Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
“Well, you should be taking the blame for telling me not to reveal my abilities to the guardian. I was only doing what you said. I showed the absolute bare minimum of my powers that was needed to make sure she was okay. I even directed the guardian to the safest exit for her to get some air. He thinks his ability to navigate the halls was his doing. Thank goodness he is easily distracted by pretty women, hmm? Bonus for us.”
“I swear to—” I couldn’t even form the thought. I was so mad I couldn’t think straight. How could a situation go so wrong? This whole night was one car crash to the next, and now this—one of our own had been in mortal danger.
The leaders had been hammering me on my odd cairn setup with Austin. On the fact that I only handled a few people and he essentially managed our territory. They brought up the fact that money had just been handed to me, I hadn’t had to earn it. When I pointed out that they’d taken over for family and that money had also been passed down to them, they moved on to their many years of experience and harped on how I had virtually none. I didn’t have proper guardians or many gargoyles at all. My success in battle? Probably hearsay or luck.
They’d told me that I could hope for beginner status at best. My claim to fame of being a female gargoyle? Good enough to get invited to the best parties, not good enough to be handed status, especially since I had no history of status. No family. No connections. Everyone had to start from the bottom and rise, whether by blood or sweat, and I was no different.
Fat lot of good it had done us to invite them. And now I had their stupid guardians wandering through my dipshit of a house, a raid coming that I did not need, and poor Nessa left unprotected for so long she could’ve died.
“Damn it,” I said under my breath, taking the stairs to the second floor. My magic pounded; I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t even direct it. My mind was fuzzy from wine, and my mood was sour. I was pissed—so pissed—and disheartened.
The door swung open as I got to it. I still slammed it with magic, blasting off hinges and ripping it from the frame. It tumbled into the hall, banging against a wall, half propped up. I kicked it as hard as I could. My toe erupted in pain, but I didn’t care, feeling gratification that the door fell to the ground and lay flat. Once I reached it, I stomped over it as hard as I could.
Ulric’s door swung open when I got close. He waited beside it, his expression tight.
“We got there as soon as we could,” he said, getting out of the way so I could enter. “We felt her on the ledge and moved to get into position, but the house gave us an all-clear.”
“I know. I felt it. That’s what dragged my focus away from those morons in the sitting room,” I groused. “How is she?”
The light in his bathroom was on but the door closed, with Nessa and Niamh behind it.
“She’s okay. A little shaky but in high spirits. Nathanial and Jasper are circling the house, waiting for the guardian to come back. Cyra and Hollace stayed back initially because their forms are so easy to see at night. We didn’t want to spook the guardian and have him accidentally or on purpose drop her. But now they are keeping pace with him, making sure he comes back here to face you. He had to go get another change of clothes. He ripped all his things when he shifted to go after her.”
“What happened?” I asked, guilt tearing at me.
Ulric lifted his hands helplessly as Sebastian knocked softly at the bathroom door. “She says it was a misunderstanding of sorts. She was trying to test the guardian’s reactions to a presence, and he responded violently, as they do. The dolls rushed in, and that freaked him out—as they do—so he whisked her into the hidden passageways. I guess Ivy House had left a secret door open in case she needed it. Well, he took it, and they got to talking and calmed things down. So they went outside for a breather, then she lost her footing and pitched over the side.”
“She omitted details from that story,” Ivy House informed me, “but what he said is accurate. The guardian came to his senses in the tunnel, got her some air—”
“Yes, I know,” I snapped. “You’ve mentioned that part. What you didn’t mention was the part where you should’ve informed me of the altercation in the first place so I could’ve monitored it personally. I can’t feel Nessa’s emotions; I don’t have anything to trigger me when something goes wrong with her. That was your job.”