Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62637 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
My bead. What makes me immortal, powerful, special—has just been torn from my body by the very man I love.
He has betrayed me twice.
Once on purpose.
The second by idiocy, because in giving his eye, there will always be someone who can see through the other.
Idiots.
All of us.
I fall back against the mattress and start to shake. My body is no longer immortal. My power is gone. I’m nothing but a human shell with scars that used to show my glory.
And the person who took it all from me was the one I waited for and trusted the most in the world.
I burst into tears. The pain is nearly unbearable as the bead of energy leaves my body and enters his. Horus’s chuckle is dark and lonely; he falls to his knees and collapses into a heap against the floor.
I jump after him. Maybe if I pry his mouth open.
A hand jerks out and shoves me away. The energy from his palm is green; he moves to his knees and stares me down. “What the hell have you done?”
“I have no idea!” I yell. “Do you even know what you just did? You kissed me, you stole my bead—”
He shoves me away from him. “Stay back!” He holds his hands out in front of him, tiny flecks of green and yellow fire burn from his palms. His skin looks like the sun mixed with the earth; it turns dark every few seconds like the night sky. He trembles on the floor, his one eye flickers black and blue. “We need to get it out of me!” Voice hoarse, he collapses against the floor again. “Get Cassius, now! Get Timber, get everyone!”
“It won’t kill you!” I yell. “It’s going to kill me!”
“Exactly!” He laughs again, then catches himself and shakes his head. “I’ll kill you without thinking twice; I can’t be both darkness and light.” He curses. “She made me a monster. She used my eye to make me a tool. Her own god of monsters.”
Well done, I want to say. He goes to sacrifice to give me my past back and, with his sacrifice, steals our future.
I refuse it.
I rebuke it.
“No!” I yell. I have no power left, though, but I do have legs. I sprint past him, open the door and collide with Bannik.
“And the prince of the sky will become more than a god, pissing off the heavens and hell all at once, I think, is how the nursery rhyme goes.” Bannik leans against the doorjamb. “I knew you wanted something from her.”
“No.” Horus shakes his head. “I didn’t want her power. That’s not what happened. She could see through my eye. She tricked me, waited until I was weak until I gave myself to Kit.”
“It doesn’t matter, you idiot. Did I not warn you?” Bannik slams his hands against the wall by the door. A picture falls, and the glass shatters into rubble by his black boots. “Your very existence is about balance. How can darkness and light co-exist? It is a balance you have just disrupted. A fox can survive without her tails, but a fox without her bead will eventually die. So much for a happy ending.”
Tears stream down my face. He’s not wrong. I am the fox of the night, and losing my bead to the light means eventual death.
“I’ll give it back,” Horus says through clenched teeth. “I just need a minute to think.” He rams his hands through the wall next to me. Everything turns to dust around us, coating the carpeting at our feet.
His godhead in this timeline has fully returned ten times what it once was. He’s dangerous. Powerful. And he’s angry.
It’s up to me to calm him down, and Bannik isn’t helping.
“Hey…” I reach for Horus only to have Bannik shove me behind him. “Just let me talk to him.”
“He’s going to either die getting the bead out of him or become a fallen, either way, you can’t help him. All he can do is help himself.” Bannik shakes his head. “Never listen to the voices, Horus. Even if they make sense.”
“I just wanted to kiss her, then a sweet voice said to bite down.”
“That sweet voice was Apophis, and she’s come to collect her final sacrifice.” He looks between both of us and shakes his head. “You. She wants you, Horus. She already has your eye, and now that you’re powerful in this timeline, she wants you to do all her bidding. Even Cassius couldn’t fight you now.” He laughs. “Wow, and I thought I’d be the end of the Immortal Council. Meanwhile, the Egyptian god of gods has me hold his beer.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“Because it’s not funny!” Bannik yells.
Ethan slams his hands against the door. “Why is everyone yelling?”
“Oh, shit,” Alex says behind him. “He pulled a full god.”