Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 58321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58321 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 233(@250wpm)___ 194(@300wpm)
I make an effort to remember what turns I’ve made so I can find my way back to the room again, even if I have no intention of staying there for long. It’s more difficult than I anticipated.
The other thing I notice is that the hallways are a lot larger than I expected, and I imagine a careful gargoyle could fly down them. Unfortunately, I don’t have wings. The staircases give my poor human self vertigo, even though heights don’t normally bother me.
In a place this big, there should be at least a small army of staff if not a shit-ton of other people wandering around. I won’t pretend to be an expert on the demon realm and the politics of individual territories, but even in the brief moments I was outside of my room in Azazel’s castle, I encountered a number of people.
This place feels deserted . . . Haunted, even.
There’s a study several floors down from my room with a giant map pinned to the wall. I peer at it for several long moments. I can’t read the text, but I’m pretty sure the mountains near the bottom are the ones we flew over to get here. We’re not near the ocean, or at least I couldn’t see it from the roof of this castle. There was, however, a lake. Just like the one on the map.
The only time I see another being is when I round a corner and almost stumble over a trio of young gargoyles. I’m still deciding if I’m supposed to smile or interact at all when they screech and flap their wings to put as much distance between us as possible. It startles me enough that I have to plant my feet to prevent backpedaling, which only makes them screech more. In seconds, they’re gone, but it takes several beats longer for the sound of them to fade.
What the fuck was that?
I still don’t have an answer an hour later when I finally find a door to the outside. I push through it, half expecting someone to appear and stop me, but the exterior is just as deserted as the interior. I inhale the cold air and do my best to smother my curiosity. It doesn’t matter that this place is nothing like I expected. It doesn’t matter that Bram seems to wear his sorrow the way some people wear clothes. All that matters is that there’s no one around to stop me from leaving later tonight.
I study the area. There it is. The lake, just like the one on the map. It stretches to the north almost as far as the eye can see, ending in what appears to be a mountain ridge. Thankfully, I don’t intend to head in that direction. It’s pretty, though.
A bare whisper of sound announces Bram’s arrival. He alights next to me almost delicately. I can’t help searching his face for some sign of the anguish I witnessed, but he’s got his expression locked down. His emotions aren’t quite as controlled. White, pale blue, gray. This man is filled with grief and sorrow and worry. Somehow, I think it has nothing to do with me. It’s certainly none of my business.
“Who did you lose?” I don’t mean to ask the question. It’s like my brain decided one thing and my mouth did the exact opposite.
He narrows those eerie pale-violet eyes at me. No, not violet. Lilac? I honestly don’t know why I’m obsessing over the proper name for his eye color. The way he’s watching me, it’s almost as if he knows. But when he speaks, it’s to answer my inappropriate question. “Everyone. I lost everyone.”
I don’t want to feel kinship with this man, but I can’t help the answering ache that goes through me. “I see.”
“Dinner should be ready soon enough.” He pauses almost awkwardly. “You look really nice.”
I can’t help myself. I burst out laughing. “I’m wearing castoffs from someone else, I still have windburn all over my face, and I probably need a shower.”
He moves quicker than he has right to, pressing one hand to the center of my back and leaning down, then dragging his nose along the line of my neck. It happens so fast, I can’t figure out how I want to respond before he steps back and out of range again. “You smell good. Like the mountains. This way.”
I stare after him for several seconds before I realize he means for me to follow. He just . . . sniffed me. I didn’t hate it as much as I should have. In fact, my skin still tingles a little. It’s an effort not to lift my hand and press my fingertips there, as if I can steal the sensation of his face against my skin.
I’ve had plenty of bed partners and even a scattering of relationships over the years. Not a single one of them was able to provoke a reaction on this level by doing so little. I want to blame his rugged attractiveness, but I am terrified that the real reason is because I can’t help looking at him and suspecting that we are the same.