Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“If you would listen rather than bluster and blow,” Mr. Tom replied, “you’d know she is challenging the miss for placement in the pack. If she beats the miss, then she will rise to the upper echelons in the pack hierarchy.”
“Fer feck’s sake, I know all that.” She scoffed at him. “But that eejit shifter can rise just as high by challenging any of the other highly placed shifters, female or male. She’s choosing the alpha’s mate for a reason, like. Is she tryin’ta get in his pants—”
“Don’t.” I put up a finger as my darkness boiled just below the surface. “Do not follow that train of thought. I’m barely keeping things together, and I don’t need to add a shot of possessive rage to the boiling inferno that is my gargoyle. I’m trying to stay a little chill so that I don’t fly off the handle and accidentally kill this person. Control is my friend right now.”
“You shouldn’t be trying to keep control of your animal, Miss Jessie,” Nathanial said from my other side. He was dressed appropriately for the occasion in house sweats. Hell, nude would have been more appropriate than what Mr. Tom had decided to wear. Nathanial was a gargoyle alpha who acted as my general. Soon, I hoped I’d have more people for him to command. “You should shift and let your gargoyle lead the charge—or at least use her strength and power. Our gargoyles are part of us. We lose strength if we try to separate their primal drive from our consciousness.”
“She’s still thinkin’ like a Jane, that’s all.” Niamh unfurled her hands and reached into her pocket. “Here, Cyra. See if ye can get this one.” She pulled out one of Edgar’s lopsided doilies, bent her knees, and hurled it into the sky like a Frisbee.
“Give her space!” Hollace shouted, jogging a few steps away from Cyra.
Everyone quickly followed Hollace’s lead as a big smile spread across Cyra’s face. She stepped forward before clapping her wrists together.
“Oh, now, Niamh, that was a gift,” Edgar said from behind them as he watched the white doily hit its zenith before starting to arc back toward the dry grass. “It was the other stack that was meant for Cora’s training.”
“Her name is still Cyra, big guy.” Ulric clapped Edgar on the back and then grimaced and slowly removed his hand from the spindly vampire.
“There was a difference in the stacks?” Niamh asked, not taking her eyes off Cyra.
Cyra’s black brows pinched, and her face screwed up with determination. A bright stream of fire burst from between her palms, less than an inch wide, and seared through the sky after the falling doily.
A loud ooh issued from the crowd around the field, all looking at the doily, the nearly blinding stream of fire, or Cyra herself. The blast seared the very edge of the doily. The rest of it caught fire, and a ball of flame tumbled down toward the brown grass below.
“That’s a miss,” Niamh said. “Catching fire after the fact doesn’t count.”
“That’s going to set this whole place on fire, you guys,” I admonished them.
“Jessie, if I may,” Edgar said as flames immediately caught and started spreading. “This might be a great time for you to practice your elemental magic. You should be able to suck in the heat from the fire, and in so doing, smother the flame.”
“Yes, Edgar…” I was already building up my magic to do exactly that when Sebastian and his pal, assistant, and co-criminal mastermind, Nessa, jogged up from where they’d been waiting within my crew. “It’s just that elemental magic is at the very top of my power scale and takes a lot of finesse. I can’t seem to manage it.”
“But that was in practice,” Edgar replied patiently. “Now we are all at risk of being burned alive. Sometimes all we need is pressure, right?”
Nessa—Natasha only during formal occasions—stared at Edgar in utter bewilderment for a very long moment. Thankfully, Sebastian was accustomed to Edgar’s oddness and could mostly ignore it.
“Focus, Jessie,” Sebastian said, crowding in close. “Focus on the intent of the spell. Don’t worry about it working or not working. Then, when you feel it—really feel it—work on your technique as you cast.”
I did as he said, mimicking what we did in practice sessions, and from the way the power thrummed through my body, I knew it would work. A burst of it hurtled toward the growing flames. Thankfully, the grass was well tended and cropped close to the ground, otherwise we’d all need to be running. Instead of dousing the heat, though, my spell fanned the flames higher.
“Crap, that’s wind,” I said, rooting through the easy spells at my disposal for a Plan B.
“Oh, fantastic! Wind!” Edgar clapped. “That is at least an element, Miss Jessie. Well done! I knew you could do it.”