Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 590(@200wpm)___ 472(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
The blank glaze of her stare.
No…
Another pock-mock of dirt bounced into the air.
Another aimed right at my feet.
I threw myself behind the bush where Mollie had appeared, hiding from the snipers on the wall.
Through the branches and night-glossed leaves, I stared at my friend.
A woman who’d been so brave.
A jewel who’d traded her life for mine.
Great wracking sobs gathered in my belly.
I bit my fist.
Not yet.
Not yet.
I couldn’t cry.
Not yet.
Looking back at the fortress, I staggered to my feet and ran.
Flames danced from multiple stories and windows. The west wing had a hole in it where a dayroom used to be. The deck where I’d kneeled beside Henri so many times had caught fire, the wooden planks blazing like a platform to hell.
Another island-shaking BOOM.
In the distance, the tower standing guard to the dungeons shivered, shuddered, and tumbled. A waterfall of stone fell in slow motion, taking with it carved angels and gargoyles and Victor’s proudly waving flag of a brilliant sparkling diamond.
I kept running into battle.
Shadows of fights between Masters and jewels flickered in the backdrop of chaos. A few jewels jerked and twitched on the ground where Masters electrocuted them, only to be pounced on from behind by other jewels.
I ran into the thick of the acrid smoke, ducking past a fighting Master and guard, then dashing past a jewel hacking a Master to pieces with a butcher’s blade from the kitchens.
I didn’t study faces.
I didn’t want to know.
Rain continued to fall from the sprinkler system, hissing and splashing all around me as I darted back into the fortress.
I almost ran straight into Kirk who staggered out of the games room, soot streaking his face, blood dripping down his arms.
“Kirk.”
He blinked, dead-eyed and barely alive. “Ily, I....” Raising his hands, he frowned as if he couldn’t remember how he’d bathed in crimson. I’d always thought he looked like a Viking with his tall frame, blond hair, and slightly wild eyes, but now he looked as if he’d stepped through time after slaughtering an entire medieval village.
Looking past him into the room where a billiards table waited along with dart boards, chessboards, and so many other games, I spied the reason for all the blood.
A Master I didn’t recognise lay in the middle of the carpet—his face caved in thanks to the billiard ball used to smash his skull apart. The black eight ball sat in a pool of gleaming red, streaked with evidence of its involvement.
Kirk’s hands shook as he stepped toward me, his gaze beseeching, broken. “Help me. Help me bring her back.”
I flinched as he crashed into me, slamming me into a wall. Water hissed over our shoulders, raining, always raining. “Suri. She left me. She’s hiding. But…we’re fighting back. She can come home now. I’ve made it safe for her. See?” He grabbed my cheeks, smearing me in the Master’s cooling blood. “Help me find her, Ily. Please.”
My heart cracked all over again even as nausea rushed up my throat.
God, his mind had snapped. How many others had snapped too? We might lose today or win today, but none of us would walk away from this without lifelong, soul-crippling scars.
“It’s okay, Kirk.” I squeezed his forearms, my skin slipping on his. “Just let me go, and we can—”
“Do you know where she is?” His fingers tightened on my temples.
I winced as he added yet more pain to all the rest. A flash of light-headedness made me sway. “No. But if you—”
“You’re hiding her from me. You’re all hiding her. No one will tell me where she is!”
“Kirk, stop—”
“No, you stop!” He pressed his nose to mine, snarling right in my face. “Tell me where Suri is and—”
“Kirk.” A masculine, familiar wonderful voice. I looked around Kirk’s slim shoulders and sagged in relief.
Peter.
Not dead.
Alive.
Vibrant and alive and…different.
He stepped out of the smoky, raining gloom. Back in his rightful place as shepherd of the jewels, his fingers wrapped tightly around a sword from the armoury. His linen trousers singed in places and blackened in others. Soot dabbled his chest while his handsome face no longer looked kind and protective but ruthless and vicious.
He reminds me of Henri.
Stepping toward us, he held the sword facing downward, but his chest flexed as if ready to swing. “Suri is dead, Kirk. And you will be too if you don’t let Ily go.”
A switch flicked in Kirk’s barely functioning stare. He blinked again and saw reality instead of nightmares. “Oh God. Oh fuck.” Ripping his hands off me, he reeled backward. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay—”
“I have to find her.” His face blanked again, and with a blood-curdling scream, he charged through the smoke and vanished deeper into the fortress.
Peter stepped close and touched my throat, making me jump. His power from before faded a little as his shoulders slouched. “You’re drenched in blood, jaanu.”