Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81261 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Blinking several times, I start to panic because I can’t see, but then realize I’m in a very darkened room.
A hospital?
I sit up, pressing a hand down for leverage, and I’m stunned to not feel a mattress but a dirt floor. “What the fuck?”
Rolling to my knees, I push up to my feet. I have no pain whatsoever, but I’m not relieved. I’m distinctly anxious.
As my eyes adjust, I focus on my accommodations. The thick metal bars dredge up the panic welling inside me.
A jail cell?
I move to the bars, wrap my fingers around them, and peer out of my mini prison.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as I take it all in.
A midnight sky with low-hanging stars, a hill made of shiny black rock sprouting from the ground and pushing higher still, and an obsidian castle with turrets and spires rising so tall, I can barely see the tips. A red river of thick lava flows between my cell and the castle, the source of the heat I feel.
My head twists and I take in other cells carved into the side of a mountain. Thick grates covering black holes and from within those spaces, I hear screaming and howling laced with deep misery, regret, and terror.
I’m not in a hospital.
I’m fairly confident I’m in Hell.
I’m dead—flattened by a bus—and I was sent straight to Satan’s dominion.
I can’t help it. I start laughing again, releasing a mirth that comes from deep within my belly. I laugh so long and hard, tears leak from my eyes, but I can’t stop it.
Dropping to my knees, I roll onto my side and hold my stomach, now aching from the hilarity.
It’s more than just laughter, though.
It’s pure joy.
Because no matter that I’m here in Hell, Vince Matheson is still dead, and that makes it a very good day.
CHAPTER 3
Amell
The amber liquor slides down my throat and burns nicely. It hits my belly with the same warming effect, and I lift my wings to settle back into my chair with a fatigued sigh.
This job is fucking exhausting. I didn’t get this gig because I wanted it—I got it because I was apparently the most qualified. Having served as Kymaris’s second-in-command from the very beginning, I had the respect—and fear—of the Dark Fae nobles, gentry, and lower caste.
I didn’t want it. After everything I’d been through with Kymaris, and then Zora, and then a potential apocalypse I wanted no part of was averted (thanks to Zora), I just wanted to live my life in peace.
But our newly minted god of Life asked it of me, and there’s not much I can deny Zora after all the pain I’ve caused her.
“Relax,” Sorcha purrs. Her claws spring forth from the end of her fingers and graze along my thighs, the leather preventing her from scoring my skin. She’s kneeling before me with promise in her silver eyes.
“Trying,” I mutter, taking another large gulp of the Kentucky bourbon brought to me from the First Dimension by one of my Dark Fae brethren who travels there often.
Sorcha is a beautiful Dark Fae of noble blood and sister to my closest friend, Truett. She shares the same blond hair and bluish tint to her skin that defines their familial line. We pleasure each other whenever we feel like it, but there are no bonds or commitments. That’s not the way of our race. The only reason she’s here and not someone else is because she was convenient.
But today… she’s not doing it for me. I’m still pissed that Zora’s imprisoned me here, which isn’t the true punishment. That would be the fact I can’t visit Thalia. And Zora knew that would hurt worse than anything.
I’m also annoyed because if punishment is supposed to be a deterrent to future actions, she’s misjudged me. Supposing I get out of this prison at some point, Zora’s sentence won’t prevent me from protecting my daughter if she falls into trouble again.
“I know exactly what you need.” Sorcha reaches to the laces of my pants—claws safely retracted—but a loud knocking on my door has me pushing her hands away.
“Enter,” I command as I rise. Sorcha rolls to her hip and lounges against my chair, arm resting on the cushion. She’s completely naked and doesn’t care who sees her.
Neither do I, for that matter.
Calix comes in with his hands folded before him. He returned yesterday after spending a week torturing Maddox with poltergeist fun. I took great joy in his recounting of how particularly annoyed Maddox was when his lights would come on in the middle of the night or when the ice maker on his fridge spontaneously spewed cubes all over the kitchen.
But I needed Calix here more than I needed him back in the First Dimension plaguing Maddox, so I recalled him.
As if his eyes were magnetized, they land right on Sorcha. She leers at him, biting into her lip with a sharp fang that draws blood, and he immediately averts his gaze.