Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 600(@200wpm)___ 480(@250wpm)___ 400(@300wpm)
“Stop right there!” yells the same man as before, his heavy footsteps all too close behind me.
I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I will consider the implication of my boyfriend leaving me behind when the puppy and I are safe. He’s surely waiting in the car anyway. I just need to reach him. The air is hot in my throat when I see the water glinting close ahead, but as I’m about to leap across the creek, the sound of a gunshot roars through the air. I stumble, my heart beating so loudly I can barely hear anything else. Adrenaline keeps me upright for another second, but then my legs give up. My back is wet, and it hurts as if a bomb has gone off between my ribs, but even now my thoughts are on the puppy.
The moon above me blurs, and it’s so, so hard to keep my eyes open. I cough up what has to be blood, and now the whole sky turns red. How… How is this possible?
“I got the fucker!” yells my murderer, but I hear him as if through cushions.
And then I see the whole scene from above. My body stilling, black eyes staring up lifelessly through thick-rimmed glasses, dark curls squashed in my hood.
I reach out, because it’s not my time yet. I graduated last year. Got my first real job. My life is still ahead of me.
But the pull of the darkness above is inevitable. I’m drawn into its cold black waves. There’s no pain, but I’m drowning, yelling for help, cold to the bone and somehow aware that if I let this river take me, there will be no coming back.
I realize in terror that I’m surrounded by people as desperate as me, every single one of them fighting to not be pulled under. Phantom limbs reach up in pleading gestures, lips wide open. If we can’t get out on time, something far far ahead is going to take us, and I— I’m not ready to go.
The cold waters are unnaturally dense, as if I’m swimming in mercury, but when the puppy stirs against my chest, I attempt to grab at the ghostly waves with renewed determination. Dark silhouettes loom above the surface. Perhaps I should fear them, but they feel like hope, so I move my heavy legs, attempting to propel myself up. One of the other drowners claws at me to push me under the surface, and just as he’s about to succeed, a hand breaks the water above, curls around my wrist, and pulls me up.
Chapter 2
Nate
The water’s heavy, dense, like jelly that hasn’t yet set, so when the stranger pulls, the river releases me with a wet smack. The man trying to climb up my body falls off, but when I open my eyes, I see more hands clawing at legs in thigh-high boots. Hair, wavy and as red as blood, falls around me, and when I look up to see my savior, I find myself face-to-face with a man who can only be an angel ready for battle.
His dark pauldrons make his shoulders seem even broader than they already are. There’s a sword at his hip, and his golden eyes smile at me as I utter a pathetic whine.
It’s so cold.
“You are safe now,” he tells me in a smooth baritone, and we rise higher with the flap of demon wings that seem to be made out of smoke.
Is this… heaven?
I always imagined it as a golden land of light and fluffy clouds, not a rocky landscape illuminated by a moon so large I fear it’s about to crush us, but I’ll take it if it comes with a hot guy in armor.
He puts one arm under my knees, the other settles behind my back, and I’m cradled against the crab artistically rendered on the front of his cuirass. I wrap my arms around his neck as we glide through the air. I can’t even force myself to look down and assess where I am, because all my attention is on his insanely handsome face.
He’s moonlight-pale, with a chiseled jaw, perfectly kissable lips, and a nose that slopes so beautifully it could feature in a plastic surgeon’s office as the best example of his work. Oh God, and the way he smells? A few strands of his red hair slip over my face and their scent is intoxicating. Sea salt, leather, and something smoky but… herby? I’ve never experienced anything like it.
And his eyes. Like crystalized honey catching the light of the moon under dark red eyelashes. When I get a glimpse of his ear and notice it’s pointy, I do a double take, right back to his eyes, and he… winks at me.
That’s it. I’m dead, and because I was murdered trying to do a good deed, I’m in my personal heaven, crafted by the universe just for me.