Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 131875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131875 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 659(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
“You dare,” he snarled as he stalked toward her, “touch a senator!”
Kerrigan looked up at him from her place on her knees. She couldn’t move. Not even an inch. She could blink. Everything but basic motor functions was completely gone. She could only imagine how he had used this ability with others.
His hand came harshly across her face. The backhand he’d saved up from earlier. He released her enough for her head to whip to the side. Blood welled in her mouth, and she spat it out into the grass.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
She did as he wanted. She had no control to do otherwise. It was worse than fury on her face when their eyes met.
“You don’t understand how things work around here.” He lifted her chin without touching her. “But I’ll teach you.”
Pulses of anger seethed through her. She would not let this happen. She would never be what he wanted. She had been vilified and threatened and beaten to within an inch of her life. She’d been called a leatha, kicked out of her dragon program, and lost her magic. But she would not lose her dignity to anyone. Let alone this man.
So, as he took that last step toward her, she pushed against the immobilizing spell he’d cast on her body. She didn’t have her own magic anymore, but she had not just broken Flavia’s magic without trying; she had also broken Danae’s, which she assumed was much stronger. Tarcus might be more than either of them, but it wouldn’t matter. If all she had was magic resistance, then it had to be useful.
Tarcus bent down and fitted his mouth to hers. The anger that she’d barely been able to suppress in his presence reared its ugly head.
“No!” she screamed.
Her body rocketed off of the ground and threw him backward a step. He stumbled. His eyes wide with shock.
“No,” she repeated. Her chest heaved, as if she had moved a mountain instead of her own body.
“How …” he gasped. “How is that possible?”
“You know nothing about me, and I promise, you do not want to find out.”
Tarcus shook his head, already recovering from something that seemed impossible to him. As he moved toward her, a sword came down between them.
Tarcus looked at it as if he’d never seen a sword before.
“The lady said no,” Fordham said.
Tarcus gulped as her dark king lowered the blade from his chest to his nether regions.
“And I would listen to her.”
Tarcus took one look into Fordham’s menacing eyes. The thunderclouds roaring through his irises. Murder carved into his expression. And he did the first intelligent thing Kerrigan had ever seen him do. He turned tail and fled.
30
The Plan
“I had that under control,” Kerrigan told him.
Fordham sheathed his sword with a flourish. “I know you did.”
“But it was deeply satisfying, watching you point that sword at him.”
“He does not deserve to keep all of his parts intact,” Fordham said. “If he had argued at all, I would have happily relieved him of the ones he found valuable.”
“That would have been pleasant, considering what he was planning to do with them.”
“Indeed,” Fordham said, his face darkening. “The senators here are …”
“Vile?”
“They make the House of Shadows look like a dream kingdom.”
“That I’ve noticed. And I thought our world was terrible.”
He stepped toward her, drawing her against him. She went willingly. She hadn’t even noticed that she was trembling until she was cocooned in his powerful arms. His body pressed against hers, and she felt as safe as she had been in ages.
“Our world is terrible,” he breathed against her hair. “Terrible in its own way and certainly more terrible for you.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Here, I’m a novelty.”
Fordham stiffened momentarily at the word. “Indeed. As am I. I never comprehended exactly how awful your existence was back home. I understood in the way that I could, but not understanding it for myself.”
“How could you? You had been raised to believe that humans and half-Fae were less than Fae. It took even getting to know me to see how you’d been lied to.”
“Yes, but until I came here and learned of the fall of the Fae, until I was just a commodity, until Iris …” He said her name as if it were poison. “I did not truly know the depths of your pain. And maybe it’s still a different sort of pain.”
She touched his cheek and brought his face down to hers. “It’s different but the same. We don’t have to endure the same pain to see it for what it is.”
“True. I say all of this as a declaration.” He stroked her wild red hair out of her face. “I was already with you to the end, but know that I continue on that path with renewed fervor. This torment must end for everyone if we are to live in a world fit for anyone.”