Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110034 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 550(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 367(@300wpm)
“What the hell is this?” I find myself saying out loud.
Death grumbles something under his breath, folding his arms across his broad chest. In the short amount of time we were apart, I had forgotten just how massive this God is.
But the approaching person is also tall, almost equally so.
“What are you doing here?!” the skull man yells at us. His voice is low yet playful, and I realize he’s not a Bone Straggler, just wearing a mask like Death.
“What are you doing with them?” Death asks the masked man, nodding stiffly at the boat.
The guy strides closer in a casual jaunt and that’s when it dawns on me. His skin isn’t as dark as Death’s, his hair is short, flopping over on his masked forehead, and while he’s super buff, with the broadest shoulders, he’s not as massive as Death. Yet I can see he’s very much like his father.
This must be the Son of Death.
“What do you mean what am I doing with them?” he asks Death, coming right up to us. “I’m ferrying the dead to the city.”
Death looks at the girls on the boat. “Are you sure they’re dead and it’s not a shaman’s trick?”
“I’m not my sister, I don’t fall for just any magic,” his son says. Then he looks to me, and through his mask I see the twinkle of his eyes. Somehow I don’t need to see his face to know that he’s a looker.
“I’m going to guess you’re Hanna, the one with the magic tricks,” he says with a wink. He extends his hand and I stare at it. Unlike his father, he’s not wearing gloves. “I’m Tuonen, if you couldn’t tell.”
“I figured,” I tell him, placing my hand in his. His palm is large, grip is strong. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“All good things I presume?” Tuonen says, taking his hand back and waving it in an exaggerated manner, like I’d just crushed it.
I let out a small laugh and gesture to the bikini gals on the boat, immediately feeling an easy rapport with him. “Enough that I’m not surprised to see you ferrying a bunch of hot babes around.”
He shrugs, glancing back at them. “Just a lucky day, I guess. Apparently they all drowned together. Had too many shots of tequila in Mexico then tried to do a dive into a cave. All for that Instagram that you mortals are all hung up about. Can’t tell you how many people I’ve had come across because of that thing.”
I glance over at the girls. They’re all chatting to each other as if they’re back at the bar in Cabo or wherever they were before they died. Having come into Tuonela as someone alive, I briefly wonder what it feels like to be dead here. Judging by these girls, it seems like a pretty seamless transition.
“You better be on your way,” Death says gruffly, placing a metal hand on his son’s shoulder. “Just make sure you’re taking them to the city.”
“Where else would I be taking them?” Tuonen asks with a scoff.
Meanwhile I’m staring at Death’s hand, struck by the fact that he can’t even touch his own son with his bare skin. My heart pinches at the thought, with the sudden realization of how lonely that might be, how isolating. I’d seen him with Lovia before, and he’d told me how it was as a child, different from the rest of his siblings and his parents, and yet it’s never really hit home at how powerful it is to be without true touch for those you love.
Death catches me staring at his hand and I feel a bristle of cold wind, perhaps his discomfort with my pity, and he abruptly takes his hand off Tuonen’s shoulder.
“Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve fucked with the newly dead,” Death says to him, clearing his throat.
I blink at them for a second, my mind tripping over what he just said. “Sorry, did you just say fucking the dead or fucking with the dead?”
Tuonen looks rebuked. “Fucking the dead? What kind of God do you think I am?”
“Your reputation precedes you,” Death tells him.
I can tell Tuonen is scowling at him under his mask. “There’s no rush,” he says, sounding like a teenager who’s putting off doing the dishes. “The girls will get to the city, the Golden Mean probably. It’s up to the Magician to decide where they go. Until then, I can take a break.” He tilts his head at me. “Besides, I’ve been waiting to meet my future stepmother.”
“Who is the Magician?” I ask, even though I’m feeling weirded out at the fact that I’m going to be Tuonen’s stepmom. Under the mask, I’m assuming he looks about my age, but the reality is that he’s eons older.
Hell, I’m weirded out that I’m going to be a stepmother at all. It must have been hours ago that it looked like I was escaping the Land of the Dead for good. Instead, I nearly died at the hands (well, tongue) of Louhi, Rasmus was captured, poor Alku died, and now I’m back in Death’s possession, who seems just as intent on making me his bride as he was before. I haven’t even had a moment to try and figure out how I feel about all of this, not that my feelings seem to have much weight when it comes to it.