Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 78886 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78886 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
What are you doing? Enough! There was no reason to borrow trouble. Vik wasn’t dead, and that was that. I would hide and heal, and he would find me. Plan made. As I lumbered to my feet, pain and weakness nearly felled me. With sheer determination, I persevered and reclaimed the dagger.
Hemorrhaging what little strength I possessed at record speed, I stumbled forward. I kept my wadded up shirt pressed into my wound with one hand and clutched my weapon with the other, ready to defend myself from any shifter I stumbled upon.
I crested a hill, my knees almost buckling with relief when I spotted a village. A village meant food, warmth, and maybe even rudimentary medical care.
Kicking up snow behind me, I charged forward as fast as my abused body allowed. Hmm. Frost clung to the cracked, weathered walls of abandoned cottages. A door to a former store creaked on its hinge, ominous in the wintry wind. Its roof was partially caved in under the weight of ice and dead leaves.
Okay, so, this wasn’t the safe space I’d imagined. But maybe that was a good thing. Residents might have gladly turned me over to Deco.
With a tired sigh, I exited the village and plodded forward. A gust of glacial wind hit my face, but the bite didn’t sting quite as much as I expected. Maybe my senses were dulling as I neared death.
A humorless laugh bubbled up.
“What’s so funny, baba?” an unfamiliar voice called.
Ack! Shifter! I scanned ahead. A turul perched high in a tree. He watched me with a wicked grin, his dark hair slicked back, his features sharp. “I’m not your baby,” I grated.
“You’ll never escape us,” he taunted, as smug as Deco.
Fury sparked. Don’t waste energy engaging with the enemy. I hurried on as fast as my abused body allowed. Not that I made it far before spotting another shifter. And another. And another. They lurked everywhere and none missed the opportunity to threaten me.
“I’m gonna love ripping you open.”
“Are you a screamer? I’m excited to find out.”
“I like your face. Maybe I’ll wear it.”
I kept going, my fury burning hotter and hotter. But it wasn’t my usual fury. There was a righteous tinge to it. Like, how dare they think they had any power over me. I was Clover Deering, firebrand to a king. The king.
Bottles shook. Soon, my blood graduated from a low simmer to a high boil. To my immense surprise, each new level of heat strengthened me, making my steps surer. The pain dimmed before vanishing completely. I glanced down. Blood no longer dripped from my wound. The edges had even begun to knit together and close.
What! Was I actually healing supernaturally? Oh, not as quickly as the berserkers on the battlefield, but far swifter than humanly possible.
Malachi’s proclamation whispered through my mind. I am now King of the House of Griffin, and you are one of my people.
Viktor’s confession followed. You are of sentinel blood. Griffin.
Well, well, well. I tugged my crimson-stained shirt into place. How fitting. Look at the blood-soaked dog groomer who also happened to be part berserker. Excuse me, sentinel. Exactly as Malachi and Viktor had claimed.
Maybe I didn’t need to hide from the turul-shifters. Or my emotions. I could do battle. And what better place to do so than the camp where Viktor and his men had worked so hard to mount a defense? But which direction was it?
Even when the last bit of light snuffed out, I kept going, listening for the river. Dried leaves and snow crunched beneath my boots, blending with the haunting call of owls and other critters I didn’t want to know about.
Glowing red eyes seemed to hover here and there, there, there. I tightened my grip on the dagger. How good was a turul-shifter’s night vision?
I entered a silvery, moonlit clearing and ground to a halt, struck by a bolt of shock. Ten shifters waited on the other side, standing wing to wing, forming a wall of menace. Nine males and one female, each a picture of confident power. The worst part? Four of those males were former elites, exactly as advertised. They pawed at the ground with their bare feet, almost as feral as Viktor had once been. Unlike their former king, they couldn’t contain their desire to kill me.
Outrage consumed the whole of my being, my bottles shaking harder. “How can you do this? You were chosen by him. Trusted.”
They didn’t seem to register my words.
I couldn’t blame Deco for this. No matter what he’d done, these men had always had a choice. Welcome the evil or fight it. They’d caved. But I would punish Deco for it. Soon. First, I must survive this encounter.
The guy in the middle—the jerk who’d expressed a desire to wear my face—popped the bones in his neck. “King Deco has realized it’ll be more fun if Viktor comes out of hiding and finds his future queen scattered throughout the forest. We concur.”