Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87608 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 438(@200wpm)___ 350(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
“Is this what you do,” Rulaine asked, “this small, tedious magic?” She was angry. I could hear it in her voice. She wanted me dead, and it had to be maddening to keep failing at that. “I could snap your neck like a twig.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But you’d have to get your hands around my throat first.”
“You don’t think I can?” She stepped into the light, so I could now see her. My surprise must’ve shown on my face, and her glower was instant. “Speak,” she demanded.
“I just, well, I thought you’d look like something out of a graphic novel, but you look like my fifth-grade teacher, Mrs. Sherman. I’m getting more of a cottagecore vibe from you than ‘dark mistress of the night.’”
“Looks can be deceiving. I could—”
“No, yeah, you’re right,” I agreed quickly. “I’m not what people expect either, so I get it.”
“I could show you my true form if you—”
“I already saw it, didn’t I? You look like a wendigo.”
She appeared perplexed, which was interesting on her features. “I know not what that is.”
“I have a book inside I could show you.”
Quiet grunt from her. “You think me stupid enough to willingly cross the threshold into your sanctuary. How foolish would I be?”
“Scared I might peel away all the evil and make you good?”
“Hardly,” she scoffed.
“Come on,” I said, reaching out for her. “Give it a try.”
She stepped back, lost in the darkness once more. “As though I would ever allow myself such familiarity with a mage.”
Interestingly, none of them had any idea who or what I was. Sola was dead and so had not been able to report back to her. Declan, the ex-faun, now human, had not spoken to her after he learned the truth either. She was basically going on bad information collected from heaven knew where. What was quite evident, however, was that everything the fae knew about me was gathered years ago when my grandfather was still alive. Most interesting of all was that they clearly had no idea what the lifespan of a human being was. And while witches lived a bit longer than normal folks, we certainly didn’t live as long as any fae. If she left my land and returned in two hundred years, she would absolutely expect to see me. That was nuts. They really needed to read some books on humans, like we read about them.
“You’re right,” I agreed, “what was I thinking?”
“You must—”
“The faun did say your name is Rulaine, but he didn’t know who your master is. Surely, with my weak, pathetic magic, you can tell me.”
She sneered. “My master is Threun the bloody, Threun the destroyer, Threun the orphan maker, and he means to come from our world into yours.”
The way she said it, with such flourish, like I should have wet myself right there, told me that whoever he was, he was a big deal in the fae realm. Unfortunately, the name didn’t ring any bells, so I couldn’t give her the dramatic reaction she was expecting.
“And how are you spelling that?” I asked her.
“You are tiresome.”
I’d been called worse. “But who is he, precisely?”
“His name means death.”
It always did. All of them peddled the same line of terror and annihilation. And she’d already killed an innocent young woman, so it wasn’t that I was doubting her resolve or her belief in her master, but still. The whole his-name-means-death bit had been wildly overdone.
“Your mistress, the Morrighan, fears him.”
I scoffed. I couldn’t help it, and it popped out before I could stop. Not that I was on a first-name basis with the Morrighan—had in fact never met her or any of her incarnations—but I knew she would never cower before any god. It was not who she was.
“You would wager my gift from my lord, with yours?” she screeched at me.
The sound, like the howling, shrieking wind, was designed to hurt me, perhaps rupture my eardrums. So I stepped back inside momentarily to let the sound dissipate before leaning back out. “I don’t want to wager anything. Maybe we could simply—”
Lights had appeared at the end of my driveway, and I groaned as Lorne, in a bright-yellow rain slicker and galoshes, came running up the cobblestone path. The man looked like he was prepared for a monsoon. It was adorable, but really, I was going to give him an award for having the worst timing ever.
He stopped moving when he saw me—and probably, more importantly, the wolves—and the moment he did, he was tackled down hard into the mud, grass, and leaves to the right of the path.
“I’ll trade you for your man, mage,” she said, moving close again. “What do you—”
The vargr was grabbed and flung away from Lorne, hitting the ground in a bloody heap, his head having been separated from his body so cleanly, it looked like it had been done with a blade. It took a moment for the dog to drop out of the sky from how high he’d apparently leaped, and he landed softly beside the man I wanted to take to bed.