Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89023 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
There are tears streaming down her cheeks and she doesn’t answer me.
I’m just about to become annoyed with her reaction when I remember that I have forgotten to tell her the good news. No wonder she’s crying. She doesn’t realize who and what she is yet.
I stand back up and offer her my hand, then bow my head in shame. “Forgive me, Little Baby. I’m very sorry. I haven’t given you the good news yet.” I look at her now, with downcast chin and upcast eyes.
After some hesitation, she places her hand in mine and allows me to pull her up off the floor.
Then I look her straight on and smile. “I forgot to tell you.” I slide behind her, my hands slipping over her hips to caress her stomach, her heavy, round breasts resting on my arms. “We’re expecting.”
There is a pause here, and I allow it. I want her to work through it on her own time. And she’s smart, so it’s only a few seconds. “Expecting… what?”
I caress her stomach as I lean down and place my mouth right up to her ear. “We’re expecting a Dark Baby, Little Baby. One made of you and me. It’s a boy, of course. You are his seed mother and I’m his seed father, and together we will raise him and we will be a family.”
Little Baby sucks in a great breath and when it comes back out, it is a scream.
How much time passes before my Little Baby wakes again? I don’t care about time, so I don’t know. And anyway, I was busy. While she was tripping through eternal Darkness and endless Eternity, I was planning my next move. Which means it’s perfect this time.
I made a mistake. I realize this now. She was not properly prepared.
Of course, I’m new at this so I don’t beat myself up over it. I just course-correct.
Her screams followed her into the abyss I sent her to, but lucky me, I have a mute button, so I wasn’t bothered by it.
But I want to hear everything as she comes out of the untold infinity because it’s exciting. It’s life. Her fear and anguish are proof that she’s real and not just a sliver of myself.
So I enjoy it. I relish the idea that she is wailing and screaming with insanity.
But mistakes need to be corrected with haste or the results thereof will linger. And while I would still love my Little Baby if she spent all of eternity with me being belligerent and insane, that is not the happily ever after I’m envisioning.
It might, this attitude of hers, rub off on Dark Baby. And that I cannot tolerate.
So when Little Baby next wakes we’re not in some default hotel room bed, we’re in the earth. Which doesn’t seem like much at face value because we’ve been in the earth in my cave this whole time. But we’re not in that kind of earth. We’re in the Dark Earth.
The glowing root system. The magic.
I’m going to teach her how to travel.
She already knows about the blood and how good it is, but that’s not even the best part about being part of the Darkness. There are so many perks that come with being my seed vessel and traveling through the earth is but one of them.
But this gift of travel is one of the best.
You can be anywhere in an instant.
Anywhere.
And I am going to show her everything.
And then she will not only love me, she will fall in love with my dream.
One Dark Baby is but the beginning of what I have planned.
Soon the whole of humanity will know my name.
Which is King.
I am the king of kings.
11 - Echo
If this is as good as it gets, I’ll take it.
When I open my eyes all I see is purple. All around me is nothing but purple. It’s blurry, and misty, and magical. But as the seconds tick off, my eyes begin to focus and the fuzzy haze condenses into something recognizable.
Lines. Squiggly lines of glowing purple. Like a neon sign might glow.
“They’re roots, Little Baby.” Josep speaks these words directly into my ear. “The Tree of Life.” He laughs softly and this laugh sends a chill through my body that makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up.
Not in a bad way, either. It’s… a shiver. But the good kind.
This realization almost sends me into a panic because—
“Little Baby?” He interrupts my thoughts.
“What?”
“Don’t overthink it. Just… enjoy. Enjoy everything. I’m sorry for waking you up earlier without the proper preparations. I made a mistake. But I’ve since course-corrected. Forget about everything that came before this moment right now because none of that matters.”
I can’t say I agree with him. I can’t say I disagree with him either, of course, because he’s…