The Witching Hour (The Grim Reaper Saga (Urban Fantasy Romance)) Read Online Free PDF Page B

goddess of strife and war, kept tokens of all her conquests. The leering bones meant nothing to death. He knew all these bones by name and who’d they’d been in a former life, farmer or great hero, it didn’t matter. Now, be they humble or famous, they were resigned to an eternity of being little more than decoration.
    At the end of the hall sat The Morrigan’s crowning jewel, Cu Chulainn’s skeletal head dipped in purest gold. In her own fashion the Queen had loved the fearless human warrior, her more eccentric method of preserving his head was proof of that.
    He took a deep breath, inhaling the delicious aroma of roasting meats and baking breads. Warriors sat at gnarled oak benches, heads bowed over their chipped bowls of stew. They whispered amongst themselves. Hundreds of voices buzzed in his ears. He could only make out snatches of conversation.
    “Live...”
    “...death.”
    “Foolish...”
    He ground his jaw, knowing they spoke of him. Rumor traveled fast, and The Morrigan’s rage was a living entity within every crevice of the castle. It was a choking sensation, stealing the breath and lying heavy on the lungs.
    The gray, dank stone echoed with the sounds of his footsteps. He turned a corner and then there was nothing. This portion of the castle was unnaturally empty. Cian glanced down the shifting maze of hallways and doorways, keen to pick up the sound or scent of something. But it was like walking through a mausoleum--desolate and foreboding.
    He turned left, right, left; losing count of the many twists and turns he’d taken as he headed deeper within the castle proper, and closer toward the Queen’s chambers.
    The uneasy quiet settled within the keep made him intensely aware of the pounding of his heart and tension tightening his back.
    He glanced up, studying the flight of The Morrigan’s crows. The red and black banners of the royal court affixed to wooden beams on the ceiling fluttered at the birds passing. The Morrigan rarely sent her crows, preferring instead to use other methods of contact--a clap of thunder, a whisper in the wind. She saved her crows only for the direst of circumstances. He knew then. And if he were honest a small part of him had expected this. They’d laid a trap. The unnatural stillness of a bustling, active castle could mean only one thing.
    He ground his jaw, tightening his hands into fists by his sides. She’d sent the nobles away--anyone who might have contested whatever tender mercies she had in store for him, would be gone. Somehow the goddess had foreseen his return and had made the necessary arrangements of turning a crowded castle into a veritable haunt.
    Cian would not be allowed to approach her as a man, she’d force humiliation upon him, perhaps even a beating by her guards, and likely he’d be dragged to her torture chamber below. All of the kingdom would know of this by now. He clenched his jaw. If she expected him to grovel she could not be more wrong.
    Polished doors of silver grew from a mere speck in the distance to large arches the closer he drew to the royals’ private chambers. The ground beneath his feet shifted, a vibration traveled up his soles as if from the pounding of several trampling feet.
    How many had she sent?
    Then he saw them, twenty of her most experienced guards, marching to block off the entrance to her room. Their steps were unified and absurdly beautiful in its precision. The lead guard, dressed in a tunic of burnished bronze and buffed brown leather, halted the procession by lifting his fist into the air, and as one, the group turned on their heels, all done in absolute silence.
    They extended their spears, and like a coordinated ballet, slammed the ends onto the floor with snapping force. The sound of metal slapping stone reverberated through the room like gunfire. Austere faces gazed at him without emotion.
    The Morrigan’s pretentious show of force and power nauseated him. It wasn’t enough for her that she command the most