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)
“Your source must have been fucking with you. The Aeons can effortlessly combat environmental decay—they’re masters of elemental power, after all.”
“Oh, they’ve tried to fight the outbreak every step of the way.” Azazel stretched out his long legs. “But whatever’s afflicting the land hasn’t responded to their attempts in any way. It keeps steadily spreading, no matter what they do.”
Frowning, Cain shook his head. “That makes no sense.”
“But it does make me smile. You want to as well. You know you do. Go on.”
“If the land was really contaminated—”
“My source swore it was true. He seems fucking terrified. I’m not surprised, because the decay isn’t even the worst of it.”
“How so?”
“People are getting sick.”
All right, now Cain knew the guy’s source was talking shit. “No way am I buying that.”
“It’s happening, I’m telling you. Only the mortals have been affected, though. I heard it’s like the black plague on steroids.”
“Come on, Azazel, the healers there are some of the best in the world.”
“Which is why no one has died. Yet. I mean, think what will happen if the healers run out of steam.”
Cain took another swig of his whiskey. “You’re not even a little skeptical?”
“I was at first, but my source isn’t that good an actor. His fear was real.”
“You sure it’s not that you’d simply love for it to be true?”
Azazel hummed. “Maybe. Can’t deny that I’d like the prissy Aeons to suffer for what they’ve done. They’re oh-so proud of their land. Those who don’t live in the underground city might not realize that it features the biblical Garden of Eden, but we know. And we also know that any damage to their pride and joy would hit them where it hurt. Infecting it …” Again, Azazel grinned. “Someone should have thought of it sooner. It’s a fucking genius way to piss those assholes off.”
If it wasn’t pure bullshit.
“Strange that no one’s come here accusing us of being responsible for it. We were always their scapegoats. I would have thought they’d blame us right off the mark for something like that.”
“Assuming it’s actually happening … they’d blame us, but they wouldn’t contact us. They wouldn’t want us to know we’d succeeded in what they believed we’d attempted to do.”
“Ah, true.” Azazel draped his arms over the back of the sofa. “Well, my source had no theories for what could be causing the decay or the plague. He said nothing had happened recently that could be connected to it. A keeper seems to have run off with an exiled resident at around the same time that the problems began, but that’s it. I wonder if they’re sick too or if they’ve had a lucky escape from whatever’s running rampant through Aeon.”
“They won’t be so lucky when hunters track them down.” Those hunters liked their prey to die hard.
“Considering most of the people in the town are kind of preoccupied with the blight and pestilence, I doubt the rogues are anyone’s priority.”
The door swung open, and Cain’s younger brother stalked inside, the image of agitation.
Cain eyed Seth as he took another sip of his drink. “You all right?”
He grunted, planting his hands on his hips.
“Let me guess,” began Azazel. “Ishtar.”
“I don’t know what bothers me more,” said Seth. “That she’s playing stupid games again, or that she thinks they’re going to work.” His amber eyes narrowed at the expression that crossed Azazel’s face. “Wait, you thought they might work?”
“She’s exceptionally good at getting under your skin,” Azazel defended. “Ishtar knows you too well. She knows what buttons to push. And you’re a sickeningly forgiving person.”
Yes, but Seth was … different from the other Ancients. Good. Noble. And brave enough to side with Cain and the others while the rest of their family fought them head-on and drove them out of their own home.
“I do forgive her,” Seth confirmed, slumping onto the sofa beside Cain. “But when I forgave her, I also let her go and chose to move on. I wasn’t pining for her while she was Resting. It’s been centuries since I’ve touched her. She talks like it was last week. That’s when she’s not flirting with Solomon in the hope of getting a reaction out of me,” Seth added, referring to a mage in her service who’d never gotten along with Seth.
Cain braced his glass on his thigh. “She’s probably hoping you’ll both compete for her.” Anyone who didn’t know Ishtar would think she was a typical attention junkie. She did love to be admired and fawned over, but it wasn’t about attention. It was about power. She craved the feeling of power she got from having others yearn for and fight over her.
Seth looked at him. “She came onto you as well, didn’t she?”
Cain only nodded. He hadn’t slept with Ishtar in over eight centuries and yet, like with Seth, she’d spoken of their time together as if it had been recent.