Total pages in book: 401
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 390373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1952(@200wpm)___ 1561(@250wpm)___ 1301(@300wpm)
“But that wasn’t just a Revenant. So—” Attes inhaled sharply as I cut my stare to him. So did Poppy. The ticking in his temple increased. “It was Kolis using a Revenant, Penellaphe.”
She stared back at him. “I know. I wanted to warn him to stop watching.” Her back relaxed a little. “And you can call me Poppy.”
Fuck if I agreed with that.
Especially when the fucker smiled at her.
“You talked to him, then?” Kieran sat back, his hand balling into a fist on the table. “Did he say anything?”
“Nothing of value.” She tilted her head, sending waves of deep-red hair falling forward while I concentrated on not losing my shit. “To be honest, he sounded…unhinged.” Her fingers began twisting the sash, and then she lifted her chin. “You knew him, right?”
Attes’s stare slid past her as Reaver finished the apple and picked up another. “Unfortunately.”
“Is he…unstable?”
The Primal’s laugh was dry. “Yes. No? It all depends on what he’s dealing with.”
“For example?” I asked, thinking I already knew the answer as Kieran glanced at me.
“Certain things make him, as you would say, unhinged,” Attes said after a moment.
“Like…me?”
Attes’s gaze shifted back to her, eather swirling in his eyes. He said nothing.
“Seraphena told me about Sotoria and the Star diamond,” she said. “And about Kolis’s obsession.”
Attes shifted his jaw from side to side. “Yes, you would be one of those things.”
Beneath my fingers, I felt thin fissures forming in the glass.
So, he clearly knows about her past. Kieran’s voice reached me.
Clearly. My mind went to his willingness to endure excruciating pain for her—for Sotoria. I had a feeling he knew a lot more.
“But otherwise, he’s incredibly calculating and precise. Always several steps ahead. And he rarely acts without purpose,” Attes continued, now eyeing the untouched glass of whiskey Kieran had gotten for him. “When it comes to…you.” His stare returned to Poppy. “He has always lost control.”
Kieran’s fingers brushed mine as he pried the glass from my hand and placed it on the table.
“In the sense that he becomes unpredictable. Recklessly so,” Attes added, reaching for his glass. “That is the weakness.” His eyes lifted to mine.
“You said there were things?” Poppy questioned, her voice steady, almost like she was unbothered by the topic. But I knew better. I tasted her lemony unease and something thicker, greasier. Slimy. Disgust. I moved my thumb across her hip, knowing it usually soothed her.
“His brother,” Attes said, and Reaver looked up. “Nyktos, and Callum.”
“Explain,” Poppy insisted and then tacked on what I felt was unnecessary, “please.”
“Kolis loved Eythos. Still does. And I know that sounds unbelievable, but it’s true,” Attes explained. “And Callum is tied to…Sotoria.”
“He’s jealous of Nyktos,” Reaver said, turning the apple in his hand. There was little left but the core. “He tried to break him and couldn’t. Then he tried to change him—to shape and mold him. He couldn’t do that either.”
Poppy nodded. “Well, Eythos is long dead, and we have no idea where Callum is—if he’s not with Kolis. And Nyktos…I’m not sure he can enter the realm.”
“He can, but only briefly,” Attes said. I couldn’t help but wonder what the fuck would happen with three Primal Gods of Death in the mortal realm. “The Blood Treaty? It’s off the table at this point. So, all the Primals can. But they’re weakened and have to be careful.”
Poppy wiggled an inch or two closer to me. “I’m sorry about Rhahar.”
Attes smiled at her, and it was blinding.
She cleared her throat. “What were you all talking about before I came in?”
“The supposedly detailed war plan you have concocted,” Attes said, sipping his whiskey. His lip immediately curled.
“Not to your liking?” I asked.
“Tastes like dakkai piss,” he muttered.
I laughed. “Well, you won’t want to drink anything else in this city if you think that tastes like piss.”
Poppy wrinkled her nose.
“That’s a shame.” He took another drink, his lips peeling back with the swallow. “So, they have spears that can wound a draken?”
“They do,” Kieran said. “Those would have to be taken out first.”
“I can handle that,” Reaver offered.
“No,” Poppy said. “I can—or one of us.”
Reaver lowered the apple core. “I know how to…bob and weave.”
The image of his large, winged ass doing that almost made me laugh.
“I know you can.” She softened her voice. “But we could do it from a safe distance. You would have to get close—too close.”
“Then can I burn those who control the spears?” Reaver asked.
Poppy sighed. “Yes, you can burn them.”
With a nod, he returned to nibbling on the apple, getting every bit of remaining flesh.
“We also know that around two hundred or so gods have gathered in Pensdurth,” Kieran added.
“I assume you aren’t outfitted with shadowstone,” Attes stated.
“We have bloodstone and a handful of shadowstone weapons,” I said, moving my thumb in a slow circle on Poppy’s hip. “But not nearly enough of the latter to arm more than a hundred or so.”