Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92996 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 465(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
I’d been a bit disappointed as I’d imagined her face when I told her.
“Well, if you wait so long to share big news, you run the risk of someone else spoiling it,” she’d stated, her expression quite haughty. “Next time spit it out, man.”
And then I’d wanted to smack her. Hard.
But what was great now was that she felt even better about leaving her kids with me if, heaven forbid, anything ever happened to her and Eddie. Because I was their singular godparent, the only person Amanda had named in her will, and Eddie had agreed. But now she liked Lorne too, as did Eddie, and she knew Corvus would keep the kids safe as well.
“Are you listening to Lorne?” Amanda snapped at me.
“Yes, but neither of you is listening to me. What I’m saying is, without murder and arson hanging over us, we can now give our full attention to finding whatever it is that killed Kathy.”
They were both quiet, looking at me.
“I bet when you briefed the mayor, she was thrilled,” I said to Lorne.
“Well, of course she was thrilled. In her mind, there was no murder in her town.”
“Even though there’s been two.”
“Two?” Amanda asked me.
“I need to tell you what happened to a friend of mine.”
“Okay.”
Once I was done, Amanda raised her hand.
“Knock it off.”
“I thought nymphs wore short togas and hung out with goats who play flutes.”
“See?” Lorne said pointedly. “I’m not the only one.”
Before he’d met Nott, he’d thought the same thing.
“That’s one version,” I explained to my friend. “And those are satyrs, not goats.”
“Which is so very important to point out,” Amanda said sarcastically.
“Anyway, the truth of the matter is that most nymphs are hunters who cross planes to do so and are quite formidable.”
“Got it,” Amanda replied, rolling with the new knowledge. Once you believed in magic, as she had for years, and in witches and mages and land that could be communed with, acceptance of other truths was not far behind. “Go on.”
I told her what happened to Nott and about something coming through the rift and destroying it in the process.
She gave that some thought. “And she said it was something other than the things she normally deals with.”
“Correct.”
“Which are?”
“Every kind of fae you can imagine.”
“Well, I can’t imagine much because I don’t know many, but what about a magic user? Like a witch or a mage. Would the rift burn up over that?”
“No, because others like that have come through.”
“And we know it’s obviously evil, or it wouldn’t have killed your friend,” she concluded, looking at me. “Yes?”
“That’s a reasonable assumption.”
“So then what do you think it is? Could it be something like that warlock who wanted to come into our world through the portal on Corvus?”
I couldn’t tell Amanda about gods and goddesses. That was forbidden to discuss with the mundane, or non-magical humans. Lorne had a pass because he was my mate. So I’d told her what I could and changed the mountain god Threun into a warlock. “I don’t think whatever this is has those kinds of magical powers. Maybe it doesn’t have any at all.”
“But you don’t know for certain.”
“I don’t. Not until I see it.”
“Let’s put a pin in that,” Amanda said, sounding distracted.
“You have a thought.”
“What? No,” she rushed out, shaking her head. “No, no.”
“Yes,” I insisted. “I know you.”
She glanced at Lorne, then back to me. “It’s stupid.”
“Or not,” Lorne prodded her. “Spit it out.”
Her lips pressed together tightly.
“Amanda,” I snapped at her. “There are only so many things it could be. We’ve ruled out the fae, and it’s doubtful it’s any kind of shape-shifter or vampire because either one of those would have reasoned with Nott. Also, from what my grandfather said, when he conversed with those here on Corvus, neither needed a rift to visit him.”
“Your grandfather met a vampire?” she whispered.
“Focus.”
She coughed softly. “Sorry,” she rushed out. “But you know, vampires are my jam.”
“Stop,” I warned her, smiling, appreciating the moment of levity. “Go ahead and say what you think it could be.”
“But it’s dumb.”
“Nothing’s dumb at the moment.”
She grimaced instead of answering.
“Could it be a demon?” Lorne asked, eyes on my face.
“What?”
“Yes,” Amanda blurted out. “That’s what I thought too.”
“A demon?” I looked at him raking his fingers nervously through his thick hair, and then at her biting her bottom lip. “What exactly are you talking about when you use that word?”
“First, is hell one of the realms that can access our world through a rift?” Lorne asked.
“Yes,” I replied, without telling them how I knew. I couldn’t bring up the fact that Arawn hunted demons that had escaped from that plane and entered our world. I could tell Lorne later, but not in front of Amanda. “But they don’t just come through rifts. There have been demons coming and going from this plane since forever. Think about all the stories.”