Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117510 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 588(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
So each time one of the tentacles tried belting, flaying, or grabbing her, Harper slashed and stabbed and sliced at them. The hellfire ate at the flesh of Alethea’s arms, and each screech of pain made Harper’s inner demon laugh.
At the same time, Harper tried digging the barbs out of her skin, but there were some she couldn’t quite reach. It wasn’t until she found herself feeling strangely weak and lethargic that she realized that—fuck a duck—the barbs had released some kind of drug in her system. If she wasn’t powerful and anchored by Knox, they might have knocked her on her ass long ago.
Swaying, vision blurring, Harper couldn’t brace herself for the next attack. A tentacle struck her hard, sending her flying through the air. The breath gusted out of her lungs as she hit a tree hard and then fell to the snow. Oh, this bitch needed a few of those barbs lodged in her rectum.
Snatching her knife from the depression in the snow, Harper charged at Alethea on unsteady feet. She stumbled to a halt as her foot got caught in something. It was a crack in the ground, she realized. Fuck. She struggled to pull herself free. Couldn’t. A tentacle lashed her face, scraping strips of skin away. “You motherfucking bitch!”
*
As his mate focused her attention on Alethea, Knox locked his on Jonas. The male kept glancing around, as if hoping a gap would appear in the flames surrounding them. “There will be no escaping this, Jonas. You’ll have to face me. Or do you prefer letting your sister fight your battles for you?” he taunted. The male’s eyes narrowed to slits and—
Knox blinked, suddenly finding himself stood in a boardroom with his sentinels and the other Primes. It wasn’t real, he knew. It was an illusion. But he didn’t know how the fuck to break out of it and—
Red-hot pain slammed into his chest, burning and sizzling his flesh, and Knox was once more in the rainforest. He didn’t need to look to know he’d been hit with a ball of hellfire. Fucking asshole. With a snarl, he conjured a lethal orb and launched it at Jonas.
The bastard stretched and arched his back at an odd angle like he was boneless and fucking elastic, avoiding the orb—but barely. Jonas tossed an orb of his own. Knox returned the favor. And on and on it went.
Snowflakes and tree bark flew in the air each time a ball of hellfire missed its target. A couple had hit Knox, but they weren’t powerful enough to really hurt him. Jonas, on the other hand, was weakening. Several patches of flesh were blackening and peeling from his body. The scents of blood and burning flesh pleased his demon immensely and—
Knox was standing in his Underground office. Another illusion, he knew. Recalling that pain had snapped him out of the last one, he dug his fingertips into a wound on his arm. The world around him shifted back to normal … just in time for him to see a long beam of fire soaring his way, aiming for his head.
Ducking, he let out a stream of hellfire from his palm as if it were a flamethrower. Jonas’s eyes widened—no doubt because the stream had the head of a snake. It slithered toward him fast, hissing loudly. Jonas tossed several balls of hellfire at it, but they had no effect.
“You motherfucking bitch!”
The pain in his mate’s voice snatched his attention. He looked and saw her foot was caught in a fissure in the ground and she was struggling to wrench it free. He used psychic hands to pull her to safety and—
Knox staggered as blazing pain lanced through his shoulder and skidded down his arm. Jonas, the bastard, had buried a fire beam in his shoulder. Grinding his teeth, Knox slowly pulled out the beam, hissing as it scraped against bone.
He slammed his gaze on Jonas, only then noticing that the bastard’s attention had moved to Harper. That was when Jonas slung a ball of hellfire at her. Wicked fast, Knox threw one of his own—the orb crashed into Jonas’s, knocking it off-course. The motherfucker had tried to hurt Harper. Now, his demon was no longer amused. No, it was pissed. And it wanted to have some fun of its own.
*
Icy psychic hands roughly snatched Harper’s hips and dragged her out of harm’s way. But it was only mere seconds later that the tentacle came at her again. Dizzy and uncoordinated, Harper couldn’t move fast enough to dodge the fucker. It wrapped around her yet again, squeezing hard this time—hard enough to cut off her breathing. And Harper decided she was done playing. She grabbed the tentacle, releasing the protective power tingling her fingertips—a power that rushed through Alethea all the way to her soul.