Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18410 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 74(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
“I still can’t believe he gave his life for her.” Rubin murmured, the grief apparent in his dark eyes. The youngest in the group, he was, without knowing, the only one who felt sympathy for the scion.
“What kind of bargain could he have possibly made?” Jaspion wondered aloud.
They all looked at Archer, but he didn’t answer. His shock didn’t show through his passive facade, one he had learned through mimicking his older brother, Fosch himself. He had learned plenty from him, had adored him as a child, looked for approval as a youngling, asked for opinion as a man. Even when Fosch had passed leadership on to him, it was to Fosch he had turned to when a challenge had been issued, a problem had been presented.
The news of the execution had shocked him greatly, so much that he had refused to believe the truth until he had arrived at the stone circle and watched his brother refuse to fulfill the bargain with his own two eyes, heard it with his own ears.
He recalled that year in the spring when he had miraculously recovered from the plague, the vague memory of waking up in the middle of the night to find his brother standing by his bed, his eyes glowing orange with the power he had inherited from his witch mother. Archer touched his forehead, the place where a scar once marked his skin for a few hours, scrubbed his index finger over the phantom mark.
“We could leave her in the wilderness,” Bebbet suggested from his right. The oldest in the entire group, Bebbet was the one who still clung to old traditions and rules with teeth and claws.
“Or send her for Cora to raise.” Jaspion said. He was one of the few who remembered to pass on the news to Fosch’s younger sister, the leader of the earth witch coven.
“Or outright kill her. She’s so tiny. She won’t put up a fight,” they sniggered in unison.
“Enough!” Archer snapped sharply. “We aren’t going to kill her. We aren’t going through all that hassle with the court to just get rid of her.”
“What do you suggest? Are you going to raise her on your own?” Alleena asked with a smirk. “You already have one incompetent hybrid. It wouldn’t be any hardship on you.” The truth was, Alleena felt entitled to Logan’s position, feeling she had been robbed from it, since she was Fosch’s stepsister and even older than Archer himself by a few years. Now, this hybrid appeared out of nowhere, and somehow, Alleena felt threatened by it.
Archer cocked his head to the side, met Alleena’s unflinching stare. He knew she coveted Logan’s position, but rules dictated he was given enough time to heal after the death of a mate, and for Arianna, Archer would give Logan – the son of Arianna’s heart – as much time as he needed.
“That incompetent hybrid you mock, Alleena, is my second, the mate of my daughter. I will make sure that once he has recovered from the shock of losing his mate, to make you the first to challenge him, if you so wish. Unless you would rather challenge me?”
Alleena looked away, as Archer knew she would. Logan was the best fighter he had, no matter if he was not a pure blood. He wasn’t a hybrid, or not a human one, but a mix between the two Dhiultadh clans, though his father – and mother – had never stepped up and assumed responsibility for him.
Archer looked around at the six faces surrounding him, met everyone’s eyes until each and everyone looked away.
“Her name is Roxanne,” he said with the authoritative tone of the clan leader. “You will call her by name, Roxanne Fosch.”
He read the defiance in everyone’s eyes and added, more softly, more deadly, “I don’t know why the bargain was struck, but that Fosch would have had a damn good reason for it. All of you have admired my brother for his cunning, followed his leadership for centuries without a doubt. One deed, and only one deed that we don’t even know the reason for and every one of you is thinking lowly of him. Which one of you has never committed a wrong, a deed to be ashamed of?”
This time, he saw shame on a few expressions before they were turned away.