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)
“If you are so good, then let them go.”
“I’m afraid that I can’t do that,” Lorcan said almost regretfully. “You have something I want, and I know Graves too well to think that talking will change his mind. Only action. Isn’t that right, brother?”
“I will not change my mind,” Graves agreed, “but you are not innocent in this.”
“Not innocent?” Lorcan looked furious, as if he might fling the gun in Graves’s direction and shoot. His eyes switched to Kierse. “You want to know why we hate each other so? Graves murdered my sister in cold blood with his bare hands.”
Kierse’s stomach twisted. Her eyes flicked to Graves in question. But he wouldn’t even look at her. He was wholly focused on Lorcan.
“Emilie was sixteen years old, and he took her life just like that.” Lorcan snapped his fingers. “And we’ll never get her back.”
Kierse swallowed. “I am sorry for that. But two wrongs don’t make a right. If you kill my friends today, then you are no better than he is.”
“It brings me no joy to have to do this. You simply don’t understand what you carry,” Lorcan said.
“Don’t condescend to me. I can feel its power. I know what it is.”
“You can feel it, but you can’t possibly know. You have never been to Ireland. You have never strode across the Moors. You have never stood where the gods once stood on our lands. This is just a spear to you,” he growled. “To us . . . it is heritage. It is home.”
“That doesn’t give you the right to kill anyone.”
“Sacrifices are part of our rituals, and rituals produce power. So, it won’t all be for nothing. You have a choice. You can either hand me the spear or watch your friends die. It’s your choice.”
“Lorcan, no,” she snapped.
The gun went off with a loud crack. Kierse screamed, wrenching forward as if she could stop the bullet from hitting her friends. Gen’s and Ethan’s screams mingled with hers, but then they all saw that a shot had hit the floor in front of them.
“Next time, I won’t miss,” Lorcan threatened. “The spear, Kierse?”
Fear raced through her. He was only going to fire a warning shot once. The next one would land in a body, not the floor.
“Okay,” Kierse said. “Okay. Just stop. Please!”
“Good,” Lorcan said with a triumphant smile. “Much better. Now, hand it over.”
Kierse nodded. “All right.”
Graves put his hand out to stop her. “You can’t.”
“I know,” she told him as tears tracked down her cheeks. “Don’t you understand? I can’t lose them. I can’t lose my family.”
The fire in his eyes guttered out, but still he stepped forward. “You cannot give this to him.”
“I can’t suffer the consequences.”
“That’s right,” Lorcan said. “Give me what is rightfully mine. Don’t let him deter you.”
Graves grasped her arm, a firm, steady grip. “Listen to me. Lorcan will kill everyone in this room if you give him that spear. It is the only reason you are still on your feet. You can’t be foolish enough to do this.”
Her eyes were wide and cloudy as she looked up at him. “He has my weakness. That is how he can do it. I am sorry that you have no weakness.”
“Hmm,” Lorcan said softly. He glanced between them. “Oh, but he does.” He swiveled in place, aiming the gun at Kierse’s chest. “Does the villain believe this is love?”
“Stop,” Graves said, cold and lethal.
“Do you think you deserve to feel this way after what you did to Emilie?”
“This is not about our past.”
“Isn’t it?” Lorcan demanded furiously. “You think that you can move on. That you need to no longer suffer for what you stole from me, from our people, from the world. You do not deserve someone like her. You do not deserve anything.”
“If you shoot her, it will be the biggest mistake of your life,” Graves snarled.
He tried to inch his way in front of Kierse, but Lorcan fired his gun at their feet. Kierse shrieked and jumped backward, away from the bullet.
“Ah ah, don’t move.” Kierse froze in place, and Graves mirrored her. “I don’t think this would be a mistake. You give me the sword, and I don’t shoot her. That seems fair.”
Kierse couldn’t even process his words. Graves wouldn’t give up the sword for her. It was impossible.
“You will regret this,” Graves warned him.
“Why? Because you’ll come after me?”
“I will,” he said easily, “but no. Because of this.”
Then Graves moved at his blinding speed. He shifted in front of her, blade raised. For a moment, she thought that he was going to lunge at her. That he was going to finish it so that Lorcan couldn’t use her against him. But instead, he held the blade up to her face.
“Show the truth,” Graves told the blade.
He dragged the sword down her body from her shoulder diagonally across her navel and to her other hip. She shuddered under the weight of it. Her instinct was to pull up the spear to use against the sword. But those weren’t her thoughts; it was the spear. It was the power the sword wielded. The truth it released.