Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I head through the enormous double doors that are propped open. I don’t think the castle is a singular private abode for Amell, but more of a commerce center where people visit and meet to carry on business. I have no clue where Amell might be in this monstrosity, so I stop the first creature I come across—a Dark Fae ravager, judging by his leather battle clothes and necklace of what look to be rib bones.
I grab his arm. “Hey… you.”
The fae snarls and attempts to jerk free, but I’m stronger, a fact he immediately understands as he stills. “I’m here for Amell. Where is he?”
“His living quarters, I’d imagine?” He grunts and nods toward a hallway.
“Preesh,” I say, releasing him.
I expect the dude to move on, but I guess I dented his ravager ego card, and he pulls his sword. Swinging it once in a circle above him, he attempts to bring it straight across my neck to relieve me of my head. My hand shoots out, grabs the sharp blade without even a slice to my skin, and stops his momentum as if he hit a brick wall. My other hand comes out, base of my palm driving into his sternum, and he flies thirty feet across the hall, knocking over other creatures milling about. He’s down for the count—not dead, but his chest pulverized. It will take him awhile to regenerate.
Turning toward the hallway where he pointed, I find a wall of ravager fae with their swords drawn, prepared to come at me for knocking one of their own to the ground.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter, and while I love a good old-fashioned brawl any day, I don’t have the patience for it today.
I start to draw power inward, prepared to obliterate them all to dust when Amell appears between me and his subjects, his black wings spread out as a threat. “Touch a hair on one of their heads and I’m going to toss your ass into the Crimson River.”
I scoff but let the power die, and his wings settle against his back. “As if you could ever.”
“Go about your business,” Amell booms to the crowd watching this unfold. He glances over his shoulder at the ravagers. “Be at peace.”
They grumble but disperse, a few moving over to grab their unconscious friend to carry him from the great hall.
Amell brings his attention back to me. “You better have a good reason for attacking my people.”
“They started it,” I say in an exaggeratedly petulant voice.
The king of the Underworld isn’t amused. “What are you doing here?”
“Zora sent me to help you.”
“Help me what?”
I shrug. “She said something about you having an uprising, and that she didn’t have faith in you to quell it. She wants me to step in and make sure the job gets done right.”
“Get over yourself,” Amell drawls. “Zora would never say such a thing and I’m not petty enough to squabble with you.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Not petty enough? Says the dipshit who sent a poltergeist to my house to turn the lights on and off throughout the night while I was trying to sleep.”
There’s no reaction except the tiniest of lip twitches, but he denies it. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you don’t, so why don’t you tell me what’s going on, let me give you some yada yada advice, and I can go back to Zora and say I’ve done my job.”
“I don’t need your advice,” he snaps.
“And yet I’ve been ordered here to help, so let’s get it over with.”
There’s a commotion at the far end of the hall, several Dark Fae and daemons converging in on someone with an excited chatter in the air. Amell’s head turns that way, his gaze softening and the tightness in his jaw relaxing.
The crowd peels away and heading toward us is a hot-as-hell woman in head-to-toe black leather and stiletto boots. Put a whip in her hand and she’d be a dominatrix.
I might be brash, stubborn, and hot-tempered, but I’m not stupid. This must be Amell’s new wife, Nyssa. Zora told me all about her.
The asshole in me would try to hit on her to get a rise out of Amell, but I honest to fuck can’t bring myself to do it as I take in the adoring look he gives her.
She doesn’t spare me a glance but walks up to the mighty king, pressing her palm over his heart. His wings rustle in response, and his hand moves to her hip.
“Making friends or enemies today?” he asks.
“Always friends.” She laughs, going on tiptoes to brush a kiss against his jaw. Turning to me, I get a brief once-over. “Who are you?”
“Maddox.”
“Oh,” she says with an understanding nod and then looks up at her husband. “The besotted fool who doubles as Zora’s lapdog?”