Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 115347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 577(@200wpm)___ 461(@250wpm)___ 384(@300wpm)
Protect your mate.
Instincts collided, waging a war of their own, stripping him of civility. His own ferocious savagery sprang loose. He slammed his axes into a trunk, again and again, never pausing. Bits of bark flew in every direction. A crack widened. Lengthened. Wham, wham, wham. More cracks formed. More and more. His biceps pulled and eased, pulled and eased, as if stuck in a loop. Then a tree fell over, dead.
His instinct pinged, alerting him to a problem. He felt as if he were hurting...his mate. As if he were breaking some kind of vow.
No, no. I protect her. The belua hope to enslave her. He split the dead tree in two, just in case. Revive from that.
A grin spread. One opponent felled. Seventeen others to go. Never had anything felt so right. Or so wrong. Other belua arrived on the scene, exiting the shadows. Multiple stonemen and a beast Micah couldn’t begin to identify. These creatures attempted to avoid him as well. He wasn’t so merciful. They were right to fear him.
In a constant state of motion, he tore through his enemies, wreaking absolute havoc. After the second, third and fourth death, his grin faded. This felt...wrong. Far more wrong than right.
“No!” Red shrieked. “Micah! Do not hurt them! Please!”
Another hallucination. She occupied their tent, as ordered. She was safe. Because there was no way the real queen commanded him to spare the lives of her former captors. Creatures who had used her. Drained her of energy, forcing her to sleep. Not unless...
No. No, she had not lied to him.
He hacked and hacked and hacked. More trees fell. Down went the stonemen. The mystery creature. This is right. Surely only right. Yet he felt as if he were yanked in two directions.
“Noooo! Stop!” Red’s voice hit his awareness again. Terror and pain saturated her tone.
He frowned as he felled another enemy. She’d sounded closer to him. Hack, hack, hack. Another tree ceased moving. No others? He puffed with...disappointment? But shouldn’t he feel satisfaction? His mate was now out of danger.
He blinked rapidly, the world coming into view once more. The camp loomed in the distance. Smoke billowed across the battlefield. Red raced toward him, scarlet hair streaming behind her, cheeks wet with tears.
He opened his arms to catch her, to hold and soothe her. Everything would be all right now.
A sharp sting registered, and he frowned again. Looked at the source of the pain. His bride had...stabbed him?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MY BABIES!
The trees had finally budded again, only to...to... Devastating emotions deluged Viori. She stood before Micah, her dagger shoved into his gut, his hand shackling her wrist as warm blood dripped over them both.
He gaped at her, confused. “Vee?”
Hot tears streaked her cheeks, her emotions surging. First came shock. Then rage and grief. Finally, agony. Each built upon the backs of the others. She struggled to make sense of what had happened.
No, not true. She knew what had happened. I’ve lost them. But, but... Not Patrick and Nala. Not Rocklord, Linda, and Prickles. Please, not James Thaddeus Puddingstone III, too. Not her precious Krunk. Beings who’d been with her since her earliest days in the forest. Her beloved children. Her oldest friends and fiercest protectors. Dead. All dead. Lost, like the children she’d created in the mortal world. Her dear, sweet Mothan, Nessa and Harry.
Nothing but bits and pieces around her. Only John and Snowy were missing from the rubble, and only because they relied on their habitats for survival. Her knees shook, threatening to buckle.
She longed to flitter to a world far, far away. One she’d never visited. To lose herself in new oddities and feel out of place yet again. To scream and sob. To forget what she knew. But she’d dropped her pebble as she’d sprinted toward her husband—her greatest enemy. The male responsible for the slaughter of her family.
They’d fought so valiantly. Even without receiving her instructions, they had ignored Micah, the very king who had hacked and torched them one by one. The only reason they’d lost. All the while, his people had watched, cheering him on.
Praises still rang out. “All hail Micah the Unwilling!”
The Unwilling. The title clanged in her ears. A title belonging to the one who’d killed more of her family members than Kaysar.
Micah is the Unwilling. Sickness churned in her stomach. She should have known, should have guessed. Now, it was too late. Her precious ones were dead and gone, never to be seen or heard from again.
Horror washed over her with increasingly intense waves. “No!” The denial burst from her at last. There must be a way to fix this. To bring them back. A song had always worked in the past—a new song! Yes!
“Why did you attack me?” Micah demanded. Despite the hardness of his tone, he gently caressed her cheek with his free hand. “I’ve saved you. They’ll never again hold you prisoner.”