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)
“So you came, saw what you saw, and decided to find the missing sibling to restore balance.”
“That’s the story, yes.”
“What makes you think she’s around here somewhere?”
“Honestly? Because the gods are lazy. They want to party and overindulge. Then they want to toy with their powers. And rest. They don’t actually like work. They would never do more than the absolute bare minimum with Nemesis. They’d want her nearby to make sure she wasn’t breaking out of their prison.”
“But you’ve been looking for weeks.”
“The woods are vast and full of mountains, old buildings, and abandoned mines. It’s been a slow process. Especially because I have to take time to sneak into the basement to free the prisoners. And, well, do this,” I said, gesturing to my car.
More than half of my time was spent freeing innocents and getting them to safety and healthcare.
I knew that with each day I didn’t find Nemesis, I was only allowing for more suffering. But I also couldn’t bring myself to stand by and let these humans be tortured to death right before my eyes.
It was a never-ending battle with my conscience.
“Having help will, hopefully, make the difference,” I said aloud as I watched the headlights slicing through the unending dark of the backroads.
“How will I know what to look for?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But she’s a god. I’m assuming you will know her when you see her. Or maybe you will even be able to sense her power. I’m not sure.”
“And if she’s bound by magic?”
“We cross that bridge when we get to it,” I said. Even if I’d been wondering the same thing since the very beginning. Secretly, I was kind of hoping my sister could tell me what to do once I found her. Even if she couldn’t speak, I figured I could just ask her a million questions until one seemed to get some sort of reaction out of her.
“You have no fucking idea what you’re doing, do you, sweetness?” Daemon asked.
I turned, finding him watching me with a light in his eyes.
“No,” I admitted.
“Well,” he said, lips curving up. “It’s lucky for you that no one would ever accuse me of making smart decisions. Let’s find us a goddess.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Daemon
What can I say? I had nothing else to do with my immortal life. Might as well help the pretty girl find her sister.
And, hell, in the process, I might just gain the favor of the rest of the demons who expected very little of me.
Though I had to admit that the biggest motivation was to get to spend a little more time with my shadow girl.
If you were going to subject yourself to endless torture, there better as fuck be a pretty girl involved.
By the time we got the half-dead human back to civilization and made our way back to the estate, though, the sun was starting to cast little golden threads across the sky.
“I have to put you back,” Nox said, regret clear in her voice.
I couldn’t claim to fully understand her empathy. I’d have to have a soul for that. But, given my nature, I believed that only those who deserved punishment should be on the receiving end of torture.
And, sure, one could argue that all you had to do was look at humankind and their deplorable treatment of those who looked, lived, loved, or prayed differently than them to believe they were all pretty wicked in their own way.
But if a human was going to be damn near eviscerated, they better have done something equally as brutal in their lives to warrant it.
I didn’t want to tell shadow girl that the man had a pretty low chance of survival. And, hell, who knew? Humans could be pretty tough at times. Better not to fuck with her spirit when she was clearly just trying to do good.
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, shrugging. I would be. It was going to suck. But I wasn’t going to die. “You should go get some rest,” I added as we moved through the woods.
The shadows under her eyes looked purple against her pale skin. The whites of her eyes were red, and her lids were heavy.
“I will,” she said, but there was a false note in her voice.
We fell into a companionable silence as we walked back toward the estate, listening to the cooing of the morning birds waking up to greet the day.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“What?”
“This. Risking yourself to save the humans, to find your sister. Why are you doing it? You could just go into hiding somewhere.”
“Could I?” she asked. “I mean, this is just the beginning. Once all of the gods are up and trying to take back the sky, land, and sea, there will be nowhere to hide. Certainly not if you live much longer than a mortal.”