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)
Then. That moment. She let the rage overtake her. Rage directed at him and yes, even herself. Would he have stayed his hand if she had opened up to him?
No, probably not. His hatred for her children ran deep. Perhaps deeper than his hatred for Kaysar.
She’d been a fool to wed Micah. They were never going to make a marriage work. They’d been fools to try. Something else to blame him for. Had he not blinded her with talk of an obstacle-free life...
There was no such thing as an obstacle-free life.
Her eyes narrowed, her gaze leveling on her new husband. The cause of her pain. Kill Micah. Gather the remains of the children. Create.
Excellent plan. None better. With a sharp battle cry, she twisted the dagger.
He grunted and squeezed her wrist, bruising. “What are you doing, wife?” Their gazes held, his rage amplifying by the second. “Answer me.”
“I’m fixing what you destroyed!” Here he was, her brand-new husband. The warrior who had slaughtered her loved ones right before her eyes while she could only scream herself hoarse, begging him to stop. “Consider our kingdom officially divided.”
His nostrils flared. “What I destroyed? You mean your jailers?”
“I mean my family.”
“Family,” he echoed with a hollow tone. “You love them. You lied to me.” He thrust her backward, out of her blade’s range. “We aren’t fated. You used me. Why?”
She stumbled but righted quickly, tightening her grip on the bloody dagger, preparing for another strike.
They faced off, two foes with nothing else to lose. Viori dared him to act against her. Never mind the hurt and confusion that molded his features.
“I did betray you,” she spit. “From the very beginning.”
“Tell me why,” he reiterated, the flow of blood going from a river to a trickle, to nothing as he healed.
Unfair! He had suffered so little, while her pain was eating her alive. “For centuries you have killed my children,” she snarled. “You must pay.”
“Belua are your children?” He waved his arms to encompass the slaughter. “The beings who have plagued my territories for generations did not hold you prisoner?”
Guilt attempted to flare anew, but she stamped it out. He made it sound as if her brood had gotten bored and decided to play stomp-stomp and stab-stab with new toys. No. Absolutely not. That wasn’t what had happened at all. “They are—were—creatures with high defenses, and they targeted perceived threats for extermination.” Because they were extensions of her, driven by her defenses.
Warriors closed around them, forming a wall of strength, clearly eager for a command to strike, their suspicions in full force despite their earlier cheer. Muffin and Sprinkles prowled circles around Viori and her despised spouse, hissing at anyone who dared step too close.
“I brought them to life with my glamara,” she continued, pushed past her limit. “They were—are—my everything.” Wanting to lash out at him, to hurt him, she forced one corner of her mouth to curl into an icy smile. “They were also your stepchildren. You did agree to see to their care. A lie, obviously.”
Even as she spoke, questions surged. Why had the trees broken her command and come here? Worry alone? Or something more? Why had they budded again? Why now? Micah must be responsible since they’d only ever done so when she neared him. But how? Why, why, why?
“You...you made them.” He reared back, shock and agony playing over his features, both as staggering as hers. Grief followed. “They truly are your children.”
Then. That moment. She watched as his rage overtook him. He all but spewed malice at her.
The surrounding soldiers leaped back, as if afraid to get too close to him.
“I understand your plot now,” he continued. “You came here to seduce the beast tamer. To punish the one who has destroyed so many of your abominations. You are as evil as the monsters you form. Toying with innocents, treating them as your prey.”
“I see no innocents here,” she countered. “Soon, I’ll see no one at all.”
“You think to make more.” He gasped the words. Without removing his gaze from her, he barked a command to his men. “Gather the ash. Scatter every speck. Blight the belua from the realm.”
How dare he? Without the ash, she couldn’t re-create her children. Start from scratch, yes. But re-create? No. Exactly what Micah hoped to prevent. Fury and hurt morphed into pure, undiluted hatred.
“Do. Not. Move,” she shouted, dropping and clawing at the ground, drawing mounds of ash nearer. “That is an order from your very powerful queen.”
The men didn’t so much as twitch.
Kaysar was right. This Dusklands royal should be eliminated posthaste. Something she could handle on her own. No truce stopped her. She might not have the strength to create a new army, but she could combine the elements of each creature, constructing a new being entirely.
Arrows, spears and swords were pointed in her direction as the fae alternated their glances between her and Micah.