Total pages in book: 194
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 187754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 939(@200wpm)___ 751(@250wpm)___ 626(@300wpm)
Thanatos hasn’t forsaken me after all. Death is coming for me.
“Who are you?” Thorin demands when she doesn’t say more.
I don’t think any of us expected her to answer so quickly and without a fight.
“Aurelia.” She waits expectantly as if anticipating some recognition or reaction. It’s quiet and awkward for several moments. When she doesn’t get the response she’s expecting, she repeats slowly, “Au-re-li-a.”
I think I hear an owl hooting in the distance.
“Are you suggesting we’ve met before?” Khalil inquires with a grimace.
It’s Aurelia’s turn to frown. “Surely, you’ve heard of me. ‘You, Me, and Heartbreak’? ‘Flowers in February’? ‘The Lovescape’?”
I swing my gaze to Khalil, hoping he knows and can clue me in, but he bucks his eyes at me, silently telling me he’s as lost as I am. Even Thorin has stopped scowling to stare at her like she has two heads.
“Are you…having a seizure?” Thorin questions.
“No.” Thoroughly put off and confused, Aurelia starts fussing with her appearance again as if that would somehow help us recognize her.
“You said you were here for him.” Khalil points at me instead of saying my name, and I know it’s intentional. He doesn’t want to confirm who we are until we know for sure that she’s one of Isaac’s. “Who sent you?”
“My uncle.”
“Aurelia…” Thorin sighs impatiently. “Stop fucking around and tell us who your uncle is. You’ve got five seconds.”
She looks amused, leaning back on her hands and tapping her feet together as she smirks at him. “Or what?”
I smile a little at her bratty response.
I have no idea if Aurelia is who she says, but one thing she can’t fake is that she is a c-u-n-t.
I like her even more because I know she’ll piss off Thorin and Khalil to no end.
Thorin leans forward to plant his hands on the foot of the bed while holding her gaze. “We show why you picked the wrong cabin, Au-re-li-a.”
Her nostrils flare as she stares down the length of the bed at him. “If I picked the wrong cabin, it’s because I thought civilized people lived here. Was I mistaken?”
“Very,” Khalil answers.
“It will be your biggest yet,” Thorin promises.
Growing bored now, I yawn but don’t chime in. If those two idiots want to piss off Thanatos, I won’t stand in their way. They’re Zeke’s friends, not mine.
“Is he Isaac?”
“Who?
“The so-called Savior,” Thorin chews out. I don’t think he’s buying her wide-eyed confusion for a second.
The sheep in Isaac’s cult would never dare call him or acknowledge his real name. I was one of those sheep. I didn’t care much for Ezekiel’s half-brother, nor did I buy what he was selling about living forever, but I did find the idea of dying rather satisfying.
“Uhhh, I don’t know who that is either. I’m Aurelia,” she tells us again. “As in the singer? America’s sweetheart? The girl with the golden voice? I have twenty-three Grammys. Are you guys like…okay?”
Khalil steps forward, drawing her gaze. For the first time, she has the sense to look nervous as he curls his lip sarcastically. “You’re humble, too.”
Aurelia returns Khalil’s withering look. “Humble is for basic bitches who only have being liked going for them. I’m the shit, and I know it. Fuck you if that bothers you.”
Damn.
“Okay, Aurelia, the singer, why are you here?”
“I’m in need of assistance,” she says primly.
Something tells me she’s used to getting her way. I sneak a glance at Khalil and Thorin, who are both watching her like they can’t wait to tear her apart with their teeth.
I want the same but for different reasons.
Aurelia scares them, but she excites me. She makes me want to live, at least for a little while.
This Aurelia…something…I feel a bone-deep need to ravage her soul as well as her body.
“I own some property not far from here. I think. A ranch near some hovel called Hearth. I was flying there for a little R and R when my plane crashed on this mountain. I don’t remember most of it. Just the plane coming apart mid-air and then waking up in a tree.”
“Were there other survivors?”
She pauses and then shakes her head slowly, almost reluctantly. I get the sense that she’s neither being truthful nor deceptive. She doesn’t know that Khalil, Zeke, and Thorin have been tracking her since the crash.
“I tried,” she says brokenly but doesn’t explain further. What had she tried? To find them? To help them? “We—I, um, looked for the tail, hoping to find the emergency transmitter, but I ended up here instead.” Aurelia wrinkles her nose as if she finds the accommodations more inconvenient than the crash.
Of course, Thorin and Khalil don’t miss the slight and bristle at her impudence.
I snort, and the sound draws her attention. When I smile and wink, she looks me up and down and then dismisses me just as quickly.