Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
A searing cold blistered through her being, and Aria realized in a flash she was not ready.
Not even close.
There was no comprehension or understanding or preparation for this.
A scream tore up her throat as they fell for what seemed forever.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Darkness on all sides.
Disorienting and confusing.
Wails stung her ears, cries that called for violence and atrocities, the wickedness unlike anything she’d ever known.
Their fingers still entwined, Pax and Aria hit the bottom with a thud. The ground below them was hard and frozen.
Their Laven family raced out ahead of them and into the toiling mess of shadows and mist that screamed and howled with misery.
The Kruen that Aria had been taught of were more horrific than she could have imagined.
Pax helped her get to her feet, and she struggled to stand, to find solid ground, to see through the haze of depravity.
A heavy, black night surrounded her in a blanket of evil.
So heavy and oppressive she didn’t know how to stand beneath its weight.
Voices clawed at her conscience, vile and depraved, the language of the Kruen only recognizable because, as a Laven, she recognized it in her soul.
Pax steadied her, taking her by the outside of both arms and angling in. His voice was firm, though it was cut with his own agony that she was witnessing this. “You can do this, Aria. You can. I know you can. You are strong. Listen to your heart, the way Ellis prepared you to do.”
He took her hand again, and she stumbled forward over the uneven, lifeless ground. Cold pierced her like tiny darts that impaled her skin. She tried to run. To begin the hunt. Wisps of vapor and shadows raced at her feet, confounding her thoughts, their screams for violence infiltrating her heart and mind.
“Hit her, the bitch deserves it. Did you see the way she looked at you?”
“Take it. No one will notice. You deserve it more than he does, don’t you?”
“Take the gun and drive to their house. How good it will feel to watch them bleed.”
Aria stumbled to the right, no strength in her knees, as the cruel voices intoned into any willing soul that listened below.
“Make them pay for their insolence. You are in control. They will bow to you. Raze the rest. Set their homes ablaze, feed on the scent of their burning flesh.”
She canted to the side, her feet slipping from beneath her. Pax held on to her, keeping her upright when she wanted to fall beneath the weight.
“Aria, you cannot stop now. You have to fight.”
“I can’t,” she whimpered, the cry ripped from the anguish that writhed in her spirit.
She’d thought she was prepared. She’d thought she understood the extent of the wickedness that abounded.
But no, she hadn’t come close to understanding the brutality of it.
She’d had no idea how each thought would pierce her like a knife as the Kruen whispered them into the feeble minds of humans who were oblivious to the wickedness they were being fed.
Those with vulnerabilities.
Weaknesses they didn’t know they possessed.
Those who unknowingly opened themselves to evil.
Then there were those who welcomed it, and theirs were the thoughts Aria could not bear.
It was too much.
Too much.
“Take her. She belongs to you.” Through the Kruen’s eyes, Aria saw the vision of a little girl shivering in the corner of her room, saw the perversion of a man towering over her as he undid his belt.
Sickness spun her stomach, and she dropped to her knees, and her hand came free of Pax’s. Her hands flew to her ears, and a wail of agony tore from her soul as she tried to block the voices.
To stop the visions.
To protect herself when she was supposed to be protecting those who needed her most.
Chaos whirled through her mind.
Horror and terror.
Gutting pain.
“Aria,” Pax begged, taking her hand and trying to drag her to her feet.
Aria’s eyes went wide when a shadow amassed from nothing and into a vicious, fiery face. Gruesome and hideous. It rose up high behind Pax, who continued to try to get Aria to stand.
She wanted to shout. To warn him.
But she was frozen, held prisoner by its eyes, which were a blackened abyss of evil. Every sin held in its depths.
A fiery arm streaked out from it. Pax was unaware in the mere flash of a second before it impaled him in the back.
Pain shocked through her Nol and roared from his mouth, his torment so intense Aria felt it cut into her soul.
He flashed and flickered.
Then he was gone.
Aria screamed.
Screamed and screamed.
Screamed as the Kruen’s face lit in twisted glee and lashed out again.
She’d been told.
Warned.
But she hadn’t understood.
She had no way to prepare.
The fiery tendril pierced her in the chest, and the pain was greater than anything Aria had ever felt.
Chapter Six
Aria
“Pax!” I choked over his name as a muddled scream tore up my throat. I scrambled upright from where I’d been face down on a bench.