Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 479(@250wpm)___ 399(@300wpm)
His voice cracks like a whip and Hanna stiffens against me. I wrap an arm around her shoulders and squeeze automatically.
“Why did you bring another human,” Lucian continues, his voice like ice, “When I specifically instructed you to bring only the animal?”
Whistler’s mouth quirks.
“Ah. Well. You did say everything around the cat—everything the cat needed, right?”
Lucian’s eyes narrow dangerously but Whistler hurries on.
“This woman,” he says, gesturing toward Hanna, “Was petting the animal. It appeared attached to her. The cat seemed to require her presence, for emotional support, maybe.”
Mr. Mittens chooses that moment to let out a loud, offended mrrrow. He’s twining around both our legs, as though asking for attention from me and Hanna.
Whistler spreads his hands and nods at my friend.
“The cat needed her, so I brought her. Along with the food, the litter box, the carrier, and assorted other objects that looked like the cat might need them. They’re in your office with your guards, my Lord.”
Lucian looks like he might actually tear the Realm-Hopper’s head off.
“This is ridiculous,” he growls. “You have taken an unnecessary risk bringing her here.”
Hanna’s fingers dig into my arm, and I can almost feel her fear. She’s worried that Lucian will hurt her—that he thinks she’s to blame for being here somehow. I open my mouth to reassure her but before I can get a word out, another voice cuts in—low, velvet-dark, and threaded with something ancient and cold.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Don Malthus Veyl murmurs. He takes a step towards us, his gaze trained on Hanna.
Every instinct in my body screams danger. Hanna shrinks against me and I tighten my grip on her.
Don Malthus moves closer with eerie grace, his shadowy robes billowing as though stirred by a wind only he can feel. The skeletal hands emerge again, pale and sharp, fingers long and deliberate. They seem like an odd contrast to the huge, muscular body outlined by the strange fabric he wears.
Everyone has stood up by now and we’re all congregated by the head of the table. The servants, perhaps sensing conflict, have vanished like smoke.
The Necro Don stops a few feet from us. He towers over us both—the specter of death with a deadly chill coming off him. It’s like standing next to an open freezer door…or maybe an open grave.
“Tell me, beautiful one,” he says softly, his skull-mask angled toward Hanna. “What is your name?”
Hanna goes completely still and her face—which had begun to get a little color—goes paper-pale again. She straightens despite herself, spine stiff with fear, and takes a small step backward—away from him and closer to me.
“I—I…” Her voice trembles. “You…you’re not—my name is none of your business.”
The bone grin never changes.
“Ah,” Don Malthus murmurs. “But it is my business. For I must know what to call such a lovely woman—such a beautiful queen.”
Lucian shifts, frowning. He looks displeased, but doesn’t interrupt.
“I have seen you before,” the Necro Don continues, still looking down at Hanna. “I am certain of it.”
Hanna’s breath seems to catch in her throat, and she just looks at him—clearly at a loss for words.
“Yes, you stand in the doorway between me and my charges,” Malthus says to her. “Those I must guide from the Human Realm into the shadows of the Great Beyond.”
She swallows hard.
“I… I’m a Hospice nurse,” she stammers. “But I’ve n-never seen you before.”
Don Malthus inclines his skull slightly, seeming almost respectful.
“Of course not,” he says. “It is my role to remain unseen, lovely one.”
The air around him seems to grow colder.
“But though you do not see me, I am there,” he continues quietly. “Always. I have watched you comfort those who must soon take my hand. I have seen you sit beside the dying when others could not bear to stay. I have seen you whisper kindness into ears that no longer hear.”
Hanna’s eyes are huge now, glossy with terror.
“I…I…” She shakes her head, clearly at a loss for words.
“I have seen you lean over the bedside of those whose time in the Human Realm has ended,” Don Malthus says. “I have admired your courage as much as your beauty, my curvy one. Long have I wished to have one such as you at my side.”
Hanna just stares at him like a deer caught in headlights—frozen, shaking, unable to look away. And who can blame her for being freaked out? It’s like Death himself is coming on to her—definitely not a normal situation.
“Oh my God,” she whispers at last. “I can’t…please, I don’t even know you.”
“But you could come to know me…and I, you,” he murmurs and reaches for her with one long-fingered, skeletal hand.
Hanna seems almost hypnotized. For a moment, she sways forward—as though she might fall into his arms for a second time that night.
That’s it—I’ve had it. I grab her hand hard enough to jolt her out of the trance.