Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79726 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79726 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
It truly was a lovely little wedding at the start of summer, and I’ll admit it stirred my jealousy and made me decide it was time once and for all to find a consort for my very own. If even the Thing could find a female companion, then surely it would be nothing for me to do so, parasite or not.
I grin at my Lo-Ren as our feast is laid out before us. Ah, but one last detail to make it perfect.
Pointing my finger, I use a couple of runes to light the candles standing in the middle of the table.
Lo-Ren gasps. “I’m not sure I’m gonna get used to that any time soon.”
I scoff. “That is the least of my skills, and that is what impresses you?”
She shrugs. “Well, the flying was sure. . . something.” Her eyes widen at the last word, and she lets out a little laugh. “I gotta say, when I woke up yesterday, I certainly couldn’t have imagined that I’d be sitting in a castle having a Parisian dinner with a god today. The universe, she’s got jokes.”
I lift my glass. “To the universe.”
She half-nods, half-shakes her head. “To the universe.”
Then, we both take bites of the succulent duck. Her eyes immediately go wide again as she chews. Will I ever get used to how expressive her face is?
“Holy shit,” she says after swallowing. “That’s so fucking good!”
I smile at her pleasure. “I told you they were famous for the duck. They’ve had quite a while to perfect the recipe.”
“What’s a while?” she asks, immediately cutting into another bite. “How long have you been ordering from there?” Before lifting the fork to her mouth, though, she takes a sip of wine.
I laugh at the way she phrased the question. “They’ve certainly had some staff changes, but I’ve been going there since they opened in 1582.”
She coughs, spitting out some of the wine. “What?” She coughs some more, lifting her napkin. “Did you just say you’ve been going since—”
Oh, I am having fun now. “1582. It’s the oldest restaurant in Paris, at least that’s still around. So as I said, they’ve had some time to perfect the recipe.”
“Holy shit.” She lifts the wine goblet and drinks far more than a sip, her wide eyes on me the whole time. “I mean, I’ve always had a thing for older dudes.” She wipes her mouth again with the napkin. “How old are we talking here?”
I grin. “What is it you mortals say? Age is just a number?”
“Yeah, and we know even when we say it that it’s bullshit,” she says. “So, how old?”
I shrug. “I genuinely couldn’t tell you. Kingdoms rise and fall. My brothers and I remain.”
Her eyes, already wide, get wider.
I gesture to her food. “Don’t let it get cold. It’s an insult to waste the best food Paris has to offer.” As one who often went hungry when traveling with my youngest brother, I ought to know. But I decide not to toss everything on my sweet, wide-eyed consort at once.
Her eyes linger on me, but she eventually tears them away to look back down at her plate, eating the bite of duck she’d cut earlier. Her body relaxes a little as she chews. Not even my apparently shocking revelation can distract her from the pleasures of the dish, which delights me in a way I can’t quite describe.
I, too, am particularly fond of the pleasures of the flesh. I take a long sip of wine, watching her.
“So tell me more about this particularly long life of yours,” she says after swallowing. “And your brother.” She picks up her wine glass and gestures toward the other side of my head. “Tell me about him.”
“I have a lot of brothers,” I transition smoothly. “Too many, some might say.”
I ignore the tightening of my jaw and instead tell her about Abaddon, the eldest, always sure he was the gods’ gift. And Thing, who lately renamed himself Kharon after he met his wife, Ksenia.
“Layden’s the youngest. Good with gadgets and computers. You’ll like him.”
She pulls out a small, square device from her pocket. “Good, I was wondering if there was Wi-Fi here cause I can’t get a single bar of cell reception. Do you know the password?”
I stare at her blankly, just like all of us tend to do when Layden starts going on about the strange pieces of plass-tick that light up in his hands. When did humans go and get so clever with their tools? Millennia of them barely figuring out what to do with fire and the metals they dig out of the ground, then you get chained to a wall for two hundred years, and they’ve gone and made the whole world light up.
She rolls her eyes. “Never mind. You said they’re on vacation? When do they get back?”