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)
His eyes rake over me, slow and deliberate, and that smirk returns.
Only he’s not alone.
There’s a girl, blond, pretty, all prim and demure, standing too close.
Is that the fucking girl from Spellcaster 101?
Something vicious coils in my chest.
Hot. Sharp. Teeth bared beneath my skin.
Mine.
The word slams through me before I can stop it. What the fuck? He’s not mine. I don’t want him to be mine. I don’t even fucking like him. Not really, anyway.
But watching her touch him makes me want to rip her hand off at the wrist.
Legend’s gaze flicks to me over her shoulder, and the corner of his mouth lifts. He sees it.
Smug bastard.
He says something low to the girl, and she glances back at me, eyes widening slightly. Then Legend nudges his head toward the hall, a silent dismissal.
The girl scatters.
My pulse hammers as Legend straightens, pushing off the wall. He crosses the space between us in three long strides, and before I can snarl, snap, or do something stupid, his hand wraps around mine.
“Jealous?”
“Fuck off.”
His grin widens. “You’re cute when you lie.”
I yank my hand back, but his grip tightens, fingers lacing through mine with a possessiveness that mirrors the rage still simmering under my ribs. He tugs me forward, and the air around us ripples, magic crackling to life.
“Wait—”
Too late.
Everything lurches sideways, reality collapsing into itself, and suddenly we’re tumbling through nothingness. The portal coils around us, freezing and charged, dragging us through space in a stomach-turning blur.
My boots hit stone hard when we land, scraping across the surface, but Legend’s hand catches me, keeping me upright through the dizzying spin.
When my vision clears, we’re somewhere else entirely.
The scent hits first—salt and iron and something ancient. Stone walls rise around us, slick with moisture, and torchlight flickers against surfaces carved with runes I don’t recognize.
“Where—”
“Your first task.” Legend releases my hand, stepping back to watch me with that same infuriating smirk, though I can’t help but notice the way he forces it to stay in place, a hand shooting out to steady himself when he starts to sway.
Before I can make fun of him, he speaks. “Hope you’re ready.”
The room shifts.
No—shifts isn’t the right word. The room becomes.
One second, damp stone walls. The next, darkness so thick it eats the torchlight whole. Then color detonates everywhere—shades I can’t name, colors that shouldn’t fucking exist. Purple spilling into gold, electric blue cracking into something that tastes like metal on my tongue.
My breath snags.
Under my boots, the ground shifts. Stone turns to sand—hot, loose—and I stagger as desert explodes into existence. Dunes rolling out forever in every direction. Air rippling with heat that crawls over my skin. The sun sits low and vicious, a ruthless eye searing against a sky that’s too fucking red to be anything but wrong.
Then it vanishes.
City lights explode into existence, glass and steel towers shooting up from nowhere. The desert’s gone, swallowed by concrete and neon, sounds slamming into me—horns screaming, voices yelling, music pounding from places I can’t see. The air goes cold, sharp, tasting like exhaust and rain that hasn’t hit yet.
My pulse kicks hard. Sweat dots my temples even though the air’s freezing now.
Something’s fucking wrong.
The dread wraps tighter, winding around my ribs like it wants to crush them. Every shift—desert to city to whatever the fuck comes next—drags it with me. This suffocating wrongness that makes every instinct I’ve got scream run.
“What the fuck is this?” The words rip out, sharp enough to cut.
Legend stands a few paces off, completely unbothered while everything around us warps and twists. His face gives me nothing. Just those dark eyes tracking every move I make, every flinch.
“Your task,” he says again.
The city blinks out. Night slams down like someone dropped a curtain. Stars explode overhead, way too many of them, burning way too bright, arranged in patterns that don’t exist anywhere I’ve ever been.
My hands ball into fists.
“Legend—”
The ground shakes.
I drop, instincts kicking in before thought does, weight shifting as the ground rumbles under me. The stars blink out. Darkness floods everything and the cold hits like a punch.
Silence.
No city noise. No wind. Nothing but my own breathing.
Just the dread, heavy and suffocating, filling my chest like smoke.
Then Legend’s voice, slicing through the black.
“Find your way out.”
The maze explodes around me.
One second, there’s nothing. Next second, jagged concrete walls shoot up around me, black ivy crawling up the surfaces like it’s alive—pulsing, breathing. The air goes thick. Humid. Cloying. Tasting like wet stone and something way older. Something that’s been rotting for centuries.
I slam down on my ass, the impact punching all the air from my lungs. “Fucking Royal.”
Legend’s laugh rolls through the space somewhere behind me, but when I spin, he’s gone. Disappeared like he was never standing there at all. Just the maze. Just me. Just these new walls pressing in on all sides.