Series: Lords of Rathe Series by Meagan Brandy
Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95227 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Before he can make a smartass remark, I spin away, calling over my shoulder, “I’m going to sharpen my knife so I can kill you with it again later.”
I don’t hesitate before dashing straight for the trees.
The forest grounds me when nothing else can.
The smell of dragon fire fills my nostrils as I run, skipping over cliff rocks, my boots pounding surfaces so jagged and steep they would send others tumbling to their deaths—hopefully he is one of those “others.”
When I come to a halt, I can barely catch my breath as I search the ground for a suitable rock. Scooping up the first one I see, I examine it closely.
This will do.
I draw my knife and start slow, each stroke a clean scrape against the stone. My movements slow to a pause when I notice it.
The quiet.
No dragons beating through the air. No frantic footsteps of scared newbies. Not even the sounds of insects or birds.
My muscles seize and the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
Someone’s behind me.
Chapter Two
Legend
She senses me before she sees me.
Her back goes stiff and those rough little hands freeze along her blade. Slowly, her head turns, eyes the color of the demented forest slamming into mine from fifty fucking feet away.
Her brows dip with confusion.
“Legend.” My name leaves her lips like a wicked little prayer that claws at my insides, making my teeth ache to bite. Slowly, she turns until her body faces mine.
“How did you get here?”
I say nothing, creeping closer to the girl who thought she could run from this.
From me.
When I don’t answer her ridiculous question, she asks another bullshit one. “Why are you here? You shouldn’t have been able to get through the barrier.”
“So that’s how you want to play this?”
Haide glares, arms crossing over her chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
A dark chuckle escapes me, and I cock my head to the side, feeling that heavy, constant fucking thrum that now beats beneath my chest. It grows louder with her nearness, driving me mad with the need to get closer. Need that’s beyond my control.
“Now that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“Is that any way to talk to your king?”
“Sorry, please, King Deveraux, if you would kindly…go fuck yourself.”
A split second after the last word leaves her mouth, she turns on her heels and runs.
“Bitch.”
She’s fast.
Faster than any chick I’ve seen, so I put some actual effort into my strides.
Sorry, baby girl, but no one is faster than me. I will catch you.
And when I do…
She bolts like a shot of lightning across the cliffs. I swear the earth answers her call, driving her farther from me, tearing through the blackened rock beneath her boots and throwing it back at me, like it knows I’ll raze this place to the ground to get to her. Like it’s trying to protect her from the sharpness of my claws.
It can’t.
Nothing can.
What the little warrior princess doesn’t know is I happen to like a good chase. I dart down the edge of the massive rocky cliff, thunder cracking from above, and a fire ignites in my veins. One that burns hotter than anything before it.
The girl I tore through realms for, the one whose blood sings to mine like we were carved from the same brutal stone, she thinks she has a chance. Bless her black heart.
She’s doing nothing but waking the beast and leading him right to her.
Literally.
I can feel him, my Ethos, a gift from the gods given only to those with royal blood in their veins. He lives deep beneath my bones, buried in my chest—a prisoner locked away behind my ribs, only to be set free once a fated mating bond is completed.
He stirs, waking, clawing at my insides in a way I have never felt before. The pain so sharp my temples start to ache as my chest vibrates with a roar that isn’t mine. But is.
This must be what my brother felt after he met his mate, London, the girl who led my little Haide to me, as fate so clearly arranged.
Haide’s scent steamrolls behind her, whirling like a vortex, right into my nostrils—leather and lilac.
Wild and wicked.
Mine.
I growl, the sharp points of my teeth breaking free and puncturing my lower lip.
I don’t chase her because I’m angry, though I am.
I chase her because she’s mine. Because every breath she takes away from me tastes like a fucking betrayal, and everything in me says I have to.
Find her, take her, claim her.
That shit is on repeat in my head and I’m not sure if it’s me or my Ethos who screams it. It’s annoying.
She is fucking annoying. A bratty little outsider who has a lot to learn.
How dare she leave my kingdom, leave Rathe, the realm where magic was born, after only just storming her way into it like a demon out of hell.