Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
I couldn’t even fathom what that would mean for humanity. If the skies were busted apart and Kruen crawled out to run rampant on Earth.
The two worlds colliding.
The one thing I knew for sure was this one wouldn’t last long.
It would be trampled.
Crushed.
Devastation strewn from one end to the other. Complete ruin left in its wake.
“We can’t allow that to happen.” Agitation curled through Pax’s voice as he roughed a hand through his hair, the man itching with the need to hunt. To slay the evil the way he’d always done.
“We won’t,” I asserted, and I reached out and took Dani’s hand, sharing a look with the woman who had been my mentor for so long. My sanity when I’d been so confused as a young adult. Support through all the trauma and fear.
My best friend.
My sister.
She took Timothy’s hand, and I reached out and grabbed Pax’s.
It linked us all like a chain.
And I could swear that, deep inside me, the light flared, and with the way everyone inhaled sharply at the contact, I was sure it did in them, too.
“Together,” I said.
“Together,” they reiterated.
Then surprise rocked out of Dani on a huff, and she cocked her head at me with those pale eyes wide. “Um, not to interrupt this whole pact to save the world that we’re making here, but what the hell is that?”
She cast a pointed look between Pax, me, and the ribbon tied around my left ring finger.
Pax shifted his attention to me, a cross of resolve and affection on his face before he shifted it back to Dani. “Aria and I are getting married.”
Then he squeezed my hand and murmured, “Tonight.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Pax—Tearsith
Pax held tight to Aria as they eased out from the dense foliage that hedged in their sanctuary. The air was pleasantly cool. Perfect as it murmured across their flesh on the temperate breeze that rustled through the boundaries of Tearsith.
The massive, magnificent tree stood proud in the distance. Limbs forever full of dense leaves stretched out to create a canopy of green. A tree where he and Aria had played as children. Where they’d laughed and giggled and chased each other.
That was in the years before they’d understood the perversion and obscenity. The wickedness that reigned, that one day they would war against. Before the scars and the traumas and the fear.
This girl who’d been his very best friend. His only friend. The one who’d become his anchor when he felt as if he were perpetually lost in the ravages of a deep, toiling sea.
He glanced at his Nol then. At the sharp, defined angles of her face. Cheeks and jaw whittled like blades. Eyes sharp and keen, yet so unbelievably kind. Real and steeped in her desire to help those in need.
He had no question that she would be willing to sacrifice it all, even if it only served one person.
One soul.
But her mission had become so much greater than that. The scores she’d been given to protect. Every life. Every being.
The charge that had been her burden had become essential.
Basic for all survival.
The whole fucking weight of the world riding on her shoulders.
But for one night—just one night—he wanted to give her a reprieve.
A moment that only belonged to her.
A moment that only belonged to them.
Beyond where he and Aria stood on the soft grass at the edge of Tearsith, on the bank on the crystalline brook that weaved through their haven, their Laven family had begun to gather at their great teacher’s feet.
Pax’s chest tightened when he saw that Ellis had grown weary. His shriveled frame sagged even more than it had just a week ago.
Brittle beneath the great losses that had befallen their tribe. Their family, who were being picked off one by one, their numbers dwindling with each day that passed.
A quiet sorrow quivered and moaned through the flock, though in it, Pax could feel a new strength that had emerged. Nols sat closer, tied in a way they’d never been before, clinging to the other in relief that both had arrived in Tearsith that night.
That they’d made it another day.
“How many of them do you think have joined?” Aria asked beneath her breath as she stared out over the crowd. “How many do you think have found their Nol in the day?”
“I imagine that most of them ran to find the other, if there was any possibility of doing it,” Pax rumbled.
“I can only wonder if them finding each other is what has allowed them to come here tonight. If it’s what’s kept them safe.” Aria’s voice was laden with caution, and he could feel her grief. Her pain over the ones who’d already been lost.
She suddenly trembled. “Do you think it’s because of me? Is it because of me that Ambrose has been seeking the demise of us all? He said I was the last one standing in his way. Would he stop this slaughter if I was no longer in his way?”