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)
A cold sweat beaded on her nape. “Not just harpy lives,” she whispered, her wings buzzing beneath the pinner. “I’ve seen you die twice. No telling how many other times I’ve seen it and forgotten.” In for a penny, in for a pound. “That’s not all. I’ve attempted to use a mystical elixir to override your bond to Lore with a stronger bond to me.” Keeping secrets hadn’t done her any good. “You didn’t drink it, though.”
Rigidity descended over him. The kind of stillness that gripped a predator just before an attack. Again he lapsed into silence, which told her plenty.
Neeka flinched. They were over before they’d started, weren’t they? “I won’t beg you to forgive me.” She’d tried that with her mother and gotten nowhere. “Do you believe me about Lore’s evil at least? Or do you still want her?”
“What do my feelings for her matter? I don’t want you,” he snapped.
Ouch. That cut deeper than expected. Fighting a sudden well of tears, she clasped his shoulders, desperate for some kind of connection with him. More desperate to make him understand. “You know me, and I know you. You’re strong and loyal, and when you aren’t flaying my character, you’re fun.” Do it. Tell him the rest. “I doubt Lore is your fated because I think... I think you are mine. My consort.”
He jolted as if she’d struck him. But he didn’t speak.
“Rathbone—”
He shrugged her off, the finality of the action worse than any physical wound. “You didn’t complete your job, so you won’t receive your payday. If ever you approach me—don’t approach me, harpy. You won’t like what happens if you do.” That said, he vanished, leaving her pinned and weaponless, fully vulnerable.
The fight drained from her, and hot tears gathered, stinging her eyes. Rejected. Again.
As if the storm had waited for her total defeat, it opened the clouds and deluged the beach with hail. She didn’t move, just stood there, getting hit, bleeding inside and out. Another male had washed his hands of her. Granted, she’d contributed greatly to the demise of this particular relationship, but wasn’t she worth a battle or two?
A harpy-mermaid pierced the surface of the water. The first of many. Neeka groaned. There were at least twenty with an assortment of sharks thrown in the midst. The army displayed unmistakable glee. They must sense her weakened state.
Harmaids despised harpies without tails. Or anyone. They were basically feral water cats with scales.
A vibration behind her. Rathbone? Hope sparked as Neeka spun.
She wilted. “Oh. It’s you.” Her mother sashayed through the island foliage, grinning. “Have you come to gloat or kill me?”
“Gloat,” Grenwich said. She stopped at Neeka’s side, but true to her word, she didn’t strike. “I enjoy seeing you this miserable. Things will only get worse for you when I find the remaining bones.”
Rathbone had left an invisible knife in Neeka’s heart, and her mother just twisted it. “Lore’s going to kill us all. You get that, yes?”
“As long as you die in defeat, I’ll die happy.”
Regret for what could have been joined the monsoon inside Neeka. More hurt. Frustration. Anger. For the first time in her remembrance, however, she experienced no shame and guilt. No more accepting punishment for a youthful foible.
“Get over yourself already. I was a child. You were an adult. Why didn’t you protect me or your consort? Where is your blame?”
Her mother smiled coldly. An expression made all the more terrible as raindrops streamed down her cheeks in a mimic of tears. “I won’t tell the Astra you’re here. They’d collect you and lock you up again. I’m curious to learn who you’ll go to for help, now that you’ve burned every bridge. Of course, you’ll have to make it off the island without dying in the sea first.”
23
Rathbone materialized in Hades’s throne room. Empty. On the hunt, he flashed from room to room, startling any servants at work. Though they recognized him as a frequent guest with privileges few others were granted, all shrieked and raced off. No doubt his unchecked expression exposed the viciousness of his rage.
He found his uncle in the dining room, entertaining a bevy of beauties. The cursed mirror now graced a spot above the crackling hearth. There was never a time the merciless warrior didn’t want the Goddess of Many Futures within his sights. Or her sights on him.
Without saying a word, Rathbone swung a fist, nailing the beast of a male in the mouth and knocking him out of his chair. A new chorus of shrieks. The females scrambled from the chamber.
Hades came to his feet slowly, waggling his jaw. A scarlet bead trickled from the seam of his lips. “I mean, it’s not the worst greeting you’ve ever given me.”
“Give me an outlet.” In a single day, Rathbone’s entire world had turned upside down and inside out. His oracle had betrayed him from the beginning. His dead wife might be worse than Hades predicted; she might be Jezebel the Destroyer, an ancient legend he knew through whispers. A bone remained with the Astra. Rathbone had a spoiled son who needed saving from a spoiled goddess. He couldn’t stop thinking about Neeka’s admission or the look of devastation she’d displayed before his departure from the island. Or the horrendous future she’d outlined.