Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“How many men have you rescued?”
“Dozens. More. Men, women, some teens, even. They’re… not picky,” she said, face scrunching up as if the words tasted sour in her own mouth.
“If they like playing with humans, why am I here?” I asked, hedging my bets, figuring she must know I wasn’t one of them.
“My best guess is they’re tiring of how quickly the humans die.”
“I guess that makes a sick sort of sense,” I agreed. I was, after all, immortal. They would torture me day and night for eternity, and all I would do was heal and be prepared for more.
“What are you?” she asked, point-blank.
I exhaled hard through my nose, knowing I was taking a huge risk here, but not knowing what other choice I had but to trust this woman.
“A demon.”
“A… demon?” she asked, brows scrunching. “Like… hell demon? Lucifer, fire, brimstone demon?”
“What other kind could there be?” I asked.
“Oh, I believe you have a lot of catching up to do,” she admitted.
“So catch me up. Who are they?” I asked, jerking my head up toward the ceiling where it sounded like a whole party was taking shape.
“What,” she said.
“Huh?”
“You mean what are they.”
“Alright,” I agreed. “What are they?”
“They’re gods.”
She said it so simply. No hesitation.
I mean, sure, that was the going theory with my club, with even the Academy of demonslayers. But I think some part of me was still a little dubious.
I mean, I thought the “old gods” were the stuff of myths. That our story with Sky Daddy, Hell Daddy, and all the angels and demons in between was the only real creation story.
“Gods,” I repeated. “What gods?”
“Well, you have personally met Oizys,” she said.
“Oizys.”
“Goddess of grief, anxiety, and depression,” she explained.
“Well, that explains some things.”
“There’s also Moros, the god of doom; Ares, the god of violence and war; Eris, the goddess of strife. And, perhaps worst of all, the Keres.”
“Who is Keres?”
“Keres is not a who; it’s a collective.”
“Why are they the worst?”
“They’re death spirits. They personify violent death. They like to be around ugly deaths, drinking blood, soaking up the misery and pain…”
“Sounds like they’d be the life of the party.”
“This isn’t a joke,” she told me, worrying her plump lower lip with her teeth, clearly second-guessing whatever she thought of me.
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding. “Why are you here then? Who are you?”
“I’m Nox,” she told me.
“Nox. Like night?”
“Exactly.”
“Explains that nifty shadow cloak, I guess. So, you’re the, what, goddess of night?”
To that, an unexpected little snort escaped her as she rolled her eyes at something I wasn’t privy to.
“No. No, Nyx is the goddess of the night,” she told me.
“Didn’t have a myth lesson on my schedule for the day, but okay. And then what are you?”
“Her daughter,” Nox said with a shrug of those dainty shoulders. “Just like Oizys, Ares, Eris, Moros, and the Keres. Amongst others.”
“So you are a goddess?”
“No. No, a god or goddess is the child of two gods. Nyx is my mother, but my father was a mortal. I’m not a goddess. I’m just a demigod. A somewhat useless one at that.”
“Oh, come on now. That shadow thing is pretty cool. And you can put people to sleep. Which… okay, probably isn’t that useful. Unless you can put the gods to sleep.”
“No. No, I can barely put most humans to sleep.”
“You put me to sleep.”
“At great personal cost,” she said, gesturing toward her face. And, yeah, on closer inspection—looking beneath all that damn pretty—she looked completely spent.
“I am not very strong. I can hide in shadows. And I can put people to sleep, even give them good dreams, but I am drained afterward. Sometimes, if I’m not careful, I can’t even move after. So, yeah, I do what I can. Which isn’t much.”
“I think the people you get out of this basement would say it’s a lot,” I told her.
“Anyone with a soul would do the same.”
“I don’t have a soul,” I told her. “But I would do it as well.”
“You’re a demon. You torture humans too.”
“First of all, that’s past tense. I found me a nifty hellmouth, got myself sucked up onto the human plane, and have no interest in ever going back. I mean, have you tasted pizza? Listened to music? Watched movies? Humans got a lot of shit right. Besides, I only ever tortured those who deserved it.”
“No one deserves torture.”
“No?” I asked. “I once had a human who brutally raped, tortured, and murdered fourteen women he met through various churches. I think he had it coming.”
“Fine,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to argue with you.”
“What do you want with me?” I asked. And maybe my tone had slipped a bit seductive. I couldn’t help it. She was standing there, looking all pretty, smelling all sweet.
Did something warm flash across her eyes at hearing it, or was that just my own wishful thinking?