Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 409(@200wpm)___ 327(@250wpm)___ 273(@300wpm)
And maybe all that hoping is making me blind to who Phoenix actually is now. It’s not fair to her. I sigh as I lay in bed, another sleepless hour gone. Especially since I’m not sure how to make it right.
I stay in bed staring at the ceiling until the morning hour, which I only know by watching my phone. There haven’t been any alerts, but it’s probably a good idea to let my brothers in on the situation at hand. So I call up Abaddon.
It takes many rings before it’s finally picked up.
“Here,” Hannah’s face appears on the screen before she hands it off to Abaddon. “You just push the green button when it rings like that.”
Abaddon looks gruff and angry as he glares down at the screen. “I don’t see why he couldn’t walk himself over here if he wanted to talk.”
“He’s on his honeymoon!” calls Hannah from off-screen. “And you need to learn how to use the phone!”
“Lovely to see you, too, brother,” I comment dryly.
“What is it? I’m eating breakfast.”
Behind his head, I see Raven flying around. She seems to be making circles on the ceiling over the breakfast table, a favorite activity of hers.
“I only saw her last week, but I swear Raven’s gotten bigger.”
“She’s a growing little menace,” Abaddon says, but I can hear the pride in his surly voice.
“Anyway, I just wanted to let you in on the situation.”
“That’s new,” he mutters.
I ignore him, only half rolling my eyes. “It seems like we might have torn a little hole in the continuum between the planes when we let the Devourer through last month.”
“What?” he barks.
Here it comes. The blame and then telling me how terrible I am at everything I do. I sigh. “Look, we only know of one spirit who made it through right now. Ammit, a succubus goddess who kills men after she seduces them. We’ve got leads on her and are tracking her as we speak. But there might be more who slipped through.”
Abaddon rubs his lion-like chin with his clawed hand. “But you’ve got the one under control. This Am—whatever her name is?”
“Ammit. Yes. Phoenix and I have it under control. We’re tracking her and will take her down.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “You have a plan?”
“Of course we have a plan,” I lie. We’ll make a plan when it comes to it.
“One that won’t open up a rip in more realms?”
“Yes,” I snap. There’s no one like my big brother to make me feel like a dunce. “You don’t have to worry. I hope you and the family are settling in. I just wanted to keep you in the loop.”
He nods, the line still in his forehead as if he’s not sure if he has faith in me. But finally, he says, “All right, then. I’ll trust you with this.”
It’s stupid how his words make something clench and then unfurl in my chest. Not having a father worth the name, my oldest brother has always been… well, I always stupidly looked up to him. It was one of the reasons it hurt so badly when he stood there and watched our father slice off my wings without doing a damn thing.
I only learned after I reunited with my brothers that when they thought my father murdered me, Abaddon then killed our father in a rage. Or thought he did.
We all learned a hard lesson that our kind can’t be killed when both I and our Creator-Father returned, very much not dead. I sent dear old Dad back to the Great Hall, where I hope the angels have shackled him in a deep, dark dungeon somewhere.
On-screen, Raven flies down and lands on her father’s shoulders, grabbing his horns as if to ride him. Except she’s much bigger now than she was only a month ago, so Abaddon is thrown forward by her weight and momentum, tipping into the phone as Raven’s black wings flutter, and she giggles wildly as if he’s a bucking bronco.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I say, smiling into the mass of wings blocking out the screen.
“You need any help, just let us know, baby brother,” is the last thing I hear him say before the line cuts off.
Wow. Kids. A month ago, I would have balked even at the idea. Way too much responsibility for me, I would’ve said.
And I get why Phoenix isn’t eager to give Vlad what he wants, but if this marriage were real and she was at all open… The thought of Raven, growing bigger by the day and my other brother Kharon’s daughter Luna… They’re both a handful, especially given their angel-monster heritage.
The weeks before the wedding, Kharon and his wife did everything they could to keep baby Luna calm. Kharon is the Horseman of Death who carries humans to the deathly plane after they die, but it turns out that’s not the only realm he can travel to. Not that he knew about it until the Devourer visited on the day Luna was born, and we learned she’d inherited his ability. Now Kharon’s practicing his own jumps to different realms so he knows he can and is ready to chase her in case she disappears someday.