Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 111898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Azar’s gaze shot to the cat figurine and narrowed.
He senses me? Shock punched Rathbone. No one sensed him. Now, he simmered with indecision. Stay or go?
Better question: Had the Memory Keeper killed Lore or not? Would he come for her once her bones were reunited?
As the Astra stalked closer to Rathbone, vines of resolve pierced centuries of disappointment and frustration, growing thicker, harsher, bringing a new purpose to his existence. Suddenly, his objective became clear. Protect the bones he owned, whatever the cost, and locate the rest, finally gifting his kingdom with its queen. Then, in homage, lay Lore’s killer at her feet.
He refused to team up with Erebus, regardless of the god’s astonishing gift. The Deathless’s treachery was too well-known. But the harpy-oracle, Neeka... She was a mystery. A possibility.
Was she an ally worth having? He would find out. Perhaps she despised the Astra for what they’d done to her people and her world. Maybe she’d seen the future and opted to side with the winner. Whatever the reason for contacting Rathbone...
He would dig into her life, hunt her down, and force a face-to-face.
2
Neeka the Unwanted, harpy-oracle extraordinaire, gold star entrepreneur, and all-around genius, thank you, glanced at the ex-husband who despised her. She couldn’t blame him for his sentiment, considering she had murdered him on three separate occasions. Though she only accepted blame for the first death. Her version of a divorce. It wasn’t her fault the Phoenix lord continually rose from the dead.
Presently, she occupied a small cage in Ahdán’s travel tent. He perched in front of her, sharpening a blade. His (failed) attempt at intimidation.
“Why are you looking at me as if I betrayed you?” he asked. “Especially considering the violence you’ve employed to kill me.”
Neeka listened to Ahdán with her eyes, reading his lips. At the age of five, enemies raided her camp, and a soldier stabbed her in both ears. Too young to repair the damage, she was rendered deaf for eternity. “Give me another dose of your toxin, and you’ll die before the sun sets.”
Earlier, he’d injected her with a horrible poison meant to change her species to his. It was the fourth dose he’d administered since they’d exchanged marriage vows several years ago, and each new inoculation had triggered a worse reaction than the last. Sweat still poured over her too-hot skin, soaking her bra and panties, her only garments, yet her teeth chattered from cold. Her bones ached, her muscles throbbed, and her nerve endings sizzled.
No matter an immortal’s origins, they required ten doses of the toxin to facilitate a total transformation to Phoenix. If they survived the injections themselves. Most victims died at the halfway point. Even those like Neeka, with Phoenix in their ancestry.
“Where is your thanks?” he asked. “I’m helping you reach your full potential.”
Ha! “You care nothing about my potential.” Ahdán didn’t even like her. He sought to create a mate too terrified to defy him. A good little sex robot, willing to be used and abused at his convenience. “You care about my ability to survive your flames, nothing more.” An upside of the transformation, yes. That, and the ability to revive from death as he did. But. As soon as she could withstand his fire without burning to ash, he planned to bed her. With or without her approval.
Wait. Should she seek to withstand his flames? Had she foreseen her own death and now worked to protect herself?
Was that why she’d permitted her own capture? And she’d absolutely permitted it. She’d been tucked safe and secure inside a secret realm only a rare few could access. Which meant something enticed her to leave and place herself in her ex’s crosshairs.
Neeka searched her (amazingly brilliant!) mind for answers but couldn’t resurrect the tale of her imprisonment. Beyond this particular interlude, her thoughts were blankish, as if she’d dropped into the middle of a story without reading the back blurb. A common occurrence for her, and one of the many disadvantages of being the world’s most magnificent seer.
At different points throughout any given day, her mind tired of jumping from present to future to past then back to present or future, and she short-circuited, her memory erased. Most times temporarily. Sometimes permanently.
She hadn’t always been this way, able to see forward and backward, round and round. It started after Ahdán dispensed the first dose of toxin, inadvertently torching a barrier to the ability. The best she could do now was piece together any fragments of information available.
As Ahdán droned on, she sighed. No clues there. He merely spouted complaints about her less than stellar qualities. As if she had any!
Ignore the twinge of doubt.
She tuned him out by looking away and examined her surroundings. A traditional battlefield marquee with an open floor plan, vintage cloth walls, and an all-natural, dirt-packed floor. Very last century. Former tortures had left their mark, staining the material with splatters of crimson. The air carried notes of rust and iron. It was nice and all, but again, but very last season.