Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 125077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“I guess I killed enough of them to break the wards.” I let him hold me and breathed him in, letting his closeness soothe me.
“I was on the sword and then I was here,” Evan was saying.
Fen pressed the thermos to her lips again. “Take more.”
She pushed it away. “No. Eww. I don’t need it. I feel fine.”
“What has happened to the princess’s hair?” Eddie stood beside me, looking to Evan.
Sure enough, a big portion of her auburn hair had gone a pitch black, and I would have sworn she was far paler than normal.
“It doesn’t matter,” Fen swore. “You’re fine. You’re alive. And hey, you always said you wanted to color it.”
Evan was staring at a long strand of midnight hair. “Yeah. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m sure taking Dad’s blood stopped whatever transformation was going to take place. I feel fine. I do. Christopher, thank you.”
Fen stood and picked Evan up, not caring a bit that he was naked. “Yes, thank you. She wouldn’t be here without you, Father. I will never be able to repay you.”
Christopher shook his head, and it was easy to see he was torn. “I hope you still feel that way over time. Evan…well, I pray the king’s blood works as you hope it will.”
We all did.
“Why is there a hellhound here, mistress?” Eddie frowned.
“His name is Puff,” Evan said as Fen started taking her back to their rooms. “Come on, Puff! Eww, don’t lick that. We don’t know where that’s been.”
Sure enough, Puff was reveling in the chaos. He was running through the bodies like they were a field of daisies.
Eddie took off after Puff, vowing to clean him and the room up and swearing that his sweet brownie staff was going to require therapy.
And probably some whisky-soaked cream.
“Kelsey? What the actual hell? I’m going to kill Tix.” Gray stood in the middle of the bodies, his hands fisted on his hips. “Puff, don’t you eat that witch.”
Eddie finally managed to scoop the puppy up. “I will handle the situation, Lord Sloane. Should I find a bed for Olivia?”
I moved to join Gray, Trent following me. “Nope. We need two crates. One for the hell beast and one for the puppy. You should make sure Liv’s dampens magic. And that it’s totally uncomfortable. It’s cool. You’ve got probably until morning before she wakes up. I hit her with a hell of a spell.”
“You worked magic?” Gray asked.
I shrugged and went on my toes to kiss him. “It was more like Gladys soaked up some Myrddin and spat it all back out through me. It was a lot. Weirdly, I feel better. Less murdery than usual.”
“Well, probably because you killed an entire coven,” he replied, shaking his head at all the chaos.
“She spared Liv.” Trent moved in behind me. “Apparently we have a lot to talk about over dinner. I don’t guess you need the reports Nate sent.”
“Nope. I know who did it and why.” A thought suddenly occurred to me. “We should probably destroy those paintings.”
That was when every painting in the room seemed to explode. There was a cracking sound and then gray smoke came through, followed by what seemed like a hundred little projectiles. Casey covered Liv with his body and the boys closed ranks around me.
I got ready to fight again, but when I looked the paintings were burned out, holes in the middle of all of them.
I glanced around at the fallout.
“Did they blow them up from the other side?” Trent asked. “This looks like part of a kitchen cabinet. I used to have these in my apartment at the Council building. How weird is that?”
Someone’s curtains had blown in, too.
“Yeah, that’s weird, but we’re burning them anyway. I guess they really didn’t want me to come through.” That had to be the explanation.
“I’m going to wait for Rufus to awaken.” Christopher had taken his wife’s hand. “I must explain why I have broken our highest law.”
Gray moved to him, sidestepping a couple of bodies. “You have been forced to feed the princess?”
Well, I should have known the prophet would have seen that. It meant those consequences likely weren’t over and would have far-reaching effects.
Christopher nodded.
“I will speak to Rufus,” Gray promised. “There will be no punishment. This event was always going to come to pass. He will listen to me.” He glanced back at Trent and me. “Take her out and feed her. I want her ready for tonight. She got to take all her anxiety out. I don’t have a handy coven to kill so I’ll take it out a different way. And Kelsey, I’ll need the full story.”
“Will do.”
It was a good thing I got to eat first because this was going to be a long one.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“You did what?”
I practically screamed the words. And I probably shouldn’t have because I was talking to the Queen of all Vampire, but she’d shocked the holy fuck out of me.