Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
The pieces of his body fell to the platform floor.
I felt the sick instantly rising up, but Monique was already fighting another one.
This one invisible.
I couldn’t watch, not because I really didn’t want to (really!), but because I was grabbed from behind.
I had never so much as taken a self-defense class.
Either instinct or self-preservation set in, because without hesitation, I slammed my elbow back with all the force I could muster.
I heard his Oof! right before I bent viciously at the waist, throwing the invisible being over my head, and although I saw no one, I heard his body hit the stone floor.
I’d studied that shimmer on the picture for so long, I recognized it on the stone of the plateau.
Thus, I aimed a well-placed kick at it with all my strength.
I heard another Oof! and the shimmer went flying into the flames that, since our arrival, had risen dramatically higher.
Another shriek, this one longer as the being’s glamor burned off the instant he hit the flames and he immediately disappeared down into the pit.
I didn’t have the opportunity to go to the edge and see how far down he went.
I had another one on me.
I twisted out of his hold, turned on him and went hand to hand, kick for kick.
He thought he had an advantage.
But I hyper-concentrated on the waves of the air and could duck, sidestep, jump, and land my own strikes.
He still was stronger, backing me to the edge of the plateau.
Gods dammit!
This stopped when, with a crouching twirl, Monique cut both his feet off at the ankles with her staff.
I would never forget his scream of pain, or how it turned to fear while he listed over the side of the plateau, became visible, and like he was in slow motion (but none of this was happening in slow motion, not even close), he teetered into the flames, frantically grasping at air that would not stop him from falling.
He fell.
And I had two of them on me.
Monique was still battling others.
How many, I didn’t know.
I had to concentrate on what was going on with me.
The ones that had me were one too many, their strength was demonic, they had to be males, and they’d clearly cottoned on to the fact not only did I have help, but I wasn’t going down without a fight.
And I was fighting with everything I had.
They wrestled me to the edge, with me struggling all the way, screaming at the top of my lungs, clawing, tearing, kicking.
Oh gods, oh gods…
They were going to send me over the edge. No adopting a cat. No bringing the citadel back to its former glory. No planning my wedding with my mom.
No Tanyn.
They sent me over the edge.
I let out a piercing scream.
I heard Mon shriek, “No!”
But when I hit the flames, it felt like I hit a wall of fluffy pillows.
Holy Lilith.
And gently, the flames spit me out, back onto the plateau, feet safe on stone, body unscathed.
The waving shadows seemed staggered by this, I knew, because they were motionless.
A fatal mistake.
One materialized, his face a picture of shock. He started folding toward the plateau, and as he dropped, I saw Monique behind him, yanking her knuckle blade out of his back.
She kicked him into the flames and then turned to the other one.
He materialized when Monique’s staff pierced his throat from behind.
A spray of blood splashed all over me.
He gurgled.
I gagged.
Demon eyes stared at me.
They’d all been demons.
But demons could not glamor, only fae could.
Someone was handing out illegal potions.
And I had a feeling I knew who that someone was.
Monique yanked her staff out.
He fell to his knees and—his body jerking grotesquely, his mouth open, desperately trying to pull in air, his blood staining the dark stone—he went through the death throes at our feet.
When he went still, I noted Mon was breathing heavily, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her conjured weapons, something I thought only a fae could do, still radiating.
I was doing the same (without the weapons, of course).
We were staring at each other, but both of us were holding our bodies at the ready, concentrating on the feel of the space, trying to sense if there were more coming.
One second dragged into the next, and the next, and the next, as we both stayed tense and on alert.
Finally, she straightened and her weapons blinked out of her hands.
“Are we safe?” I whispered.
“For now,” she replied.
I rolled my shoulders and looked around the plateau.
It wasn’t that big.
But we were sharing it with one half of a whole being (in the fight, Monique must have nudged the other half of the first guy she killed over the edge), two severed feet, and two dead bodies.
The rest of them had gone over the sides.
I mean, was that just dumb luck (on my part, Mon obviously had some serious chops), or was I a latent badass?