Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 625(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
“I really can’t clear up the confusion for you. I don’t have all the answers. The deity doesn’t tell me much, and She can be kind of cryptic. When She offered to send a monster after those boys, She didn’t specify that I’d be its host.”
Wynter was no longer merely a witch. She was more. A vessel for something not of this world. And, as such, she’d become a monster in her own right.
She’d only seen her entity once. When Wynter’s soul had landed in the netherworld—the realm that was effectively purgatory for the souls of preternatural beings—the deity and the monster had been waiting there for her. The deity had sent them out of the netherworld together and into Wynter’s then-dead body, reviving it that easily. The entity had taken control in an instant, torn the boys apart, and then just as quickly retreated.
The monster was … well, monstrous. Neither male nor female, it was as hideous and horrifying as any nightmare. What she remembered most of all were its bottomless black eyes. There was no being that she could compare it to, because it was simply too foreign. And as black tendrils began to creep over her second eyeball, she knew it was about to take her over.
Wagner must have sensed it too, because he tensed as if to flee.
“You can run if you want,” said Wynter, “but it will find you. It’ll catch you. Shred you. It’ll feast on your fear, drink in your screams, and relish your pain. That’s kind of what it does. What it craves, even. After all, it exists only to wreak vengeance. And me? I’m more than happy to let it go wreak.”
The monster lunged to the surface, and her vision went black.
Driving along the unpaved roads that cut through a labyrinth of tall, weathered trees, Wynter felt her hands flex on the steering wheel. “This could be a bad idea. A really, really bad idea.”
Riding shotgun, Delilah tossed her a sideways glance. “You said that when we ate at that Indian restaurant with the dodgy reviews last night. That turned out okay. No one got the shits.”
“I don’t know about that,” Xavier piped up from the backseat, his nose wrinkling as he cast the sleeping female on his left a brief look. “Anabel’s been farting past herself, and some of those farts sounded wet.”
“Shh,” said the elderly woman on his right, her face in her book. “This is finally starting to get good.” In other words, it was a sex scene. Hattie read erotic books like it was her job—the filthier the better, in her opinion.
If there was one thing Wynter wouldn’t have expected when she set off alone, it was that she’d pick up some ‘strays’ while on the run. But after she’d saved herself and a bunch of captives from bounty hunters—yes, the Aeons had put a price on Wynter’s head after she fled—four of said captives had decided it would be good for them all to stick together.
At first, she’d protested, but then it had occurred to Wynter that it would be better for her to travel in a group. Like her, they were witches. The people on her ass were looking for a lone witch, not what would appear to be a coven. And if the hunters did find her again, well, it wouldn’t be bad for her to have some backup. Especially from a bunch of beings who had a streak of crazy in them.
Things hadn’t been easy since the day she’d fled Aeon. She’d expected the Aeons to send someone to do the job that Wagner had failed to do, of course. The first hunter had tried to kill her. So had the second. But after that, they’d began to come for her in groups. None of those groups tried to end her, though. They’d all wanted to return her to Aeon. They’d even come equipped with tranquilizer guns. According to the bounty hunters who’d almost captured her, the Aeons now wanted her alive.
She could guess why.
What she needed was a place to go where they wouldn’t dare venture. A place run by people who took in fugitives and who wouldn’t be afraid of the Aeons.
There was only one such place she could think of—Devil’s Cradle. Also referred to by many as ‘the Home of Monsters.’
It was founded by seven beings—quite simply referred to as the Ancients—who were banished from Aeon a millennia ago after a war broke out between the immortals. A war that came about after Cain, Azazel, Lilith, Seth, Inanna, Ishtar, and Dantalion sold their souls to Satan in exchange for power. As you do.
Or so the story went, anyway. Wynter wasn’t so quick to believe anything the Aeons claimed.
The Ancients been given many titles, including the Soulless Ones and the Seven Judges of the Underworld. Neither of which were comforting. The Aeons had only referred to them as ‘the Condemned.’