Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
She nodded.
I grabbed the rock with one hand and her hand with the other.
Then we jumped to our feet and ran.
There was no straight path.
The military had arrived, though I wasn’t sure if they were trying to calm the chaos or simply enjoying engaging with it.
Either way, armed men in violent situations couldn’t be trusted.
The girl and I wove in and out between swinging swords and grappling bodies. But each time we had to move, it felt like we got further and further away from the palace.
Where was Jet?
Was he okay?
No.
I couldn’t worry about him.
I had to keep us safe.
This was no place for a small, defenseless girl.
“Cora!” a man called as he moved into our way.
Beside me, the girl—Cora, I assumed—cried out and tried to yank away from me, tried to flee on her own.
I turned to look back at her delicate face, the old injuries.
Right.
Because we needed more dangerous men to deal with.
I turned toward the embankment, ignoring the burn in my thighs as we ran upward.
Almost near the top, I felt Cora’s weight yank backward. Then we were both falling, rolling over each other, grunting as elbows and knees collided with soft spots.
When we landed, I found myself sprawled over the girl, staring up at the man with the black eyes and, if he was capable of hurting the girl, just as black a heart.
“Give her back to me. She’s mine.”
“Not anymore.”
“And who the fuck are you, bitch?” he snarled, leaning down to close his hand around my throat.
Beneath me, Cora whimpered.
I tightened my grip on a rock.
“The Dark Princess,” I snapped, ramming the side of the rock into his face.
He fell back on his butt, staring up at me with wide eyes, his hand clutching his (hopefully broken) jaw.
The horrified realization on his face was almost as satisfying as his pain.
“I didn’t… I didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know that she was a child?” I snapped, waving back at the slumped figure of Cora.
“Bought her fair and square,” the man slurred as his face swelled up.
Bought her?
What the hell was going on under Cass’s reign?
No wonder Jet was working so hard to try to end it.
Though it looked like his ‘without complete chaos’ plan was quickly crumbling.
A body fell into the bastard with the broken jaw, sending both of them falling.
I wanted to swing again.
I wanted to hurt him more.
Make him suffer for everything he’d done to the girl. But there wasn’t time. Things were getting too wild.
I turned, grabbed Cora, dragged her to her feet, and started running again.
We stepped over moaning bodies, narrowly avoided knife and sword tips, then finally, there it was.
Looming large.
Surrounded by the king’s guard.
The palace.
“Let us in!” a familiar voice called.
I whipped around, finding Vishen standing near the blocked door. With a horrifyingly limp, bloodied Nira in his arms.
“No one gets in,” a guard barked back.
I rushed forward, pulling Cora with me.
“Move aside!”
The jig was up on my not being mute.
Besides, I got the feeling that everything had just changed.
“And who the hell are—”
The guard’s gaze slid from my face up to my head, where my crown was still pinned to my hair.
I took a twisted sort of pleasure in the way his eyes widened, in how his posture straightened. Worried, no doubt, about his job.
“My Princess,” he said, ducking his head, his gaze on my feet as he opened the door.
Vishen rushed inside with Nira, and I followed behind with Cora.
“Where the hell is Jet?” Vishen demanded.
I glanced back out the doors, searching for him in the crowd.
But I saw no one.
The doors slid closed.
And my heart seized.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Jet
“Serin!” I roared, swinging the stolen cudgel at someone who lunged toward me, a face twisted in the kind of rage that came with this sort of mob mentality.
I had my sword in its scabbard, not wanting to use that method if not completely necessary. The cudgel allowed me to keep people away, knock them down, knock them out, without doing any major damage.
I doubted anyone would show me the same mercy, not with the clear, bottled-up anger finally bursting out of everyone.
But it didn’t matter.
I just had to find Serin.
She couldn’t be out in this.
People were driven to bloodlust and anarchy.
I watched the women breaking free and fleeing, some of their men running backward, swinging at anyone who lunged toward them as they disappeared into the woods.
My stomach flipped as an arrow whooshed past my ear, lodging in the arm of a man behind me.
My head whipped around, finding the shooter.
Her arms were still raised, an arrow in the bow.
She was older for a competitor, her body honed with thick muscle, her height that of a man, with her short silver hair pushed back from a bloodied face, her keen golden eyes on me.
Another arrow flew.
Right past me.
I heard a howl of pain.