A Kingdom of Nomads: Book 2 of the Outcast Series by Nova S.B

Author:Nova, S.B
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Night Owl Publishing
Published: 2023-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

The Truth and Lie of the Firstborn

Horror drained the life out of me. “You can’t be.”

“I assure you, I can,” he said calmly.

I couldn’t stop shaking my head. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Stop it!” My voice fractured.

“I know this must be a shock—”

“A shock,” I screamed in his face. “This is more than a shock!”

Turning my back to him, I searched for a way out. I had to get out. Get away. Leave this body. Leave this life.

It can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be.

Zola? Thea? Tell me this isn’t true.

I’m sorry, but it is, Thea said in a small way.

The truth didn’t set me free. It tossed me into the worst hell imaginable.

Abraxus was my grandfather. Worse than that, the Dark King was my great-grandfather. I had been chosen to end my own kin.

That, there, ended me. I’d blocked out too much for too long. I’d tried to hold it together through the revelations, the changes, and the expectations. This was the lightning bolt that shattered my inner fortress. It tore down my protective walls and shook my foundations.

My legs went out from under me. “I can’t do this. I can’t do it.”

“What can’t you do?” Abraxus crouched beside me. Perfectly calm.

Dismantled, tears made rivers of my cheeks. “Any of it.”

“But you will.”

“No,” I groaned. “No, I can’t. It’s too much.”

Half out of my mind, I reached for the root of my kin bond—for my anchor. What would Frazer think of this? What if he looked at me differently? What if all my pack did?

Those thoughts inflicted a pain akin to having my organs scooped out with a blunt spoon. I unleashed a scream that wasn’t fae or human. It was agony incarnate.

“Try to breathe,” Abraxus murmured on my right.

Not wanting him to watch my implosion, I sobbed, “Go away.”

Dry stalks snapped. A soft snout nuzzled me. I reared back as that simple touch shocked me.

It was just Tula. She placed her head in my lap and whined.

A surprised hiccup escaped me. Hand shaking, I petted her warm, smooth hide.

The comfort and acceptance that only an animal could provide stanched the inner bleeding that the sharp knife of truth had dealt me.

Tula went on to curl her fifteen-foot-long body around me in a crescent moon shape. I lay down next to her. There, I cried out the shock, horror, and fear. I drifted away on it. The only thing I could’ve compared it to was the sensation of being stuck in a tiny boat while violent swells battered it, trying to capsize it.

Eventually, the emotion that had tossed me about in a violent surf calmed. It turned into ripples against a lakeshore. Then even the ripples stopped.

I washed up on land; I could think straight again. The problem was that the world had restarted, and the business of living had to be gotten on with. For me, that meant satisfying a need to know more. To understand.

With limp arms, I pressed myself up into a seated position.

The sun had climbed a few rungs of the sky ladder.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.