Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Nothing.
Sitting up, I slowly glanced around the chamber. My gaze landed on the windows. The chamber was dimmer, the sky beyond clouded over. I slipped off the bed and stepped down from the platform. My feet carried me toward the glass, but each step was slow, as if I were walking through thick slush. The elms were darker than I’d ever seen them.
A prickle of unease skittered through me in warning, but a suffocating heaviness settled over me like a thick fog, forcing my eyes closed. The tiny hairs on the nape of my neck stood at attention as an unmistakable presence, cold and heavy, pressed against my back. Every part of my being screamed for me to turn and fight. To do something. Anything. But it was like I no longer had control of my body. I couldn’t move as the weight of an arm encircled my waist. Horror entrenched itself deep within me as the robe loosened. Icy fingers grazed my collarbones before gripping my throat. My breath stilled in my chest.
Frigid air brushed my cheek. “I’ve always been with you.”
My eyes flew open as thin fissures appeared in the window, racing outward from beneath my palms. An achingly cold chuckle turned the blood in my veins to sludge, cracking the window—
The glass exploded, thousands of sharp pieces causing me to jerk back, but there was nowhere to go. He was behind me like a solid, cold, unyielding wall. The hand around my throat yanked my head violently to the side—
The fragile bones in my neck breaking were like thunderclaps in my ears, a sound so deafening it drowned out everything as the realm exploded in a blinding flash of white.
Choking on a scream, I jerked upright, my arms thrown out as my heart threw itself against my ribs. I could still hear the cracking bone—my bone—as I stared through eather-shadowed fingers at the…intact glass across from the bed.
“Oh, my gods,” I breathed, lowering my trembling hands.
Muted sunlight filled the chamber as I twisted sharply, my legs tangling in a thin blanket draped over them. I quickly scanned the space and found it empty. I’d fallen asleep, and that…it had just been a dream. I swallowed, my throat dry. A nightmare.
A thin laugh left me as I lifted my hand to my chest, hoping to slow my heart. I was a mess, dreaming first of Casteel’s touch and then—
My fingers brushed against bare, cold skin.
Eather rippled through me as my heart lurched. Lips parting, I looked down. Shadows swirled along the taut skin on the top of my hand. I moved it.
The robe…was unbuttoned.
I inhaled sharply, and my head snapped up. Essence pressed against my skin, darkening the corners of my vision as I looked the chamber over, moving much slower this time, inspecting every shadow. I twisted at the waist to sweep the other side. The room was empty. The walk-in wardrobe door was closed. I’d left the bathing chamber door open. Nothing had changed. I saw no one.
But Kolis…
If he hadn’t returned to flesh and bone, I wouldn’t be able to see him.
I should be able to sense him, though—what felt like instinct told me I could sense any god nearby.
Someone had been in here, but they had only laid a blanket over me. Likely Casteel or Kieran.
My gaze fell to where my hand had closed into a fist against my chest. Had I unbuttoned the robe? I’d been fiddling with it before I fell asleep, so it was highly probable. In fact, that made more sense than my dream somehow manifesting itself in reality. The shadows faded from my hand as I looked down once more. The deadlier side of my eather had responded to the perceived threat, which explained my cold skin.
That reality was far more concerning. I didn’t need the power of death rising to the surface while I slept. No one needed that—especially not when I had nightmares far too often.
I turned around and faced the windows. Drawing in a deep breath, I scooted across the bed but froze before stepping down. Was there space between the bed and the platform?
Was I, the Primal of Life and Death, the most powerful—at least, one day—god to exist, seriously worried that some pervy, murderous creature was lurking under the bed?
My gods, I needed to get a grip.
Rolling my eyes at myself, I stepped down. Unsurprisingly, nothing grabbed my ankle.
But I still quickly hopped from the platform with an urgency that had very little to do with the fact that I’d wasted precious time napping.
Not that I would ever admit that to anyone.
Halfway across the chamber, I stopped. The Solar was empty, but I knew neither Casteel nor Kieran would’ve gone far. What felt like a long-buried instinct nudged at me. Closing my eyes, I felt the eather humming in my chest and veins. It knew what to do as my will formed. As I pictured each chamber I’d walked through and the hall beyond, my senses unfurled, stretching beyond the bedchamber and Solar. I could see the wide hall with four doors, two on each side, so clearly in my mind. Everything sounded muted, but I felt a presence—earthy and rich. Cedar.