Total pages in book: 362
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 347293 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1736(@200wpm)___ 1389(@250wpm)___ 1158(@300wpm)
“And because of you.” I squeezed Attes’s hand. “I don’t remember if I thanked you for your aid while I was in Dalos. But even if I did…thank you.”
“There’s no need.”
“There is,” I insisted. Ash’s cool chest brushed my back. “If you hadn’t taken the risk and told me I wasn’t Sotoria, I would’ve seriously tried to kill Kolis. And it wouldn’t have worked. He would’ve known the truth, and I would either be dead or…”
Or worse.
That also went unsaid.
Ash’s lips brushed my cheek. “She speaks the truth.”
Attes’s smile was small and heartfelt, but there, as he released my hand. “He already thanked me once. No need to do it again.”
Raising a brow, I looked over my shoulder at Ash. “You actually thanked him?”
“Yes.” He kissed my temple. “I told you. We worked things out.”
“With your fists,” I muttered.
“He actually thanked me before he hit me,” Attes said. “Or was it between the first and second punch?”
“It was between them,” Ash said.
I shook my head. “I do not understand either of you.”
“We understand each other,” Attes interjected.
I supposed that was all that mattered.
I started to turn back to Ash when a shiver of unease coursed through me, each hair on my body standing on end. Instinct kicked in—the kind that had nothing to do with the vadentia and everything to do with the primitive part of my consciousness that sensed…
That death was in the air.
My eyes flew to Ash’s.
He stilled, eather flaring brightly in his silver eyes as he picked up on my emotions.
Nektas rose, his chin lifting as he inhaled deeply.
Eather flooded my veins as I spun, scanning the thick, sweeping pines crowding the foothills of the snowcapped mountains. My heart began to pound.
“If you’re feeling something, I’m not,” Attes said as I walked forward.
“Neither am I,” Nektas said. “But I do smell something.”
Attes’s booted feet hitting the stone as he walked echoed across the veranda as I eyed the dark shadows between the tightly packed trees.
I squinted, straining to see as far as I could into the vast forest. There was something about the darker splotches farther back. They didn’t seem right. They were too thick and suddenly seemed closer. The barking from Essaly—in the opposite direction of the forest—picked up in a nervous, almost frantic chorus.
“What do you smell?” Ash asked.
I stopped at the edge of the veranda. What I saw weren’t shadows. They were solid and prowled between the trees. I tensed as I suddenly saw a pair of amber orbs reflecting back at me. Dozens of them. But they weren’t orbs.
They were eyes.
“I smell wet dog,” Nektas answered as the luminous, predatory glow blinked out of existence.
“Son of a bitch,” Attes growled as branches low to the ground rattled.
The barking ceased.
My lips parted as a…dog trotted out from the forest, its fur shining a deep reddish brown in the sunlight—if dogs could grow to be a size somewhere between a kiyou wolf and a dakkai, that was. And if they looked like they had been bred with a barrat.
The creature was ugly, and not in a it’s-so-cute-it’s-ugly kind of way. Fur rose in spikes all along its back—not because it was matted into that form but because it just naturally grew that way—or so it appeared. There was no fur on the pointy, twitching ears or on most of its tail, except for a frizzy ball at the end. And its face? Well, that was where the barrat part came in. It had the face of an overgrown rodent, whiskers and all.
“Kynakos,” I murmured, eyes widening. “Dogs of War.”
The creature started prowling toward us, sniffing the air.
Attes was suddenly standing between us and the creature. “Stasi dato,” he ordered.
The dog’s upper lip curled as it growled, baring teeth that would make a dakkai nervous.
Ash was beside me at once. “I don’t think it’s standing down.”
“Stasi dato nori,” Attes shouted.
The creature’s yellow eyes flickered over Attes to where Ash and I stood. Its powerful muscles rolled along its sides and back a heartbeat before it leapt into the sky. I jerked forward.
Ash caught my arm, and Attes cursed, moving blindingly fast. He caught the dog around the neck.
My eyes slammed shut, and I winced at the yelp and the sharp, sudden crack of bone I heard. “Poor puppy,” I murmured.
“That’s not a puppy, liessa,” Ash said, his hand sliding from my arm to my waist. “They’re venomous beasts.”
But it still looked and sounded like a dog. Kind of.
I cracked open one eye just in time to see Attes laying the hound down. He did so almost reverently.
“I assume that’s not one of yours,” Nektas said.
“No.” Attes rose, his back still to us. “I stopped breeding them ages ago. They have the temperament of a starving dakkai, and you almost always have to put them down to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.”