Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54625 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 273(@200wpm)___ 219(@250wpm)___ 182(@300wpm)
“You’re not gonna like this part,” Daemon said, glancing over at me.
“Oh, God. We jump, don’t we?”
“Well, we climb. Until we jump. Or, rather, I climb and I jump. You’re piggybacking, so I make sure I don’t lose you.”
That was… not a promising start. But, I mean, we were going into hell, so what was I expecting? A nice, well-maintained staircase?
“How do we know if I can go in?” I asked.
“You would feel it starting to repel you,” Daemon said, pulling me closer.
Save for the heat, I felt nothing.
“No?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay then,” he said, unzipping my jacket, then pulling it off of me, balling it up, and wedging it under some nearby bushes. “Are you ready for this?”
“No,” I admitted, but I reached for his shoulders, waiting for him to duck down so I could climb on. “But let’s get it over with.”
We both sucked in a deep breath in unison.
“Tight, sweetness. Like you never wanna let me go.”
The crazy thing, as I wrapped him up with arms and legs, was… I was pretty sure I never wanted to do that. Let him go.
In such a short time, he’d come to mean a lot more than I could have expected.
He was nothing like anyone I’d ever met. He’d single-handedly broken any stereotypes I may have had about demons. Who were, supposedly, evil. Yet he’d been nothing but kind and selfless with me.
And the sex.
Holy hell, the sex.
I’d never experienced anything like it. Like it consumed me, like it ripped me from my very foundations, leaving me in rubble. In the best way possible.
I was so distracted by my thoughts that I didn’t even notice the journey until the inevitable drop that had my belly swooping.
Daemon landed with a small grunt, one knee on the ground, breathing heavily.
Slowly, my eyelids fluttered open and, well, it was nothing like I expected.
“Um…” I said, slowly sliding off of Daemon’s back, turning in a circle as I took in… one of the prettiest places I’d ever seen.
Lush green was below our feet; fields of flowers stood proudly in the distance; and a beautiful river shimmered before us.
“Elysian Fields,” Daemon said, turning to watch me, his head tucked to the side.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “You hated it here?”
“No. No, I hated it in Hell. The other hell. You know, brimstone and metal rods through the eyes. That Hell. This is the Underworld. Hades Underworld.”
Right.
In the Greek myths, all the dead went to the Underworld. And based on your goodness—or wickedness—you went to a different part of the Underworld.
The Elysian Fields were reserved for the most heroic or good humans. Those who dedicated their lives to serving others, who fought to protect their fellow man.
The average, everyday normal human ended up in the Asphodel Meadows, considered a lovely place to spend eternity, if not as nice as the Elysian Fields.
Then, of course, there was the place where the wicked went.
“So, your old home would now be… Tartarus.”
“Yep. Can practically hear the screams and smell the burning flesh from here,” he said, a dark look in his eyes.
“So, was this always here?” I asked. “When… when you were here?”
“No. This was all… gone. Or closed up. I won’t pretend to understand how it happened. I’m not that smart,” he admitted with a little shrug. “When Lucy got kicked out, Hades either opened this all back up or recreated it, I guess.”
“So… if all souls go here, but the other God…”
“Yeah, not sure how that all shakes out,” Daemon said. “I guess they all battle over the souls of the humans. Some get brought down here. Some go up to the sky. Who knows. I just gotta figure out where the fuck this river is now…”
“If I remember a map I saw correctly… it’s close to Hades’s palace.
“Great,” Daemon said, wincing. “Well, let’s try to be fast then, yeah?” he asked. “Since we’re stealing from him.”
“Right,” I agreed, taking the hand he offered me. “Which way is north from here?” I asked.
Daemon pointed.
“Then we go that way,” I told him.
It was all so… strangely normal. To walk hand-in-hand with a man I was really starting to like next to a lovely river, the sweet sounds of bird calls lilting from the trees.
“Want to go visit your mom?” Daemon asked after a long, silent walk. Glancing over, I saw him nodding in the distance.
Turning, I saw the brightness disappear, all the color draining into darkness.
I felt an unexpected tug, some part of me actually really wanting to go, to see the woman who had so enchanted my father, who had loved me enough to bring me to safety, even though it must have been difficult for her.
If the human world wasn’t literally hanging in the balance, maybe I would have considered it.
As it was, there was no time for sentimental reunions.