Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
And he could not have that.
Thus, he stopped.
“You are changed,” she noted quietly.
“I’m eager to be on our way.”
“We can delay if you wish to talk.”
“And what in the last two minutes of us speaking gives you the impression that is what I wish to do?” he asked.
“Well I know this Cassius. You’re being a cad.”
A cad?
He did not feel like laughing. Not at all.
But by the gods…
“A cad?”
“A cad,” she affirmed.
“And what is the word for a stubborn woman who pushes a man who does not wish to talk into talking by not letting the conversation lie and then calling him names?” he asked.
Her mouth quirked. “A concerned affianced.”
Oh yes.
He wanted to fuck her where they stood.
“Do pixies traverse the moors?” he inquired.
“Not often. They prefer the trees, creeks, streams, rivers, etcetera.”
“So if we stand here for eternity, I won’t be able to commune with them.”
With that, she smiled openly.
“Your point is made.”
“Excellent. Then shall we go?”
She shrugged. “Certainly.”
When he moved that time, Elena allowed it.
But she fell into step beside him and walked far too close.
He could take her hand, if he wished.
He wished.
But he did not.
And when she swung astride her horse and her tunic lifted, exposing the seat of her body stocking stretched lovingly across her rounded arse, he could have pulled her off her horse, dragged her to the trees and covered her, if he wished.
And he wished.
But he did not.
However, when she looked over her shoulder at him atop his horse and her gaze was a dare before she set her moccasins into her steed’s sides and bolted forward in a graceful charge, he wished to accept her dare.
So he set his boots in his horse, Caelus.
And he chased after her.
53
The Discipline
G’Seph
Seventy-Five Miles Inside the Southern Border
WODELL
Seph’s delight at seeing his confederate, G’Fenn, and the four other priests with him that Seph knew were of The Rising instantly evaporated when his fellow priest was within reaching distance.
For he did indeed reach.
Doing so to strike Seph across his cheek in a slap so hard, Seph’s head jerked to the side.
When he whipped it forward, his eyes were narrowed, and his temper had sparked.
“What—?” he began.
But he got no further.
Fenn slapped him again.
And again.
Seph lifted an arm to ward off the blows, only for Fenn to swipe it away and slap him again.
Seph started to retreat, his cheek stinging with pain and heat, but Fenn followed him.
One of the priests with Fenn rounded Fenn’s side, caught Seph again raising his hand in an effort to protect himself, and he held Seph’s wrist steady, which held Seph’s body steady for Fenn to continue raining blows.
Seph jerked his head away, bending at the waist to escape, shouting, “Bloody stop!” only for Fenn to wrap his hand around Seph’s throat and pull him upright.
His fingers held fast…and tight, as his brother priest put his face to Seph’s.
“You fool,” he hissed.
Seph realized he couldn’t breathe.
He further realized he could not escape.
Fenn was taller than him, he had more weight to him, more muscle on his bones.
He was also younger.
But mostly, the hold he had on Seph made Seph fear that if he yanked away, he’d come without his throat.
“How does it feel?” Fenn asked. “To be ruled with an iron hand?”
Seph opened his mouth but no words came out.
And no breath went in.
He started gagging, lifting his free hand to the wrist at his throat, wrapping his fingers around in what he hoped was a beseeching manner.
“How does it feel, to meet a brother, an equal, and have him,” Fenn tossed Seph to his knees on the forest floor, his compatriot letting Seph’s wrist go, and Seph dragged in breath as Fenn finished, “bring you to your knees?”
“I—” Seph tried.
“You bloody,” and Fenn’s boot connected with Seph’s face, causing a starburst to explode in his eyes as pain burst through his nose back into his brain and he fell hard to his side, “fool.”
Blinking rapidly, he pushed up to a hand in the cold leaves, turning his head, only to see Fenn’s face an inch from him as the priest bent over him.
“Our temple in Fire City is all but deserted. Our priests there scattered to the winds. And thus, the king and his men are now aware that it is Go’Doan who was behind the attack on the palace,” Fenn informed him.
This couldn’t be.
“What?” Seph asked, feeling the blood seeping from his nose, just as he felt it drain from his face and his stomach pitched nauseatingly. “That can’t be. I told them not to flee.”
“You told them, and you beat them, and you whipped them,” Fenn returned. “Have you not learned in the years of carefully carrying out our strategy that it is the carrot, not the stick that induces loyalty? Discipline is only for extremes. If you train a dog using pain, you train him only to fear and hate you, and when the time comes he has had too much, he will strike. But we are not training dogs, Seph. We are training and recruiting men. They have conscious thought and they have free will, and if they no longer understand and support a cause, they can,” Fenn landed a vicious, closed-fist blow on Seph’s cheekbone, causing him to grunt in pain, before he finished, “walk away.”