Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 94834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94834 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
With Empire in my hands, the world is mine to bend and manipulate. Whatever I want will be thrust at my feet, and I do whatever it takes to make it so.
“You cannot flourish in the power of Empire without first giving your soul,” The Circle member standing directly across from me says, his voice chilling and raw. “You will be challenged to prove your loyalty to our cause by making the greatest sacrifice of all, a sacrifice the heirs before you have each made.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“In sixty suns and sixty moons, you will sacrifice the heart of an innocent. You will bring her to us, and in the hour before dawn in our sacred fortress, you will carve out her still-beating heart and offer it as your sacrifice to your people. Her heart will be placed on a pedestal and will remain until your reign shall cease. It is with this sacrifice that you, Zade Alexander DeVil, will be bound to Empire and rise as our rightful leader.”
I nod, accepting what will be. Without another word, The Circle files out of the tomb, all except one. “Zade,” he says, and I turn my attention to him, looking away from my father’s burning body and into the eyes of Nikolai Thorne. His dead, emotionless stare from earlier completely gone, replaced with the familiarity of my best friend’s father. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
I nod, more than ready to take this on. “My father did this?”
“He did.”
My brows furrow, and I try to think back to the days before my father was initiated as the heir of Empire, but I was just a kid, still stricken with grief over the loss of my grandfather. “Who did he sacrifice?”
A fond smile pulls at his lips before that heavy darkness returns in his eyes, and I can all but see the images etched into his memory. “The love of his life,” Nikolai tells me, his tone void of all emotion. “He sacrificed your mother.”
My chest constricts as lead pulses through my veins, weighing me down. “No, you must have that wrong. My mother left us. She wasn’t sacrificed.”
“I’m sorry,” Nikolai says, bowing his head. “Remember, sixty suns and sixty moons. Bring the innocent. If no sacrifice is made, Empire will not accept you as their ruling heir, and with no other, well . . . God be with us all.”
Chapter 1
OAKLEY
“Would you rather fuck your dad in Thor’s body or Thor in your dad’s body?”
My jaw drops, gaping at my brand-new roommate. I mean, fuck! What must circle her brain to make that sentence fall out of her mouth? And before she’s even said hello.
Holy shit, this chick is either going to be my new best friend, or she’s mentally unstable and I’ll need to sleep with a knife. “I, umm . . . my dad died when I was a kid,” I stumble out, my hand still raised after knocking on the wide-open door.
“Was he hot?” She stares back at me from the small kitchen, watching me through a narrowed gaze as though my response is going to tell her everything she needs to know about me.
I consider her question, thinking back on the few old photographs I managed to salvage from our home before social services ripped me out of there. “I suppose so,” I admit. “Tall, dark, and handsome with an edge of touch my kid and you’ll fucking die . . . If you’re into that shit.”
She bites down on her bottom lip, her eyes glimmering with excitement. “Oh, I’m into that shit,” she says, waving me deeper into the small college-owned apartment. “You didn’t answer the question.”
I scoff, dropping my bag at my feet and kicking the door closed behind me. “Does it really matter? As long as Thor’s got that big hammer, I’m good.”
“Right,” she says, nodding as she leans back against the counter. “So, your dad in Thor’s body then?”
“I . . . huh? How do you get that?”
“If you want the hammer, you have to have Thor’s body, too. Process of elimination, babe. You’re fucking your dad in Thor’s body.”
I stare back at her, unsure how we got here. “I don’t know how I feel about that.”
“I mean, it’s not set in stone,” she says, strutting across the kitchen and grabbing a bottle of wine out of the fridge before searching for glasses. “We can always change your answer. You can fuck Thor in your dad’s body, but just between you and me, I think Thor would be hung like a horse, and girl, he’s a god. He’d know how to use it. It’s a no-brainer to me. Unless your dad was rocking a giant cock too. Do you happen to kn—”
“Oh God,” I groan, cutting across the living room to the kitchen as she pours two glasses of wine. “One of those better be for me because there’s no way I’m about to start discussing my dad’s dick without at least feeling a buzz first.”