Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 758(@200wpm)___ 607(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
“You believe that?” Rhys asks.
“I believe eventually he’ll do what he does and take what he thinks is his, but he’ll want her to want him. He’s trying to replay their relationship. She didn’t fall into bed with him. He had to work for it,” Lee explains. “At least that’s what my uncle told me. We also have some pixie spies. I’ll let them know to report to the vampires.”
I notice a small butterfly peel off the temple wall and fly to Lee’s outstretched hand. He whispers to the pixie and she flies off, pausing in front of Sasha. The pixie stops for a moment as though memorizing his face and then it’s gone.
“I have faith that my dad will save them,” Rhys says and sighs. “And my mother will likely bring down the palace and end up leading a revolution of pixies and trolls and brownies. We must get Shy to the mountain. We can’t allow Myrddin to take the sluagh souls.”
At least I won’t have to fight him. “Cassie, will you come with us? I could use an extra guard.”
Lee sends a wink her way. “You are more than welcome, gorgeous.”
“Ewww,” Cassie says. “You’re like a cousin.”
Lee shrugs. “Baby, I don’t know you here. And you look good.” Brendan steps in front of his sister and growls, the hair on his back standing up. “Sir Wolf, I shall keep my hands to myself.”
“You do not change. Also, she is fifteen. I will cut off your balls, brother or no.” Rhys sniffs and turns back to me. “I can guard you.”
I give him a saucy smile. “You wrap me up in itchy vines. She would throw me her second-best machete, and Brendan is good at tracking in case you lose me.”
Brendan gives a bark, and his sister throws him a treat before giving me a thumbs-up. “We got you, and also I do look more like I’m a young twenty.”
“I mean she kind of does,” Lee attempts.
“She does not, and everyone needs to understand that I am in charge. This is Shy’s mission, but I am the commanding officer here.” Rhys’s eyes narrow, and I swear I can see a storm there as he puts his hands on my shoulders. “I will not lose you, and if you run there would be no place I could not find you.”
My poor baby god is overstimulated. It’s been a rough day for him. For all of us, but this is his worst nightmare. He always has to be in control, and he is simply not now. This is my mission, and losing me is everything he has tried to avoid since the moment we met.
It’s funny how I worried about this before and now it seems so simple. We’re stuck here for the night, in a version of the temple where he would be married.
Where we will be married.
Maybe I should think more, but I don’t want to. I know we’re on the run and should focus on what’s going to happen tomorrow, but we need something sweet tonight. We’re as safe as we can be and have no idea what dawn will bring.
Our fears are often silly in the face of our love. I worried the temple would reject me somehow or that I would feel uncomfortable in it. It all goes back to my greatest fear. That I will not ever belong.
The marble hums beneath my feet. A soft wind caresses my cheek. Like a kiss of welcome. Like a hug from family long unseen.
I do belong here in the temple. This temple is our home. Part of it. We will always go back to the Earth plane. Rhys is the priest of those the Fae left behind. One day—when the war is done and peace lay like a blanket over the plane—we will build our temple there and offer what we are. Life. Death. The beginning of souls turning. Love. We will offer ourselves and our gifts, our magic and our work to our people.
But tonight I have something else to offer him.
“I would never run from you.” I go up on my toes and kiss his lush lips. “Show me our temple.”
This is my wedding night.
Chapter Eighteen
Sasha
The man formerly known as Oleg Federov followed Lee Quinn through the deepest part of the temple, his mind racing all the while.
Marta.
She had been ten feet from him and he hadn’t been able to save her, hadn’t been able to put his hands on her, to step in front of her and take whatever pain came her way.
And yet he felt like he was failing as he got further and further from Rhys and Shy and Cassie and Brendan.
Lee stopped in front of a seemingly solid brick wall and tapped on it, three times at the top and then three at the bottom. He turned and looked so much like the child Sasha had raised on the run. The boy had become a man and the man a soldier and the soldier a vampire king. “We have to wait for a few minutes. Someone has to open this door from the other side. From here you can either leave the grounds or get back into the palace, but you’ll go in via the servants’ entrances. You’re on your own from there. Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?”