Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1185(@200wpm)___ 948(@250wpm)___ 790(@300wpm)
Fighting a grin, I tilted my chin at the tome. “What’s that?”
“One of the Books of the Dead.”
My heartbeat tripped as I eyed the book as if it would leap from his desk and choke the life from me. “The book that lists those who will die the day it’s opened?” I whispered. “I was never sure it was real.”
“It’s real.”
“Is no one going to die today? The page is blank.”
“For now. I have yet to write the names.”
“Do you need something to write with?” I glanced at his otherwise bare desk. “I’m sure I can get you something. I wouldn’t want to delay you from ripping people away from their loved ones.”
“I’m not killing people when I write their names,” he replied dryly. “They would die with or without me doing so.”
“Then what’s the purpose of writing their names?” I picked up several curls and began twisting the strands together as I edged around the chair.
“Their souls cannot cross through the Pillars until I write their names.”
“You left that part out when you told me that bodies do not need to be burned for their souls to leave them.”
“I didn’t think it was something you needed to know.” His attention dropped and lingered where my fingers toyed with my hair.
I drifted closer. “Do you need me…” His gaze flew to mine. “To retrieve something for you to write with?”
“I have what I need.”
“Is it invisible?”
“No. I haven’t summoned it yet.” He lifted his hand. A slender, shimmering swirl of silver-white energy appeared, and a second later, a thin black stylus lay in his once-empty palm.
My lips parted. “Did you…just summon a stylus from thin air?”
“I did.”
That was somehow more mystifying than watching him conjure Odin from his cuff. “What about ink?”
“The names of the dead are not written in ink. They’re written in blood.”
“Your blood?”
Nyktos nodded.
My lip curled as he lowered the stylus to the bound parchment, and crimson appeared as he began to write. “Does it hurt?”
Nyktos shook his head.
I came even closer, stopping at the edge of his desk. I watched him in silence. He wrote name after name in neat, flowing lines of red until he turned the page and began to fill that one, too. “Your penmanship is beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
He filled another page.
Then a third.
“How…how do you choose who dies?”
“I don’t.” Another name. “The names come to me as I write.”
I leaned my hip against the desk, curling my leg just enough that the panels of the gown parted, revealing my leg from the calf to just above the knee. “What if you make a mistake?”
He stopped writing, his gaze slowly sliding up the length of my exposed leg.
“What if you’re making names up and don’t realize it?” I asked as I untwisted the strands of my hair. “Or what if you misspell a name?”
“I don’t make mistakes.”
“Ever?”
“Not with this. In other things?” he muttered, the edges of his fangs dragging over his lower lip as his gaze lingered on the curve of my hip. “Far too often.”
“Really?”
“I can think of a few right now.”
“Like what?” I asked, knowing I was being a brat and thoroughly enjoying myself.
“Like not having Nektas take you with him when he left.” He returned to writing. “He could’ve put you down for a nap. I’m sure Jadis and Reaver would’ve enjoyed the company.”
I pressed my lips together to stop from laughing. “That was rude.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.” I watched him write several more names. Seconds ticked into minutes. Good gods, how many would die today? “Perhaps I should’ve left with Nektas. I wonder if he would’ve…enjoyed putting me down for a nap. He did seem to like my gown.”
That got his attention.
The stylus stopped moving. His chin lifted, and thundercloud eyes pierced with lightning met mine.
Very purposefully, I placed my hands on his desk and leaned forward. The slight bend of the waist was enough to test the limits of the gown.
Nyktos’s eyes lowered. The stylus vanished from his palm. I hoped that meant he was finished.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Am I being distracting?”
“You don’t sound sorry at all.” The line of his jaw flexed as he slowly drew his gaze to mine. “And you know exactly what you’re doing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re purposely being distracting.”
“I would never.”
“And seductive.”
“Why would you think that?” I asked, blinking wide eyes.
“Your breasts are inches from my face, Sera.” His gaze dropped and then returned to mine. “I don’t think. I know. And it’s not going to work.”
“Your failure to keep your eyes from straying to inappropriate places is not a reflection on my actions,” I told him, tipping my head and letting my hair fall forward onto his hand. “But if I were trying to seduce you, Your Highness, it would most definitely work.”
“You think so?”
“I don’t think.” I smiled then, bright and wide. “I know.”
That muscle began to tick in his jaw. “Well, you would know how to be successful in that endeavor, wouldn’t you?”