Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
I don’t know where I'm going or if anywhere is safe for me at this point. All I know is I don’t feel fear, black veins scale the length of my arms, and I'm riding on a fucking dragon.
Knight
My boots crunch over the loose rubble as the air barely starts to thin out the darkness left over from London and the chaos she fought back with. I grind my teeth, ignoring the chatter behind me coming from Silver and Creed.
“Where the fuck did she go?”
Creed pauses his whispering to Silver, as if I couldn’t hear the both of them anyway. I can still feel her as though she is standing right in front of me. I blink past the hallucination of the smoke outlining her body when Creed’s hand touches my shoulder. “News is quickly spreading about who she is, Knight. We need to go and figure out how we’re going to handle this.”
“Did you know?” I ask the words I’ve wanted to since finding out who she was myself. A secret I would have died with had it meant keeping it away from everyone.
“What?” Creed snaps and Silver falls completely silent. “No. I suspected something was off with her from the start but not this.”
I turn to face him, ignoring the smell of sulphur and mountain ash from the dragon shifter that swept up and took her.
“Did you?” he asks, both brows raised. When I don’t answer, he chuckles, shaking his head and relaxing his shoulders. “Of course, you did.”
“Let’s go.” I push through both of them, flexing my fingers in the palm of my hand when my nails sink into my flesh. I can feel the burning rage that has simmered deep inside of me slowly come to the surface as I take every step closer to the castle. Jogging up the steps, I swing the door open and ignore the two guards standing in the foyer, heading straight for the family room at the rear of the house that overlooks the cliff-drop to the solar system. This was my favorite place as a kid to play. Now… now all I feel is rage and annoyance.
My mother shoots up from the high-tilted throne in the center of the room and in front of the burning fireplace. “Knight! What—”
“—you don’t fucking speak.” My tone is barely above a whisper as I round the small bar table and reach for the first thing that I see. The room falls silent. The Ministry members all stare back at me with a mixture of expressions. Mostly anger and confusion, but one.
One. That same one. Odin hangs back, a glass of whiskey dangling between his fingers as he leans against the wall in the darkest area of the room, his eyes fixed on me as if in waiting. Waiting for me to scream? Yell? Throw a fucking fit that these fucking mutts just chased off my mate?
No. That’s not what that look is.
I swirl the liquid around in my glass, just as Silver and Creed finally meet us in the room, all eyes on me. I watch as a tiny water tornado circles in my cup as I fight the vivid flashbacks of the memories I took from my father the second London cut me with the same knife that was used to kill him, unlocking magic I didn’t know existed. Trust no one.
My father was the Dark Lord. Ruler of Rathe, a place far worse than hell. How, you ask? Well because it exists. My father was a brutal ruler, but that’s what made him a great King. There was one thing he always put first though, and that was his legacy.
My eyes fall to my mother, who sits nervously on her throne, her finger tapping against the arch where her arm rests.
I take another sip of my drink, before slowly lowering it back onto the counter. “I don’t answer to any of you.”
“—Ah, you would find that you—”
A growl from deep within the cages of where I keep my monster hidden vibrates through the room, rattling the hanging portraits on the wall. “I. Don’t. Answer. To. You.”
Storm stands, straightening his white shirt. “I’m sorry, Knight. You can warn us all you want, but for a time older than yourself, this Ministry has existed so that we can remain balanced—” Before I can blink, my feet fly across the room and my teeth are in his throat. I feel the pulsing of his heart beating against my sharpened teeth as I sink them further into his jugular. My eyes roll to the back of my head when I feel his heartbeat slowing. Thud. Thud. Until nothing.
One Elder down, three to fucking go.
Give me a fucking reason...
I rear my head back, my teeth still clenched around the veins in his neck as I shove his body away. It falls to the Queen’s feet and I lick the residue off my lips, swiping my mouth with the back of my hand as I watch for her reaction. Gasps sound around the room but my mother remains unbothered. She simply kicks his body away slightly before folding her leg over the other and patting her skirt straight again.