Not even the fierce predator wanted to hang around.
“Seraphena.”
My chest seized at the hard, cold voice that had to be conjured from the darkest hours of the night. What I’d done to the Shade fell to the wayside, replaced by the knowledge that I should’ve seen this coming. He had my blood in him—lots of it now. He would’ve felt the extreme burst of fear, even if it had been brief—just as he had in the courtyard earlier. Maybe it wasn’t even the blood as much as the Primal ember inside me that had once belonged to him. Who knew? None of that mattered at the moment. What did was the fact that I couldn’t just lay here, wishing I could sink into the ground. My heart still hammering away, I slowly rose to my feet. Pressure clamped down on my chest as I faced him.
Nyktos stood several feet from me, appearing every bit the Primal ruler of the Shadowlands he was. He cut a striking figure in a deep gray tunic, his hair swept back. The lines of his face were harder and colder than I’d ever seen them.