Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
What’s the point?
I can’t bring back the dead. I can only look forward and focus on taking down my enemies. Pretty much every creature here.
I’ll admit, when I was first brought to this world against my will, I felt terrified. Monsters are real. Giants, real. Vampires, real. Trolls, shifters, dragons, all real. And none of them are like the creatures I knew from fairy tales. Take all those sweet furry creatures, inject them with evil, and make them indiscriminate carnivores, and you have Monsterland. Where no one can be trusted.
No problem. I can’t be trusted either. Because I’ve learned the rules of the game: kill or be eaten.
“I will make you a deal, Lake,” says Alwar. “You help me create something stable here, and I promise to take you home personally.”
He’s actually proposing to become my size? Because that’s exactly what would happen if he crossed over.
I narrow my eyes. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you are my wife.”
In the past, he made it clear that he sees humans as tiny, pathetic creatures. So I hardly think the fact that I’m his wife would justify such a dramatic downgrade in his eyes. Alwar is a warrior. He leads the Wall Men. He’s all about power.
“And?” I fold my arms over my chest, and my skin catches Alwar’s eye when several red letters appear in the air in front of me and then turn into a black symbol. The symbol floats to my arm and sinks in, dislodging other symbols from their places.
“God, this is so distracting.” I tug on the long black sleeve of my dress. I’m covered in these damned moving tattoos all the way up to my neck. As ruler, I’m the keeper of the vows—basically every law, promise, and treaty that governs the creatures. As new vows are made or become obsolete, the symbols shuffle around. I hate it. I hate that when I look in the mirror, I no longer see a woman with straight black hair or the dark catlike eyes and high cheekbones of my mother. All I see is a pale-as-fuck, tattoo-covered monster with fangs.
“Well?” I prod.
Alwar’s gaze remains fixed down on me, but he doesn’t speak.
I know it’s because he’s thinking carefully. He has the habit of either only telling me just enough to shut me up or nothing at all. He loves keeping me in the dark.
“You vowed on our wedding day to be honest,” I remind him.
“I have not broken my vow. I am merely choosing to answer your question at a later date, when the time is right.”
I knew it. “And I am choosing to go find a snack.” I turn to head inside, where he can’t follow. Too big.
“Lake, wait. We must come to an agreement.” He puts his foot down. Literally. It’s blocking my way.
I look up at this man who I once thought was too beautiful for words. The perfection of his face, with the straight nose, pronounced cheekbones, and angular jaw, is only surpassed by his intense blue eyes. In my life, I’ve only seen one other man more gorgeous, and that’s his brother Bard. Now, I don’t see any of that masculine beauty. All I see is food.
I eye his tree-trunk-sized calf. It’s covered in a sheen of coarse black leg hair. Every few feet is a battle scar.
“You’ve already eaten,” Alwar says, guessing my thoughts. Not so difficult.
I stare up, my eyes locked on him like a cheetah fixes on a gazelle.
He grunts with frustration. “Fine, but not here.”
“Then where?”
“My tent.”
He doesn’t want his men to see him giving his blood to me. It’ll make him look weak. “Point the way, husband.”
CHAPTER TWO
The entire time I drank from the vein in Alwar’s leg, he had a giant boner. No pun intended. He didn’t even try to hide it. Not that he could, considering the man only wears a suede loincloth. But as I lay there in the valley of his crotch, sating my never-ending thirst, I felt his finger run down the length of my back like I was his little toy. He was getting off on it. Not like I got off on being bitten by Benicio when I was his “guest” here at the palace. Benicio’s venom did more than excite me, it made me an addict. I would have done anything for it. Die even. But for Alwar, he’s too large for my bite to affect him. No, his arousal comes from something else. I just don’t know what.
When I finish, he tries to convince me again to give the inaugural address and “affirm I will rule with an iron hand” until the plan is in place. The plan he’s referring to is my plan. Or, it used to be before I turned.
Like an idiot, I thought I could remove the threat to my world by making this one less violent. I told them they needed to build reservoirs to store water long term, that the leaders had to sit down together and come up with real laws that give every kingdom a say. I told them to start growing their own food instead of constantly raiding each other for meat. I believed if they were well fed, had plenty of water, and they shared power, the threat to my world would be gone.