Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Whoa. Not what I’d expected him to say. It didn’t even make the podium. Shifters were former berserkers who’d surrendered wholly to the beast within, becoming an evil so pure they lived only to kill berserkers. They were more likely to betray Sebastian than to aid him.
One on one, that wasn’t a big deal. But dealing with hordes of them? Huge deal. Dragons had warred with them for centuries, and a truce bordered on impossible.
“I do not believe such a plan is wise, but I don’t see my part in this.” My brow furrowed. I may represent Ashmorra as ambassador, but diplomacy with a shifter? Completely out of my wheelhouse. “Unless—oh!” Recalling the many languages the king had used with me, I thought I had deduced the answer. “You require a translator.”
“Nei. Not a translator. Not exactly.” He leaned closer, his gaze boring into mine. “I need a lover, Bronwyn.”
Chapter
Four
Kraken never bluff.
–An Incomplete Guide to Kraken Survival
Ineed a lover.
Sebastian’s words echoed through my mind, growing louder with each new incarnation.
“Excuse me?” I finally burst out. He had not just said what I thought he’d just said.
“Do not worry, Brownie—Brona,” he corrected himself with a small smile. But that smile didn’t last long. He opened a hidden compartment, revealing a wet bar, and poured two drinks. “Já, I believe we’ve found your nickname.” He offered me a glass, but I declined. He drained both. “As for our relationship, it will be performance only. With the distinct honor of being my consort, you’ll have a reason to be at my side.”
Shock hadn’t loosened me from its vise-grip. “But why me?” Surely scores of kraken women would line up for the chance. All better suited for the position of his fake paramour.
“You understand language in a way others do not.”
“Ah, but you don’t need a translator, remember?” I said, fighting for calm. “Try again.”
“All right. How’s this? In five days, convergence occurs. For sixty seconds, a rune that has remained dormant for centuries will awaken and speak.”
Not terrifying so far. Though a speaking rune seemed… odd? “I studied convergence before I came.” A time when the outer sea, the dome tide and the moon breathe together. “What I don’t understand is my part in it.”
“I need you there when it happens. To answer the rune’s question.”
I waited for him to elaborate. He did not. “What question?” I asked.
“One that will allow it to transfer its power to me.” His expression hardened. “Then I will become the only weapon capable of slaying the primordial.”
Whoa, whoa. His victory hinged on me having a chit-chat with a rune? Nein. Unacceptable. “What if I mishear the question? Or don’t hear it at all?” Were the images on the dome—and his skin—speaking even now?
“You will hear, and you will hear correctly,” he said, firm. “There’s nothing easier, Brona. We’ll work on it together.”
Not good enough. “How do you know I’ll hear correctly?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Because you meet a specific set of criteria.”
That wasn’t good enough either. “Well? List the criteria. Some kind of prophecy? Perhaps a mythical birthmark I don’t know I have? A wild, chosen-one situation?” All the scenarios I’d read about in my novels.
The corner of his mouth quirked before his entire countenance turned wry. “You are female. Flaxen-haired. Have eyes like calm waters and dragon fire in your veins.”
That was specific. And odd. “A powerful rune is concerned about my hair and eye color?”
“Nei,” he admitted, a bit sheepish. “Those are my own preferences. What I choose for my consort, the only woman the rune will be willing to speak with.”
A flutter stirred in my stomach. Learning I fulfilled the requirements of an ancient rune would have been far less unsettling than discovering I fulfilled Sebastian’s.
“I just… I still can’t wrap my head around why you chose me for this job. Surely there’s someone else better qualified.” I got the bigger details, sure, but not all the smaller ins and outs. “And why does the stone need to speak with your consort at all? Why not have a conversation with you directly?”
“It will. But only after it speaks to you.”
“Why?” I insisted.
“Ask it.”
Did he not know why I had to go first? Or did he just not want to tell me?
“This is what I know beyond any doubt.” Sebastian tossed back a third drink. Was the unflappable king... drinking to steady himself? “Jon, the shifter king, won’t move against Jokull unless I hold the rune’s power. No one follows a king who can’t win. But Jon needs to see me with my consort, publicly, putting skin in the game. No consort, no truce, no fighting Jon together.”
Wait. Logic flaw. “Jon might not know I’m a fake consort, but the rune will.”
“Why would you consider yourself fake?” He frowned as if I’d missed the most obvious detail. “You will agree to be my consort. Therefore, you will be my consort. What we do within our arrangement is up to us, no one else.”