Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
No one had been there to save her.
She drew the spear level with King Louis and spat, “I’ll save my fucking self.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
The shock on King Louis’s face morphed almost instantly into disdain. Walter’s force field had snapped back into place around the vampire. He believed he was protected. He’d watched her get through his wards, and he still believed in Walter’s force fields.
“What are you going to do with that thing? Surely one little girl can’t wield the Spear of Lugh.”
She could in fact wield this spear. Though she was bucking under the strain of its power.
“Surely your master told you what you hold?”
Oh, she knew. Graves had her reading all of those assignments to prepare her for this moment. And she had walked right into the answer about the spear. Not that it had actually prepared her to hold the thing.
But that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that it felt right in her hand, and nothing Louis said was going to change her mind.
“The Spear of Lugh,” he said for his audience. “Slaughterer. One who has never been defeated in battle.” He taunted her. “A little girl can’t hope to harness the power of the gods. You’re not powerful enough.”
It was a god’s weapon, but that didn’t change its purpose.
At the end of the day, it cut all the same.
And the person she wanted to destroy stood before her with Torra beside his throne and two victims at his feet. Two in a line of hundreds or even thousands.
Humans who hadn’t had an option to escape. People he would just throw away for a meal. Kierse could have been any of them. Jason was his own monster and had abused her beyond comprehension, but even he didn’t have a long line of dead people in his wake. If she let King Louis live, how many more people would end up like Torra? Like Mafi? How many more would suffer at his hands and the hands of his pathetic Men of Valor?
No, she had promised Torra that she would kill King Louis.
And she kept her promises.
The spear latched on to her thoughts, saw into her heart, and knew what she wanted. This time, she didn’t dispel it. She didn’t ignore its sinister voice, because it matched her own.
“You are no king,” Kierse said, taking a step forward. “You are a puppeteer, pulling strings. Your reign ends today.”
Kierse lifted the spear, muscle memory from hours of training kicking in. It had never felt as comfortable as a knife or a gun in her hand, but that was because she had been waiting all of her life for this spear. The perfect weight in her hands, the dark voice in her ear. She knew what to do.
She stepped through the force field, watched the shock register on Louis’s face, then raised the spear and thrust forward. Louis dodged just barely as an alarm blared to life around them. His guards hurtled for her, but she slashed the spear blindly toward them. She felt the sickening crunch as she sliced through bone. Heard the squelch as it sank through flesh. Barely altering her focus, she was on Louis again.
He brought his arms up to dodge her strike. She sliced deep grooves of dark blood into his arms. He cried out as the world fell into pandemonium behind them. His hyper speed kicked in as he tried to backpedal, but Kierse went instantly into slow motion, pulling it over her like a blanket. And suddenly, Louis was swinging his arms as he backpedaled.
He was within reach a second later as she came out of slow motion. His jaw opened, revealing the gleaming white fangs. His eyes were wide with shock and a satisfying amount of fear. He couldn’t win this, and for the first time, he’d realized it. She had outmaneuvered him. A little human woman with nothing and no one to help her.
“How?” he gasped.
“Magic.”
With all the force of her training, she drove the spear deep into the vampire king’s heart.
King Louis fell to his knees as she yanked it from his chest. “Who are you?” he muttered as blood poured out of his mouth.
“I’m the monster in your nightmares.”
Then she slashed the spear sideways, decapitating him.
Louis’s head fell off of his body to a chorus of screams. The rest of him toppled forward, blood sputtering onto the white marble and soaking the white of her lingerie.
Her eyes rose to the monsters before her. Walter had already vanished in the crowd, among the rest of Louis’s followers, his pathetic Men of Valor. The scum that he empowered with his propaganda. These monsters had spent their entire lives oppressing humans. They deserved a similar fate.
Then a figure appeared on the dais.
Graves.
He assessed the state of the world as it had just shifted off its axis to accommodate her. He took in her bloodstained clothing, the wicked grin on her lips, and the spear held firmly in her grasp. He nodded once, a slow smile coming to his devastating features. The power pulsed relentlessly through her, between them.