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)
The mers had been here, and they’d climbed inside. Woven beds of seagrasses and broken shells lay scattered about. But not a sign of scale or fin. A mercy, considering my wings evaporated as the last of my strength depleted. But it meant they could get in again. I’d have to remain on alert.
To get inside myself, I could do nothing but fall. Down, down I tumbled. Boom! I crashed into the nest’s bottom with a hard, heavy thud. Bile rushed up my throat. Dark stars winked through my vision, and my breath came in ragged pulls.
Moaning, I rolled into a fetal ball, sucking air through my teeth and trying to ignore all the new aches and pains. Part of me wanted to stay like this until I recovered. To do nothing but breathe. To wait until Sebastian found me, as promised. My mind shouted, And let my foes win? Never!
When my stomach calmed, I looked at my hand to assess the damage. Tears welled, blurring at the gruesome sight. My pinky was gone. Not removed cleanly, but torn. Blood still oozed sluggishly, dark and sticky. Jagged bone peeked from the ruins.
Unlike Sebastian, who’d lost his pinky before immortality sped up his ability to heal, my appendage would grow back. Even still, rage flared hot and bright. I wanted the primordial’s head and heart on a silver platter. Imagined feeding both to swine, even as part of me recoiled.
But regeneration required fuel. Fire. Breathing deeply, I pressed my mangled flesh and exposed bone into a fissure that branched through the stone. A ragged groan slipped past my lips. Warmth from the rock, from the heat of the day, from the latent gold threaded below the surface leached into me, trickling up my arm, into my shoulder, then through the rest of me.
Scales rippled beneath my skin. The wound burned, not worsening, not any longer, but changing. The raw edge tingled, cells knitting slowly, bone preparing to grow.
As strength chased away weakness, some of the fog in my mind cleared. My plan cemented. I forced myself upright and got to work, gathering as much seagrass as possible into the center, creating a mound. Around the pile, I scored a shallow channel into the soil with my claws.
I knew that what I was about to do would act as an arrow to my enemy. Here she is, come get her. In fact, the moment I did it, a countdown clock would start, the next battle imminent. But there was no other way to finish the rejuvenation process. So…
Thinking of the mers and the primordial, I drew in a breath so deep it scraped my lungs raw. Heat answered the call, flooding my jaw, my throat, my veins.
I didn’t blow the fire. I loosened it. Flame struck the pile and roared to life, devouring the grass in a heartbeat. Smoke danced skyward.
As I stepped into the inferno, my undergarments turned to ash. Bliss came. Sharp, familiar, and oh, so exquisite as the flames wrapped around me. Fed me. My skin drank it in, the heat melting pain and weakness from my bones.
Strength swelled anew. More than I’d ever wielded. Where agony had hollowed me out only moments before, power now thrived. No new pinky yet, but the wound had closed. Relief and exhilaration surged.
My senses sharpened to needle points, honing in on the surrounding boulders. Then I heard it. Telltale noises carried by the wind. The haunting warsong of surf where none should be. The scrape of tridents against rock.
The mers approached.
They were running… sprinting… determined. Judging by the scent of brine tingeing the air, they were a mile back.
I had only minutes. Lifting my chin, I cast my narrowed gaze to the wide expanse of dark blue sky, where smoke collected, resembling storm clouds. Inhale, exhale. Thoughts gathered in my mind, tinder for my dragon. I’d been on a date. Mers had attacked. Sebastian had vanished. A madman had eaten my pinky. Munched on it. As he’d once munched on Sebastian’s.
The berserkerage slammed into me like a tidal wave. With a roar from the depths of my being, my dragon broke free in full, nothing held back. Smokewings burst forth in a wild torrent, lifting me off my feet, suspending me midair. Colors faded until my world narrowed, and I saw only heat. Scales bled over my skin, covering my nakedness. My teeth lengthened, and my claws curled.
I let my wings take me over the walls of the nest. Higher still, until only the forest spread out beyond the rocky roosts.
Blood boiling, I hovered there, waiting. Vibrating with eagerness.
My patience paid off.
In a rush of armored bodies, the first line of mers erupted through the underbrush. Their shell-plated torsos glistened as they readied their weapons…
They died screaming in my fire before ever mounting a proper defense.