Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
“Just passing through.”
“You’re…you’re her,” the guard said.
Kerrigan smiled. “Always a good time to be recognized.”
The guard looked down at her sleeping—possibly drunk—guard mate and took another step back rather than forward. Smart girl.
“We’re just passing through,” Fordham growled.
The guard nodded. “I was at my spot the whole time and never saw anything.”
“That right?” he asked, stalking toward her.
Kerrigan grasped his arm. “Not terrifying right now. She’s letting us go, aren’t you?”
The guard nodded. “They…they killed my brother.” She glanced down the hall as if expecting someone to hear. “He was half-Fae. They drained his magic and then killed him in the streets. I…I wanted to give up my job then, but…”
“You should have,” Fordham said. “We can’t make a stand if we’re not all together.”
She bit her lip. “I understand. Good luck.”
Kerrigan took Fordham’s hand, and they exited into the greenhouses.
“How do you know she’s not going to turn us in?” Fordham asked.
“She’s not.”
“You thought that about Gerrond too.”
“Fuck Gerrond.” Kerrigan sighed heavily. “She might turn us in, but we’ll be long gone anyway.”
“How did you know to exit through the greenhouses?”
“Isa told me.”
Ford glanced into the darkness of the greenhouses as if waiting for the trap to fall. “It’s a trick.”
“I don’t trust her,” Kerrigan told him immediately. “Well, I don’t know.” She winced. “Maybe I do.”
“She has a collar on.”
“Yeah, and she wanted it on as much as you did.”
He cringed. “You couldn’t get it off?”
“She wouldn’t let me try.” Kerrigan bit her lip. “She asked me to kill her.”
“I wanted to die rather than have the collar on, but I had you to live for,” he said sympathetically. “If she has no family…”
“She told me that she’s Bastian’s daughter.”
Fordham glanced at her in alarm. “Like his real daughter?”
“She said that the fire that gave Bastian the scars, he had to make a choice whether to save Isa as a baby or his wife, and he chose Isa.”
Fordham winced. “So his wife died in the fire?”
“Yeah, and she claimed that’s why Bastian is doing all of this.”
“Great. One death for thousands of deaths. Seems fitting.”
“I wasn’t saying it made sense, only that it’s the most we’ve ever gotten from anyone about what happened in Bastian’s past. I didn’t know he had a daughter. It explains why Isa is still alive. She must be his weakness. He saved her life. He can’t kill her without killing his wife all over again.”
“It’s a reach,” Fordham said. “We don’t even know if any of it is true.”
“And how would we find that out?”
Fordham shrugged. “No idea. I don’t find it relevant. He’s our enemy. He killed and he deserves to die, as if the collar he placed on Isa’s neck isn’t indication enough.”
“Yeah,” she agreed as they came to the end of the greenhouse. “‘The more we know about our enemy, the better equipped we are to take them down.’”
“You’re quoting Kristoffer to me?” Fordham said on a sigh. “The great general was right, but he was still killed by his enemy.”
“Then we need to be smarter than him.”
“And she’s truly his daughter? How does no one tell that part of the story? He’d be a hero.”
“I don’t know, but it feels important.”
Fordham shook his head. “We’ve all lost people. I don’t feel sorry for him.”
“I do.”
“How can you feel sorry for him?” Fordham demanded. “After what he did to you!”
“Not for the rest. He deserves all he’s going to get. But for her,” Kerrigan told him. “I feel sorry for her and for the loss of her. Look at Tieran with the loss of his mate. I couldn’t imagine the loss of mine.”
“I’d die first,” Fordham said.
She squeezed his hand. “Yes.”
“Well, at least Isa’s intel about the greenhouses seems to be accurate,” Fordham finally admitted.
He glanced through the open doors of the greenhouse, which were currently unguarded. Apparently the inside shielding was all they had on this side of the mountain. Not wanting another experience of slamming into a giant vault door, they’d checked out the exit just to be sure.
“Open the portal here,” he said.
“Oh,” Kerrigan said, fiddling with her mother’s bangle. “About that. I don’t have enough magic.”
“What? You were full.”
“Trying to open it in the vault tapped me out. My last shot was taking down the shield.”
“A great shot, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
Fordham sighed. “Well, Netta is getting anxious. I’ll jump us closer to our dragons.”
“Don’t jump too far,” she reminded him.
“I know how far I can jump,” Fordham said, sliding an arm around her waist. He pressed a kiss to her lips. “With my mate.”
They jumped to a familiar aerie in the Vert Mountains. It was the same place they’d landed when they first returned to Alandria, when they discovered that their friends and family were still living and Bastian had ambushed them.
Kerrigan had decided then and there that she would fight Bastian on her terms. And none of that had changed. This mission might have failed, but it had proven that Bastian and his allies were vulnerable.