Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121324 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Delilah huffed. “If the potion did that to the bowl, think what it would have done to your system.”
Anabel bristled and jabbed her spoon at the Latina. “You don’t get to pull out the high and mighty school principal tone when you’re in no position to judge me.”
“Of course I do,” said Delilah with a snort. “I judge everyone. I can’t act as scales of justice for karma if I don’t assess people and weigh up their—”
“Stop,” said Wynter, tired. “Just stop.”
Delilah merely chuckled. See, she loved screwing with people.
Anabel cast the Latina a quick look. “Only you would be laughing mere minutes after almost getting killed by a basilisk shifter. Well, let me tell you, you would not have been laughing if he bit you. Nu-uh. One once attacked and then sank his fangs into me. Freaking asshole. Historical records say I died from a rampant illness. Nope. The venom leached the life right out of me.”
“Why did he kill you?” asked Xavier.
“My brother pissed him off by killing his sister. It was an eye for an eye thing.” Anabel let out a weary sigh. “Truth be told, my brother pissed off a lot of people. He was a good emperor, in the beginning. The people of Rome loved him back then. But he did some harsh, crazy shit later on. Slaughtered family members. Executed people on a whim, especially if bored. Threw people into arenas to get torn apart by lions. He even insisted on being worshipped as a God at one point. Neos Helios he called himself.”
The term tickled Wynter’s memory.
“Thankfully my nephew, Nero, made a better ruler . . . though he was sadly the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty,” Anabel continued. “But, yeah, it was so sad that my brother hopped aboard the insanity train like that. One thing I can say for him is that he did not have an incestuous relationship with me or my two sisters. That was just a sleazy rumor.”
Wynter frowned. “Hold up, are you talking about Caligula? He was your brother?”
“Yes. We were so close once.”
Delilah snorted. “Of course you were. Neurotic calls to neurotic. And just to say, I cannot believe you called the basilisk an asshole. That’s damn harsh.”
The blonde blinked. “Harsh? He killed me. Did you miss that part?”
“You had it coming,” Delilah told her. “I mean, did you do anything to stop your nutcase of a brother? Uh, no. You sat back while he slaughtered and executed and made lion-food out of innocent people.”
“I didn’t sit back, I—”
“Let him do filthy things to you at night like a heathen.”
“That was a rumor! It wasn’t true!”
“I’m supposed to believe the sister of a deranged psychopath when she’s equally deranged?”
Wynter sighed. “Ignore her, Anabel, she doesn’t mean what she says; she’s just trying to get you all wound up.”
Delilah let out another snort. “As it happens, I—”
A blaring alarm boomed to life outside the cottage, loud and piercing enough to carry around the entire city.
Anabel froze. “Am I hearing things again?”
“No, the alarm has been sounded,” said Wynter, anticipation trickling through her system, slick and warm. “Someone on patrol must have spotted the Aeons approaching.”
Cursing, Anabel switched off the stove and turned back to Wynter, all business. “Then we’d better get moving.”
Delilah and Xavier both stood while a seemingly oblivious Hattie kept her nose buried in her book.
Delilah gently nudged the old woman. “Hey. Alarm. Aeons. Danger.”
Hattie snapped her paperback closed, muttering about “goddamn bookblockers,” and finally rose from her chair.
Her gaze on the backyard, Delilah pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “The guards and lycans are fast hurrying out of here.”
Of course they were. Everyone was needed on the surface during battles unless, for one reason or another, they couldn’t fight or had been assigned another duty.
A brisk, hurried knock came at the front door. Wynter crossed the living room and opened the door to find a heavily breathing Demetria.
The oracle put a hand to her chest. “Thank God you’re not on the surface yet.” She scrambled into the cottage, clutching her hands together. “There’s something you need to know.”
Wynter frowned. “About what? Did you have another vision?” She tensed as an otherworldly breeze scuttled around her ankles, carrying a warning.
“Not a vision,” replied Demetria. “More of a secret.”
The air behind the oracle rippled as if a curtain was being pulled aside, and there stood Saul, a smile splitting his lips. “Surprise,” he sang, kicking the front door shut.
Hell.
*
From the rooftop of the manor, Cain glanced down as yet more people filed out of the iron gates below. Wynter wasn’t among them. She should have left the city by now. He had to assume that she’d beat him to it and was now, as pre-arranged, positioned inside one of the plaza’s stores with her coven.