Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 110080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110080 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Not even close. With a grunt, she elbowed his jaw, bending the rod, then punted his groin. Once again, the blade in the toe of her boot ejected on impact, slicing through his nut sack. For fun, she concentrated on those dangly bits until nothing but shreds remained.
Sweat dampened her skin, and her breaths came fast. Shallow. She’d been at this for hours. Ever since she’d tucked Isla in to bed. Training and strengthening, strengthening and training. Blythe’s new obsession. She was still out of practice, but she improved by the day, thanks to the gym she’d installed in her bedroom at the harpy palace.
“Look at you,” her sister, Taliyah, said from the doorway. The tall, slender goddess leaned against the frame, gorgeous in a skimpy red dress, with her pale hair falling around her shoulders. “Rumor says a switch flipped in you when you escaped the Astra. Bye-bye, Good Blythe, hello, Evil Blythe. Ice-cold yet brimming with fiery rage. Utterly unlikable. Detestable even. So of course there’s now talk of erecting a monument in your honor.”
The interruption didn’t stop Blythe. She danced around the dummy, throwing punches. By some miracle, she’d contained her icy, burning rage while Taliyah and Roc had won the first blessing task, and Halo, the second-in-command, had won the next. Now the need to attack the Astra—to maim one in particular—bubbled inside her without cease, threatening to erupt.
“Don’t be too jealous, General Hussy,” she said. “I’m not angling for your position. Yet.”
A snort met her words. “It’s General Huffy, and you know that. Anyway. I kind of miss my only mildly homicidal sister.”
“You have Kaia, Bianka, and Gwen.” Taliyah’s other half sisters, and Blythe’s cousins. Yeah, their family was complicated.
“Are you kidding?” the General exclaimed. “Not one of them has even killed their first battalion yet. They are sweet as sugar.”
“Then you are out of luck, because the old me died with her consort.” She attacked the dummy with more fervor.
Taliyah heaved a sigh. “Have the hallucinations started?”
“Nope.” Most widows were forced to see their slain mates everywhere they looked for the rest of their days, unable to touch. The reason so many of their species opted to waste away in bed or go out gloriously in battle, taking a myriad of enemies along with them.
Many of the harpies who’d lost a consort during the Astra invasion hadn’t even awoken from their forced slumber. The others were busy hallucinating right and left. But not Blythe. She slammed a fist into the dummy’s face. She had yet to see Laban even once, and it wasn’t fair. But she knew who to blame.
“The Astra I inhabited,” she grated. “He filled my head with terrible memories I never lived, and there’s no room for anything else.” Horrors that revolved around a sobbing little boy he’d tortured. A child who had begged for mercy...at first.
A shudder rocked her, vibrating in her wings. Detest the Astra! He’d shattered every bone in the child’s body. Removed his organs, including an entire husk of skin! Hung him upside down and drained him of every drop of blood, laughing all the while.
“I’m due my psychosis,” she continued. Punch. “Deserve my insanity.” Punch, punch, punch.
“His name is—”
“I know. Roux.” Pronounced “rue.” With a hiss, she clawed the dummy’s face to shreds. “The name fits him well, considering I’m going to make him rue the day of his birth.” She’d meant what she’d said when she exited his body. For the rest of her existence, she would live only for his death. “Nothing will stop me. You know this, yes?”
Another sigh seeped from her sister. “I do. But he’s our ally, not our enemy.”
“No, sister. He’s your ally. He will always and forever be my only enemy.”
The majority of harpies—those without consorts—were like Taliyah. They’d already forgiven the Astra for their crimes. Beefcake had to beef, right? The bulk of the sisterhood considered the nine warlords and their legions of soldiers to be friends. But not Blythe. Never her.
The Astra shouldn’t be allowed to live while Laban, her only addiction, was now ash in the breeze. His body had been torched with the rest of the dead while Blythe was stuck inside Roux.
The problem was, the Astra were deathless. Even if she removed their heads, they would revive. For gods like them, such injuries meant nothing. Not when an ordinary weapon was used, anyway. But. Similar to Blythe and trinite—the very substance now walling her great city—the Astra possessed a kryptonite. Everyone did.
She had only to find theirs. And she would. Soon.
“At least speak with Neeka before you act,” Taliyah said. “She’s the most powerful oracle in, like, ever. Seriously, the woman can see everyone’s future but her own.”
“Fine. Where is she?” Blythe wouldn’t turn down trusted inside information.
“Wellll. That, I don’t know. She up and disappeared again. But don’t worry. I’ve got my best spies on the lookout. Though so far they’ve only uncovered rumors about an underworld king who might have abducted her to his Hell kingdom for reasons.”