Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 661(@200wpm)___ 529(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Saved our bondmate.
I failed Gillian, too.
She stands there, staring between us, dark eyes confused as though she can’t believe we’re here. “Where is the army? Father sent a force. He had to send a force, right? Where are they? We need to leave.”
“I’m not leaving, Gillian.” My heart feels like it will burst with the agony of my grief. “You have to put me down. I can’t handle breaking with Bronwyn. Please, Gillian, if you ever loved me, kill me now. Save these people.”
Gillian’s mouth drops open. “Goddess, Lach, you’re being ridiculous. Now tell me where the army is and how we get off this plane. We can have our family reunion later, brother.”
Shim falls to his knees, taking Bron with him. “She smells so damn good. I can’t resist. Lach. I need her.”
I watch as my brother’s eyes bleed to pure black, and the whites push out. Shim’s fangs lengthen until they fill his mouth, tipping over his lips.
Mating fever.
How can Shim have mating fever for our dead mate?
Bron’s hands shake lightly, and then I hear it, a soft, sweet moan.
And I smell it. Her scent. A breeze blows it, the delicate scent of her life wafting over my senses, filling me, and I’m overcome.
My fangs pull. My cock hardens. My focus dims to one thing and one thing alone.
Her.
The mating fever takes over.
Chapter Sixteen
Shim
I shake, my every sense open and overflowing with her. Somewhere in the back of my head, I know what this is.
My goblin blood is calling. I’m proudly Unseelie. It means my blood is mixed with all the Fae of the planes. My mother was a vampire, my father a mix of sidhe and goblin and brownie. It’s the goblin I feel now. The goblin need to mate with the perfect female rides me.
Bron shakes in my arms. Why did Lach think for a second she was dead? Fire cannot kill my mate. Death cannot take Lach’s. I’m pretty sure I got every bit of optimism between us. It’s obvious that Lachlan got all the fighting skill. There are dead bodies everywhere, some fresh and some seemingly ancient. They lie around the courtyard, though despite their placement, it still seems to me that they lie at Lach’s feet waiting for the moment when their master calls to them again.
Bron moans, her eyes fluttering open only to close again.
My cock stands up straight in my pants. Just being near her, smelling her, touching her is driving me crazy. I have to try to focus on anything but her. She fills my senses, my world. Someone is saying something, but all I can do is stare at the woman in my arms. My mate. My bridge.
I wipe away a smudge on her face. She’s so much more slender than she is in her dreams, her hands callused and her face slightly red from time in the sun. Thirteen years of running and being forced to work like a peasant took their toll, but she’s still so beautiful. I’m going to coddle her and cosset her and feed her. She won’t have to worry again. I’ll take her off this plane, and she’ll never fear for her life or work a plow or go hungry again. She will be my sweet wife, protected from all the bad things of the world.
Of course, one of the bad things of the world appears to be my other half. Lach stands staring down at us, his body covered in blood, his eyes huge and foreign in his face. The goblin blood is working in my brother’s veins, too.
“She smells so good.” Lach gets to one knee, seemingly dazed by the sight of her.
“Lachlan, you can’t touch her right now. You’re covered in blood, and we’re out in the open.” A firm, feminine voice breaks through my haze. “You two have mating fever. This isn’t the time or the place. Take a step back and let me get Bronwyn someplace safe.”
I hear the growl coming from my own throat. I feel feral. The blood, the heat, the closeness of my Bron. I suddenly realize I don’t want anyone else around. I want Bron. It’s past time to take her. She fucking belongs to me. She was promised to me since the moment of her birth, and I won’t allow one more thing to come between us.
Lach’s huge dark eyes focus on our mate. “Bronwyn.” Lach touches her hair before letting his hands float, skimming across her skin, pausing at the vein in her neck. “She’s alive.”
I nod, ignoring the fact that a crowd seems to be gathering.
“Our sister is here. Gillian’s alive.” Lach says the words, but he’s wholly focused on Bron.
“Shim, please think for a second.” Gillian moves in closer, delicately stepping around the bodies of the fallen. “You can’t take her here.”