Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“It was his punishment for returning to Aeon without you,” Esther added. “In that sense, his blood is on your hands. All you had to do was return and restore the town’s health. But no. And now your precious mentor is no longer with us. Don’t despair, though; the two of you will soon be reunited. Well, perhaps not ‘soon.’ Going by just how much you enraged the Aeons, they may well torture you for a very long time before finally killing you.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen. Your little attempt to detain me will fail, as will any attempt the rest of your army makes. But don’t take my word for it. Give it your best shot. I’m thinking it’ll be fun to watch you try.”
While Esther made a sad attempt at smack talk, Wynter nodded along and quietly warned her coven, “Be ready. They’ll attack hard, knowing they can heal me. They’ll want to kill all of you purely to spite me.”
Xavier cast her a sideways glance. “Are they going to attack from afar?” he asked, his voice too low to carry to the coven.
“Yes,” Wynter replied. “And so are we.”
“Oh,” whined Anabel/Mary. “Using magick is boring. I want to slice off heads.”
“We’re way too outnumbered to go charging at them,” Wynter pointed out.
“Some might charge at us,” said Xavier. “A few are armed.”
“No, they’re there solely to protect Esther. They’ll defend her from the other townspeople so that she and the rest of their coven can concentrate on blasting us with magick.” It wasn’t a coven made up of warrior witches. Most of them relied on magick alone, and they were powerful enough to be able to defeat opponents without getting up close and personal.
Wynter had an edge here, though. She knew each of them well. Knew their strengths and weaknesses. Knew how best to take each of them down.
Esther and her coven undoubtedly thought that they could boast having the same knowledge about Wynter. In truth, they knew very little about her magick. Something they’d soon discover.
Anabel/Mary sighed and stabbed her sword into a corpse. “I’m tired of just standing here. And I’m thirsty—”
“No drinking blood,” Wynter ordered before, so done with Esther’s smack talk, calling out, “Well, shall we get this over with?”
Cutting off her words, Esther gave her a courteous smile that held a hint of maliciousness. “That would suit me fine.” She hissed something at the people flanking here, and they all then began to chant.
“Here we go,” said Wynter.
A glittering mist of silver magick clogged the air and rushed at her. She could feel the compulsion that throbbed within it. The bitches thought to force her to drop her sword and follow them blindly.
Wynter waved a bored hand. Her own magick slashed through the air, dark and thick, slicing through the mist and severing the spell, causing the mist to dissipate.
Esther ceased chanting, shock written all over her face. The other Moonstar witches exchanged uneasy looks.
Wynter cast them a challenging smile. “You’re gonna have to do better than that.” She blasted them with a red-hot, toxic gust of magick that whipped their faces, leaving ugly, hissing welts. “Yeah, I was right. This is going to be fun.”
*
Adrenaline spiking through his bloodstream, Cain dodged yet another flaming spear, watching Lailah bare her teeth in frustration. Bites and stings dotted her bare flesh, and he’d bet they itched and throbbed like a mother.
Retaliating fast, he released a ball of power that exploded in the air as it neared the Aeons, the force of it making several stagger and causing minor fissures to appear in the cliff face.
The Aeons were doing exactly as he’d expected—they were repeatedly calling on the natural elements and sending out blasts of air, fire, water, and earth.
Good choice of ‘weaponry,’ really.
Such power was potent, and they were experts at wielding it. But Cain was an expert at twisting it. Which was something he did repeatedly. And so water became locusts. Winds became hornets. Sand became bees. Fire became tiger mosquitoes.
And he sent those little creatures right at the Aeons each time.
Witnessing the bastards squirm and wriggle and slap at themselves was nothing short of entertaining, particularly because the Aeons knew and hated that they looked ridiculous. Cain wasn’t simply doing it to amuse himself and his creature, though. He wanted their fury, wanted to lure them into making mistakes.
It was working.
They no longer fought like a true squadron. They were each more focused on wiping away the taunting smirk that he purposely kept on his face. And so the number of Aeons was steadily dropping. Not fast enough for Cain’s liking, though.
He would have preferred to focus on killing those shielding the siblings, but he couldn’t afford to take his attention off Lailah and Saul for long—they were attacking too hard and fast, aiming to keep the Ancients preoccupied so that their backup could spring surprises on them. It was a technique they’d used during their last war. It had worked well then.