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)
Movement at the edge of my vision. Legend, still walking away, Arabella on his arm.
He pauses. Just for a second. Glances back over his shoulder.
Our eyes lock one last time.
Then everything goes black.
Chapter Thirty-One
Haide
Darkness clings to me as the portal sucks me dry.
This one isn’t like the others. This one chews. My bones grind against one another. My skin peels back in strips. My blood boils in my veins before freezing solid. I can feel it—the magic isn’t just moving me. It’s tasting me. Savoring the way I scream.
Good, I think, bile burning my throat. Let it hurt. Let it all fucking hurt.
Because pain is better than the alternative. Pain means I’m still here. Still me. Not some broken, pathetic thing left sobbing on the floor while Legend Deveraux fucks his real mate in front of an entire court.
The image sears through me—his hands on her, his mouth on her, the way he looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was less than nothing. A stain. A mistake. A fucking witch.
My vision whites out and then I’m falling until my back slams into something hard. Stone. Cold. The impact knocks the breath from my lungs, but I don’t gasp.
Laughter rips from my throat, raw, as I cough, hand on my stomach. Motherfucker! Blood. My own. Slips down my throat.
Consciousness drags me up from the black, my face pressing against volcanic rock, and the familiar bite of Exile Island’s dust grinding between my teeth.
Home.
The word should bring comfort. Instead, it tastes like betrayal.
Boots come into view first. Leather, dusty and loosely tied to his feet. My eyes move up his body.
Smoke twists around him, thick and black, clinging like it’s part of him.
Rusted metal melts over his chest, dripping down his abs in uneven streaks, and I follow it all the way to where it covers his face, leaving his mouth and eyes visible. Red fucking eyes peer at me from above, his mouth twitching in a way that draws my attention to how soft they look against everything else.
That’s when I notice them. I suck in a breath. Dark, jagged horns stab up to the sky on each side of his head.
Holy hell, that is fucked up. Who the hell is this?
My throat locks. I force a swallow—fuck, he’s huge. Good. Bigger targets are easier to hit.
His gaze burns like a brand pressed to my skin. My teeth grind, jaw screaming, but I don’t blink. Don’t flinch.
I push up. The ground tilts under me like I’m drunk. My vision swims; stomach lurches.
This fucking dress—the one that made me feel barely enough—hangs off me in rags. Sparkly bits litter the dirt around me, catching the light.
You were never my mate.
Witch.
His words echo in my skull, each syllable a fresh wound. The thing about wounds, though—they’re the main source of a pain that I have no problem turning into a fucking war.
For a moment, I believed him. Fucking believed him when he said I was his mate, his queen, his everything. Opened myself up like an idiot, let him see the soft parts I didn’t even know I carried. He dug that shit up and used it to fucking bury me.
I hate Legend Deveraux.
Laughter breaks through my spiraling thoughts. For a minute, I forget all about the horned beast. Too obsessed with my hatred.
I bare my teeth, straightening my shoulders as if it’s gonna do shit up against this giant. “Cute mask,” I spit. “Shame it won’t stop me from gutting you.”
He tilts his head, slow, deliberate, as if bored.
I fucking bore him?
It’s fine, every newcomer exiled to this place has to learn theirs at some point. Even demons. How long was I gone for anyway? And this motherfucker thinks he can walk in here and claim what’s mine?
No. Absolutely fucking not. Not after I just endured the royal assholes of Rathe.
I move toward him with purpose, blade ready, smirk widening. Every muscle screams in protest. My ribs burn with each breath, probably cracked from where Legend threw me like a discarded toy. The memory hits me harder than the pain—his face, cold and empty, calling me nothing.
Calling me exile.
Like it was poison on his tongue.
I hesitate.
“Cute dress.” His voice is low, yet in a tone I’ve never heard. Almost as though it echoes itself enough to vibrate through the air. “Would look better on the floor.” Those red eyes remain locked on mine.
He steps forward until he’s close enough that the curve of his horns nearly graze my hair. Close enough that his heat, or maybe the ocean’s, clings to my skin.
My knives don’t waver in my grip—muscles screaming to drive steel straight through his ribs. But my fingers lock up.
That broken laugh scrapes out of him again. Like he’s the only one who gets the punchline of some cruel joke.