Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116396 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 582(@200wpm)___ 466(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“Keep your guard up, Huntley.”
“She would never hurt me, Mother.” I said it with a bite, offended that she would insinuate something so sinister.
“Faron killed your father, and a promise to the woman you love wasn’t enough to stop you. Now you’ve killed her father. You don’t think she’ll be blinded by revenge? You don’t think she’ll lose her resolve just the way you did? I hope I’m wrong—but proceed as if I’m not.”
TWO
Ivory
Blinded by my tears, I barely made it out of the castle.
Guards watched me as I passed, and even Ryker tried to stop me, but I evaded his grasp and kept going. I made it out the double doors, to the city below the hill, and then to the fields outside the city. “Pyre!” Once the castle was behind me and I could feel the fresh air right on my face, I felt the tightness in my chest release. “Pyre!” I dropped to my knees and sat there, my eyes on the torched patch of grass from earlier that morning. It was almost sunset now, the sky tinged with purple and orange.
A swoop through the air, and then the ground shook once the dark-green dragon landed in front of me. Are you alright?
My arms cocooned my body, as if I were shivering from the cold. “No.”
He laid his body on the grass, resting his neck and snout on the ground right in front of me so we could be eye level. What has happened?
“My husband…killed my father.” The tears started again, splitting my chest right in half.
Why would he do such a thing?
“It’s a long story… But he promised me he wouldn’t.”
Why would he break his promise?
“I don’t know…couldn’t control himself. Doesn’t matter. I trusted him. The only reason I agreed to any of this was because he would spare my father’s life. He lied to me. If I hadn’t done any of this, my father would still be alive.”
You can’t think that way, Ivory.
“It’s true…it’s all my fault.” I brought my knees to my chest and sobbed harder, the image of my father’s dead body forever ingrained in my mind. The sword pierced his throat and the back of his head, grotesquely pinning him in place.
I’m sorry.
My forehead rested on my knees, and I hugged myself.
Pyre curled his body around me and then covered my body with his wing, plunging me into near darkness. Sleep. You’ll feel better when you wake up.
I lay on my side on the grass, still crying, clutching my knees to my chest.
I’ll keep them away.
THREE
Ryker
Ivory flew out of the castle in tears, tears I’d never seen her shed in my life. When I tried to grab her, she shoved me so hard against the wall I hit the back of my head against a sconce.
At first, I thought she and Huntley had had a fight.
But I couldn’t imagine a fight would end in her fleeing the castle, the castle she’d just taken with two enormous dragons. Whatever it was had to be bad. Really bad.
And that was when it hit me. “Shit.”
I moved down the hallway to the stairs in the rear, and I came across Effie on the way.
“Where’s Ivory?” she asked. “I haven’t seen her yet.”
I shoved her aside without answering.
“Ryker?”
I moved to the stairs, took them in a rush, and made it into the basement.
Effie followed me the whole way. “You’re scaring me. What’s going on.”
I made it to the cells in the dungeon and stilled when I saw him.
I was instantly nauseated, instantly sick, but I couldn’t look away. My eyes wanted to break contact, but my mind needed to be convinced that this was real, that my father had been executed with a sword through his skull.
“Oh no…Ryker.”
I finally pulled my gaze away when I realized it was true.
My father was dead.
And I knew exactly who had killed him.
Effie was on me, her hands on my shoulders, her sad face in my line of sight. “I’m so sorry.”
“You hated him.”
She flinched at my bitterness. “Doesn’t matter. Your feelings are all I care about right now.”
Huntley didn’t feel the same way about his own wife. I left Effie’s affection and headed back to the stairs.
“Ryker.”
I took the stairs two at a time to get back to the ground floor as quickly as possible.
“Shit, what are you going to do?”
I emerged from the basement and flew down the hallway. Guards passed me, some in the armor of the Delacroix, some in the dark armor of the Runes. My eyes scanned every room, searching for that asshole in the dining room, the study, the bedchambers, everywhere.
I finally found him.
He was outside the city gates, standing on the grass. Twenty feet in front of him was one of the dragons, wrapped in a ball like there was something in the middle. He stood there alone, in his armor and weapons, staring.