Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75457 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I cock an eyebrow because Amell has been banished to the Underworld and prohibited from leaving. He previously disobeyed the gods’ command not to interfere in a matter and this is his punishment.
“He’s not here in the castle,” Truett clarifies. “He and Nyssa have traveled to Kasdeya for the day. I could go there now and fetch him for you.”
Kasdeya is one of a few large cities in the Underworld and Amell rules over all of them. It’s not unusual for him to visit, but my timing is disappointing.
I manage a smile. “No, I don’t want to interrupt. This is an informal visit and of no importance. I’ll come back later.”
“Are you sure I can’t—”
I hold up a hand. “No. It’s good. Just tell him I came by.”
“As you wish,” he says, another bend at the waist, but then he fades away as I travel through the veil that separates the Underworld from the First Dimension.
I appear on the front porch of Finley and Carrick’s cliff-side home overlooking the Pacific Ocean outside of Malibu. They recently moved here, having left behind their lives in Seattle.
It was a necessity since technically, Finley is dead to the world. She died of an aneurysm unforeseen by me or any of my brethren gods, but I managed to snag her soul before it left her body. With power I didn’t even fully understand, having only been a god myself for a few weeks, I was able to reform her.
It wasn’t a reincarnation, but a creation. She’s the same Finley, complete with all her memories intact, and she even bears the same scars accumulated in her mortal life. After I breathed new life into her, my brother and sister gods, Cato, Veda, Circe, and Onyx, all channeled enough power into her to grant her the same immortality as her husband, Carrick. However, given she was dead and then brought back to life after the announcement to the world she had died, it was necessary for them to start over with new identities.
My hand reaches out to the doorbell, but I hesitate. Finley is probably the person I should have come to first, but I didn’t because I knew I wouldn’t like her answers. As my sister, she has unconditional love for me and with that comes unconditional truth.
I’m not ready for it.
My hand starts to fall, but to my surprise, the door swings open and Carrick is standing there. I can’t help but jump with a tiny yelp which is totally unbecoming of a god.
“Sorry,” he says with a roguish smile, and I know he’s not sorry at all. “Saw you standing out here in all your indecisive glory and decided to take matters into my own hands. Come on in.”
He steps back, inviting me over the threshold. With no choice now, I enter the house and shoot him a sour look. “I could smite you, you know.”
“You love me, so no, you couldn’t.”
I don’t affirm or deny that statement. I don’t know if I love him or not. It’s one of the reasons why I’m so out of sorts. I’m trying to balance twenty-eight years of mortal life weighed against a year of godly existence. The more time that passes as an Almighty the more removed I feel from emotion, and it’s bothering me. I mean, I wasn’t the warmest and fuzziest person to begin with, but that’s what happens when you’re raised by Dark Fae in the Underworld.
I’m having a hard time reconciling that sometimes I feel deeply while other times I’m numb. I can’t ask my fellow gods because they’ve never been human. They’ve always been as they are, since the dawn of time. They can’t tell me what it feels like to be different, just as I’m sure they can’t tell me if I’ll completely ice over.
Finley can’t tell me that either, but she might have words of wisdom.
She’ll definitely have support and love.
The question is, do I have the guts to straight-up ask her?
“She’s in the kitchen,” Carrick says, and I follow him through the sprawling open-design floor plan. The western-facing side is nothing but floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over the ocean. The views are gorgeous, but they don’t rival the ones from my home.
At least in my humble opinion.
“Zora,” Finley exclaims when she sees me. She drops her sandwich, wiping her hands on her pants, and rushes around the kitchen island to hug me.
I’m relieved by the flood of warmth and tenderness as her arms encircle me. I love her, I’m sure of it. I told her as much right before she plunged a knife into my heart—literally, not figuratively—and killed me.
It was this whole thing to save the world from the evil queen of the Underworld, and it seems like it was eons ago. But so much has happened since then.