Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 212(@200wpm)___ 170(@250wpm)___ 141(@300wpm)
Poppy has fallen into stasis, her body broken and power spent, carried beyond the mortal realm. While she lies suspended in dreams, Casteel faces a world without her—raw, wrathful, and altered in ways he doesn’t yet understand.
Left to steady a kingdom trembling under the weight of loss, Kieran shoulders what he cannot say aloud, even as the fractures between gods, mortals, and fate widen around him.
In the days that follow, grief becomes a guide, loyalty a burden, and love the only thing holding the realms together.
These are the pieces that fill the silence. The moments of wrath, ruin, resolve, and the spark of what must come next.
A Crown of Ruin reveals the unseen moments of love, loss, and change that happened between The Primal of Blood and Bone and The Throne of Bone and Ash
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PENSDURTH
Poppy
I could feel myself slipping away as what little essence remaining in me thrummed wildly.
The burning agony clawing at the center of my chest had waned as my head lolled to the side and fell back into the empty space beneath me.
The mouth at my throat moved greedily, but I barely felt the fangs buried deep in my flesh. My vision faded again. My pulse skittered. A jolt of raw panic sent adrenaline coursing through me. The walls of the Great Hall of Seacliffe Manor returned. At first, everything blurred, swam, and shifted like a dream unraveling too fast, until a smear of bright crimson caught my gaze. I tracked it across the tiled floor to the blurry shape lying in a pool of red.
Blood.
Attes.
My heart stuttered weakly. He hadn’t moved since Kolis had hit him with eather.
Thoughts sluggish, I stared at Attes. Hadn’t I felt something seconds ago? A presence? And hadn’t I seen something…? My gaze shifted to the center of the Great Hall, where wisps of Primal mist swirled around a tall form—
There was a quick flash of light, and then the mist and the form within it were gone.
I wasn’t even sure what I had seen.
Kolis shuddered against me, and I slowly realized he no longer felt so cold. His body was warming. It was my essence, the essence of life, doing that—while I was growing colder and colder.
I was really dying.
No.
No.
I wouldn’t die. Not like this. I had to fight. I should be fighting, and I needed to be better at it, because once Kolis was done with me, he would go for him, and I couldn’t allow that. Because he was…
My first.
My friend. Lover. Betrayer.
My husband. King. Heartmate.
Casteel Da’Neer was my everything.
And I would not allow anything to happen to him.
Pushing past the pain and numbness that threatened to take hold, I focused on what essence I could still feel inside me until it was a hum in my blood and a buzz in my skin. The eather joined the panic and desperation drowning me, and I let it. I let it pour into every vein, every cell, until I could lift my hand and place it against Kolis’s chest. Until I tasted death. And like before, it was coated in sugar. Shadows filled the corners of my vision.
Kolis jerked his head back, and the pain of his fangs tearing through the flesh of my throat joined the panic and desperation. His crimson-streaked eyes met mine.
I smiled.
His brows pulled together as he tilted his head.
Then, I did the unthinkable.
I snapped my head forward, sinking my fangs into his neck. My aim was a little off as I tore through a tendon before hitting his vein. Blood flowed into my mouth and coursed down my throat, turning my stomach. I didn’t let myself think about his taste—the flavor behind the iron-rich blood. I drank fast, drawing hard on the ruined vein.
I can handle this.
I can handle this.
Either shock or pain—probably the former—held him immobile. He didn’t shake me off as I latched onto him, swallowing and swallowing as fast as I could because I knew the surprise wouldn’t last long.
And I was right.
He gripped the back of my head, and for a moment, held on. I didn’t let myself think about that either, or why. I kept drinking, feeling the coldness retreating first from my fingers and then my legs.
Kolis snarled, jerking my head back. “You bit me,” he sputtered, his eyes wide. “You actually bit me.”
The essence thrummed more intensely as he continued to bend my neck back. The hand I had on his shoulder started to vibrate as my veins turned icy.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
I laughed, and the sound was full of shadows and ruin as the essence of death flowed from my palm and slammed into Kolis.
There was a flicker of surprise in his face, and then he flew backward, the veins in his chest and shoulders lit up with eather as he smashed into a pillar. The stone cracked and gave way, both he and the column collapsing into the shadows of the alcove.
I didn’t give myself time to celebrate. Kolis wouldn’t stay down for long, and what I had gained by feeding on him had been spent by using the eather. I had seconds, if that.
I rolled over and dragged myself to my knees. I needed a weapon. Something. Anything. My gaze swung around the space and landed on Attes and the blade still strapped to his chest.
Pushing to my feet, I forced one foot in front of the other as I swiped my hand over my mouth as if to wipe away the sweet taste of his blood. It wasn’t bad, but having the taste of Kolis’s blood in my mouth made me want to vomit as I stumbled across the chamber, each breath coming in short, shallow pants. Dropping to Attes’s side, I reached for the hilt of the dagger and then stopped, my hand hovering just above the gaping wound in his chest. Good gods, I could see the floor beneath the mess of muscle and bone. Eather warmed my palms. The urge to heal him hit hard. My fingers tingled with the need as my eyes darted to his too-pale face and the stark, jagged scar slicing through his brow and the bridge of his nose.