“That’s right, you crazy bitch. You are just like Seth. Once I realized you gods are all the same, I located the Blade of Bane. You used a little magic to glamor the weapon, but someone found it anyway. And though I’ll give you more credit than Seth, having many security systems set up on the sword, there is one thing you could never have counted on.”
“And what’s that?” I could tell she didn’t quite believe me.
I punctuated each word. “Genetically. Engineered. Rabbits.”
When she didn’t respond or react, I said, “Why don’t you go check my phone?”
She paused, as if considering the request, then crossed to my purse.
I continued to talk. “It’s amazing what a couple of loose rabbits in a hotel can do. It causes quite a distraction. And then without your cameras, and everyone looking the wrong way, all one needs to do is walk up and pluck the sword from its hiding place.”
As Galina regarded my phone, her pupils turned to slits again, glowing brighter green now. “You little…”
I knew she was seeing a picture of the Blade of Bane to confirm the heist had gone off as planned.
“Scamp?” I filled in for her. “Don’t I know it.” Despite my perky taunt, my tone was dark and dangerous.
My core shook with rage, grief, and satisfaction at having taken something from her, though it was nothing compared to what she’d stolen from me. If I could lunge at her, I’d tear her to pieces with my bare hands.
Maybe I wanted her to kill me. But I wouldn’t go to the afterlife. My soul was crystallized, hardened into my body, immovable. It wouldn’t reunite me with Grim. And if death could die, he was out of my reach. If she killed me, it would mean absolute extermination.
Galina set my phone on the table, so close yet so far, as I still couldn’t move. But soon enough, I’d heal and be able to get to it. I’d be able to go after her.
She cleared the irritation from her face and said in a solemn tone, “The sword is of no consequence now. It won’t be enough to stop us. I promised myself I’d let you live, give you time to see sense. See the role you could fill, how you could guide your fellow sekhors once my sister starts turning the humans. The sorrow you feel will morph and change until you realize this new world I’m about to shape is for you, Vivien.”
Galina turned to go but looked back over her shoulder. “But if you get in my way, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Then she left me in a room of shattered glass, spilled wine, and my grief and deep hunger for revenge.
13
Vivien
Miranda’s voice floated to me through a painful haze. “Honey, you’ve got to get out of bed.”
Fingers stroked my hair, and the sob in my chest threatened to burst. I’d been somewhere between sleep and consciousness, for I didn’t even know how long. My body sensed the sun had set and night availed, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t want to greet the day or the night. The only movement that didn’t hurt was when I caressed Grim’s skull ring.
The grief, and pain of my broken back, had made things hazy as I sat amongst the jagged glass pieces in a pool of wine. Galina must have told the waitstaff not to enter, because no one found me. After far too long, I realized I’d healed enough to move. My numb fingers wrapped around my phone as I called Timothy. I don’t remember what I said, but he came for me. Wrapped me up and got me to the penthouse.
Wearing one of Grim’s button-up shirts, I lay in our bed, holding the black satin sheets to my nose, wanting to be surrounded by Grim’s scent. But with my vampiric senses, my anxiety grew as his smell dissolved away with every passing moment. Still, I clung to the ghost of him with a white-knuckled grip.
A shadow entered the room. “The new god of death has been chosen,” Timothy said. His eyes were red-rimmed, and his normally perfect tousle of hair stuck out in all directions. His burgundy suit was wrinkled and unkempt.
“Death can’t die,” I said in a flat voice.
The fact he could was stupid. A ridiculous notion. Impossible. Grim was fucking with me. Any minute now, he’d pop out holding a cognac and sporting a wicked smile over the great prank he’d pulled. Then I’d punish him seven ways from Sunday and never let him leave this bed again.
But the god of death was a position, not a person. And Grim had been replaced.
“Who?” Miranda asked, straightening as if preparing herself.
“Me,” a new voice answered. Fallon entered the room behind Timothy. Blue eye glowing fiercely, he looked like someone told him he’d been sentenced to life in prison.
“How do you know?” Miranda asked, never ceasing the strokes along my scalp.
Fallon rolled up a sleeve and clenched his hand into a fist, rotating his forearm toward us. Black ink swelled to the surface in the shape of the feather of Ma’at.
His face flickered into the death mask I’d only ever seen on Grim. My stomach lurched. Who knew I’d come to love the face of death? That seeing it on someone else would devestate me?
