Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 47265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 158(@300wpm)
She caught a glimpse of her face in the reflection of a metal strip running vertically up the corner of a wall to stop people from breaking the tile off the wall. She looked exactly the same as everybody else. Tense, irritable, and un-fucking-happy to be there.
Katie came up out of the subway and started picking her way through the crowd. It was almost time for the lunch rush, and that meant Michael was probably going to fire her if she didn’t get to work, like, now. But the place was still six blocks away, and she wasn’t going to run.
Setting out on the walk, she looked around for any kind of distraction she might be able to use as an excuse for not being there on time. Sure enough, she found one.
There was a weird guy standing on a street corner. That, in itself, was not unusual. This was New York. The streets were packed with weird guys and girls. This one was sightly weirder than most, because he had red skin and huge wings coming out from his shoulders. He was probably advertising that tv show about the guy who was not so secretly the devil. Or some movie where some guy was the devil. Or something with superheroes. Superheroes were so in right now.
Shit. She’d made eye contact. That was always a mistake. His eyes locked on her, black and hollow. Contacts, probably. But she still felt a primordial chill running down her spine as a result of making contact with something so very alien.
She looked away, but couldn't help herself and looked back again. She was getting closer with every step, and the closer she got, the weirder and more incredible he looked.
He was shirtless, which was impressive for a cool fall day which would have made her nipples turn to ice daggers if she had tried to take off her coat. He seemed unaffected by the cold, though there was no doubt that his nipples were impressive, as was the rest of his muscular torso. Her steps slowed as she got closer.
His costume was actually pretty cool. His hair was a fascinating raven blue, and the wings almost looked real. He had them tucked up really tight, almost like he was trying to hide them. He was hot too, in a kind of football jock sort of way. Looked like he could have been a quarterback in high school. He had the broad shoulders, narrow hips, and muscular plane along his abdomen, of which she could see every inch because he wasn’t wearing a shirt. He was tattooed across his arms and part of his chest, a bunch of inked symbols she wasn’t familiar with, but probably had some meaning to him. So this was what happened to frat boys who grew up, took shrooms, and decided to follow their passion for theater.
Again, she slowed down as she got closer, as if she couldn’t quite stand the idea of walking past him and never seeing him again. There was something quietly spectacular about him. Something almost otherworldly.
His face was… well, like a male model. There were a lot of male models in the city, brooding, angular types with low body fat. This guy had a different take on the vibe. He had narrowed eyes under dark brows, a square jaw, and the sort of intensity in his gaze which hit her like a bolt of lightning, shooting down her spine and making her toes curl.
So what was he doing? Some kinda movie promotion? Maybe a video game? Had he been lost from a flash mob? Everything about his appearance should have screamed LOOK AT ME. Instead, it seemed almost as though he was trying to blend in and not be noticed. Usually the shirtless muscular guys with the massive wings and blue-black hair were trying to stand out.
She walked past him, unable to spare another second. She had to get to work. Whatever this moment was, whatever magic might have been in it, was over. There was no room for the strange or outré when there were fries to get in the fryer.
There was a brief moment of something like depression, a little ache inside her, a yearning for something that never was…
A hand snatched at her through the crowd, pulling her out of the flow of people who barely seemed to notice, and absolutely did not care that a young lady had just been yanked at by a strange man.
“Hey! What the fuck you think you’re doing!?” She looked up at the guy with the wings, and felt her heart skip a beat. He’d found her. The thought didn’t make sense, but that didn’t stop her from having it.
“Human. I require your assistance.”
He was really weird. But he had a really hot voice. There were lots of good looking men in the world, but there weren’t nearly as many hot guys with hot voices to match, deep and gravelly and commanding all at the same time. It did not sound like the voice of a lost cosplayer, and yet it was almost certainly coming out of one.