Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
No, that’s a coward’s thinking. I will face Azazel. I will certainly ask him why he chose to send Grace to me. Yes, he protested, but not that strongly, and he never told me why. It’s almost enough for me to think . . . I shake my head sharply. Grace is no assassin sent to kill me. I may not be certain of much, but I am certain of that. This situation is fucked up but not that fucked up.
I write the summons, and it’s only a few seconds later when Ramanu arrives. They walk through my door as if they arrived here by mundane means instead of teleportation. “You called?” Their tone is irreverent, but their energy gives them away.
“Why are you worried, Ramanu? Is it possibly because Grace is the daughter of the woman who killed my entire family?”
They eye me, and their shoulders drop several inches. “In my defense, I already told you that I argued against it.”
“Yes, you said you were against it . . . but not why.” I turn away. “Take her.”
“Excuse me?”
“Was I not clear? I don’t want Grace here right now. If I change my mind, I will come retrieve her.”
Ramanu is silent for so long, my curiosity and frustration override my good sense and I turn to face them. They are studying me with a strange look on their face. “You love her.” I don’t feel like they’re laughing at me. “Why are you sending her away if that’s how you feel?”
We are not friends. We never will be. But in this moment, I give them honesty when I can barely be honest with myself. “It’s because I love her that I’m sending her away. I don’t know if there’s a path forward for us through this, but there definitely isn’t if I don’t have time and space to work through this revelation. I don’t want to hurt her while I’m in pain.”
“I see.” They nod. “Very well. When you come to retrieve her, send a warning to us.”
I don’t know whether to be grateful or frustrated that they have no doubt I will come for Grace. But then, they’re right, aren’t they? I might not see a path through, but I didn’t see myself getting to this place either. There has to be a way. But I can barely think past the betrayal and pain wrapped around my throat.
Her mother.
The specter that haunts my nightmares, who left her fingerprints on all my trauma, is the woman who birthed Grace. The mother who taught her everything she knows. The one Grace loved enough to search for by bargaining away seven years of her life in a realm filled with monsters like the ones she spent her life hunting. They are the same person, and I don’t know how to reconcile that. I don’t know if it’s possible.
I swear I sense the moment Ramanu takes Grace from the castle. It shouldn’t be possible to feel her absence with this much space between us, but I do. I’m sure of it. I don’t know if I’m making a mistake. I don’t know anything at all.
Days pass without answers. It doesn’t matter what path my thoughts travel; they all end up in the same place. Grace and I were doomed from the start. No matter what our intentions were, the circumstances are simply impossible. Fuck if that doesn’t hurt, a new scar to add to my collection. I don’t know how to be with her, but if I can’t figure it out, I’m going to spend the rest of my life missing her.
It’s almost a week to the day when there’s a rough knock on the door to my study. I know who’s on the other side. There’s only one person in this realm whose energy constantly has the deep forest green of pride. It’s aggravating enough even without my current circumstances. “Come in.” I might as well get this over with.
Azazel steps into my study and looks around. He’s as out of place here as a hellcat in water, but somehow that doesn’t seem to bother him. He’s never lacking in confidence. “I thought we should speak.”
“Oh, are we speaking now? Or would you like to continue to withhold vital information from me?”
He smiles but not like anything is funny. “You’re starting to sound like her.”
Her. Grace. I want to snap at him to not talk about her, but there’s only one reason for him to be here, and it’s to talk about Grace. “You should’ve told me.”
“I know.” He motions to the chair across my desk. “May I sit?”
I could keep up this posturing, but what’s the point? We need to have this conversation, one way or another. “Sure.”
I study him as he does so. Even here, in the study of someone who could be an enemy, he’s perfectly at ease. This is a man who knows his place in the world. I can’t help a flicker of jealousy. It’s comforting, at least, to know that he can’t read my energy the way Ramanu can.