Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
“Kaitlyn!” Braze’s roar cut through the chaos.
He didn’t have the spear anymore—he only had the tentacle—a five-foot-long club of dead muscle ending in a grotesque mouth. Would it be enough?
It’ll fucking have to be, he thought. Rage blazed through him again, dropping a bloody red curtain over his vision. Everything narrowed down to one thing—saving his Mistress—the woman he had sworn to protect—or to die for her if he had to.
With a low growl, he charged. As one beak darted for Kaitlyn’s hurt ankle, he swung the severed tentacle like a crude flail. The heavy, limp beak of his weapon connected with the attacking one with a solid thwack, knocking it aside.
The second tentacle struck at her from the other side. Braze dropped his makeshift club, dove, and grabbed it bare-handed just behind the beak. The rotating teeth scraped against the thick metal manacle on his wrist, sending up sparks. He snarled, pinning the thing to the floor with his knee, his hands straining to hold it as it bucked and writhed like a monstrous eel.
“The spear!” he yelled at Kaitlyn, his voice raw. “Get the fucking spear! Now, while I have hold of this fucker! And hurry!”
18
KAITLYN
Kaitlyn stared at her Protector, wide-eyed for a moment, then looked at the Kriver.
The spear—he wanted the spear. It was still buried deep in the furred chest, just a few feet away from the creature’s heaving side. The shaft rose and fell with its labored, gurgling breaths.
Kaitlyn’s paralysis seemed to break as her survival instincts finally kicked in and something sharper than fear took over. She pushed off from the wall, slipped on the gore-slick stone, and scrambled on all fours toward the beast. The heat radiating from its body was immense, like standing near a furnace. The stench of blood and offal was nauseating.
She reached the spear, and her hands closed around the blood-slicked shaft, warm and sticky. She planted her feet, took a breath that tasted like death, and pulled.
It didn’t budge.
She pulled again, putting her whole weight into it, an extremely unladylike grunt coming from her throat. With a sickening, sucking sound, the spearhead came free, dripping purple blood and strands of dark tissue. It was heavier than she expected, and she almost dropped it before she got a better grip.
The Kriver clearly felt the spear coming out. Its head swung toward her, the great amber eye focusing through its pain and its remaining tentacles writhing. A wounded rumble vibrated through the floor.
“Here!” Braze shouted.
Kaitlyn turned and saw that her Protector was still wrestling with the tentacle, but he’d managed to get one arm free. He held out a hand for the weapon, the cords in his neck straining with effort. His golden eyes had gone blood red.
Kaitlyn didn’t hesitate. She didn’t throw the spear—she knew she’d just drop it. Instead, she stumbled forward and shoved the shaft of the weapon into his waiting palm.
The moment his fingers closed around it, he charged.
In one violent motion, he yanked the pinned tentacle upward, exposing the softer, paler flesh where it joined the main mass of the creature’s body, just below the spear’s original wound.
The Kriver’s single golden, dinner-plate sized eye focused on him and it screamed with its remaining beaked tentacle-mouths. But it was too wounded to get away.
Braze reversed his grip on the spear and drove it down—not with a stab, but with a brutal, chopping plunge.
The sharpened point punched through the golden iris, popping the monstrous eyeball like an enormous egg. White and gold mucus exploded outward, running everywhere as he leaned his full weight on it, twisting viciously to push the spear’s sharp point into the beast’s brain.
The Kriver’s convulsions reached a crescendo of writhing and screeching tentacles. Then, suddenly, they stopped. A final, shuddering sigh hissed from its body, and the terrible tension in its limbs went slack. The tentacles which had been whipping around in the air fell limp and the one still in Braze’s grip drooped, lifeless in his hand.
At last, there was silence.
It was a thick, ringing silence—broken only by the drip of blood and wine, and the ragged sound of Braze’s breathing.
Oh my God—is it really dead?
Kaitlyn watched her Protector, her heart slowly beginning to slow its frantic rhythm.
Brazze stayed there for a long moment, braced over the dead beast, his knuckles white on the spear shaft, his body painted in streaks of purple blood and golden ooze from the eye.
Then he straightened, pulled the spear free with a wet sound, and turned.
His eyes were still blood red as his gaze found Kaitlyn’s. He hurried to her side and dropped to his knees beside her.
“Are you all right?” His voice was hoarse, and she could see the fear on his face. “It didn’t hurt you, did it? Are you bleeding anywhere?”
“I…I don’t think so.” The fierce, protective intensity of his gaze was like a physical force that she felt in her bones.