Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Mereden’s voice rings out clear in the crypt. “My father would take the rings.”
I sit up, looking over at her.
Her expression is calm but full of sympathy. “I understand how you feel, Aspeth. But my father would take the rings. He would break every finger from this corpse to take the rings. He would tear every bit of jewelry from her and not feel a bit of remorse. So would anyone else in the guild.” She gestures at the sarcophagus. “You can put the ring with her and close the lid. And it will probably stay closed for a few more days, until someone comes to find us. And then they’ll loot this place, because that’s what the guild does. They’ll end up sold separately or together to some rival of your father’s and then where will you be?”
She’s right. I hate that she’s right.
“You can put them back and have a clear conscience and let Barnabus conquer your lands,” Mereden continues in that practical voice of hers. “He’ll put your family to the blade and Honori will become Chatworth Secondary, because there’s already a Chatworth Hold. You can leave all of this for someone else, or you can take the rings and keep them together as they were intended to be.” Her voice grows soft. “You can honor the people they came from.”
“How do I do that?” I ask, aching.
“Name your kids after them,” Lark suggests.
“I can’t pronounce their names!”
“You’d better mucking practice,” Lark replies, but there’s a gentle note in her brusque words. “Make sure their names live on. Make sure their love lives on. What greater way to honor them?”
To my horror, I’m crying. I’m crying because I can be morally right and dead, or I can do something I know is wrong and save a father I don’t even like and people who don’t care about me. I cry because all I wanted was to save myself and have an adventure, and now I’ve doomed my friends at my side, and the Taurian I’m falling for is going to hate me.
So I cry.
And I take the rings. Because at the end of it all, I still want to live.
I inwardly thank her for the rings and commit her unusual name to memory. Andhrbrhnth. His name—Mhrfnswth. I’ll remember them.
Then I put the rings together, holding them aloft, and the inscription glows.
To create the impenetrable mist wall about your domain, wear both rings upon one finger and recite the word of power.
An endless mist wall about Honori Hold.
It’s exactly what my father needs.
FORTY-TWO
HAWK
Mine.
Find Aspeth. Knot her. Claim her.
Fill her belly with your seed.
The thoughts echo and repeat inside my foggy mind. I’d had the presence of mind to grab both Magpie and Barnabus before they could escape and bound them together before hauling them down to the guild, but the Conquest Moon has now risen and I can barely think. I’m dimly aware that I’m still at the guild hall. Still listening to the order question both Barnabus and Magpie, and all the while, the hand of the god tightens upon my cock, my knot throbbing.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
I don’t have to look at the sky to know that the Conquest Moon is blazing across the heavens. I can feel it in every beat of my pulse.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
I move through a fog of red haze, my cock hard and throbbing. It’s intolerable right now, but by tonight, I’ll be insensible. I have things to do before I completely lose myself. I try to focus. I head to the nearest room and take myself in hand, imagining Aspeth’s creamy breasts spilling from her bodice. I come hard, milking my knot as best I can, but it rises just as quickly once more, leaving me unsatisfied.
Fuck. This is going to be a long day.
I grab a curtain and rip it from its moorings, using it to clean off the mess I’ve made. Normal-thinking Hawk would be horrified. Conquest Moon–crazed Hawk doesn’t give a fuck. I tuck my sensitive cock into my pants and make my way back to the guild magistrate’s office, where Magpie and Barnabus are being questioned separately.
Find her.
Knot her.
Fill her with your seed.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Rooster appears in the fog and I snarl at him. He backs up a step, but remains close. “It appears that Drop Thirteen has been collapsed.”
“She told you that?” Mine. Mine. Mine.
Find Aspeth.
Get her squirming on your knot.
“No. But we’ve done a cursory check of the drops and Thirteen looks as if it’s been tampered with. We had a man stationed there and he hasn’t reported back. This is terrible. Just terrible.” He peers at me. “Are your eyes…red?”
Mine. Mine.
Aspeth. Where is Aspeth?
Aspeth’s cunt clenching around my knot. Aspeth panting and rocking against me. The scent of her in my nose.
Find her.
Knot her.
“…going?”
The word barely penetrates the haze. I look up and I’m outside. Not sure how I got there. Not sure why Rooster’s following me. Bad idea to follow a Taurian on the edge of rut.