Between the Moon and Her Night (Between Life and Death #3)

Chapter 42

Von

I f I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought that I had walked into Hard Spirits, but considering the bastard sun shone outside, that was a dead giveaway I wasn’t in the Spirit Realm.

One hand in my pocket, I casually walked around the freshly built tavern, rife with the smell of lung-clogging paint, the scent so powerful I wouldn’t be surprised if it clung to my nostrils long after I left. The floors and furniture were covered with protective linens that were splattered with black splotches and a few other dark colors. I passed by a mortal who was standing on a ladder, a brush in one hand and a cup of paint in the other. He pressed the brush against the wall, fanning out the bristles as he began carefully, dragging his hand this way and that, painting a unique pattern all by hand. Another painter did the same thing, working on an adjacent wall. Despite them being mortals, their attention to detail was incredible—

“Well, well, well, look what the raven dragged in,” Folkoln said with a shit-eating grin, looking up from the countertop he was polishing a few strides to my left. As soon as his eyes connected with mine, the twist of his lips flatlined. One pierced black brow shot up. “That’s one concocted mess of emotions you got going on there, brother. Can’t say I’ve ever felt anything like this coming from you before. What happened?”

I let out a rumbling breath. “I freed her from our deal. I let her go.”

Folkoln quit polishing. He dropped the cloth, placed his hands on the lip of the countertop, and leaned over top of it, his voice serious, low. “Who the fuck are you and what have you done with my brother?”

I snorted at that.

“The God of Death that I know does not free anyone from a deal. On top of that, she’s your mate. How do you just . . . let her go?” he asked, taking a step back so he could better survey what was underneath the counter. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink for this.” He bent over, slid something to the side, and started fishing around the shelves tucked underneath the bar, glass clinking against glass.

“It’s a long story,” I sighed as I leaned against one of the pillars that stretched from floor to ceiling.

“Let her go,” Folkoln muttered to himself as he retrieved a bottle, as if he was unable to believe what I had just told him. He shook his head again.

In some ways, I supposed I was in disbelief myself. I wasn’t exactly known to be a giving god. I was used to taking, owning, and acquiring. Possessing. It was at the very core of my being and the reason I was who I was, the reason I was made.

It was what enabled me to be the God of Death.

I did the dirtiest job known to immortal and mortal kind and I did it without reservation—I was the keeper of souls. The king of the dead. The first reaper of the living.

I was a taker, not some fucking goody-two-shoes giver.

And yet she had changed something in me.

She made me want to give. She made me want to do better, if only for her.

All of it for her.

My chest pinched and I scrubbed at the pain with my thumb.

Amber liquid trickled into a glass, the sound pulling me from my private thoughts.

Folkoln handed it to me. “Start from the top,” he said as I took it.

So I did. I gave him the rundown of my ultimate fuckup and how it lost me the female I had waited centuries for.

When I was finished, Folkoln said, “I don’t even think what you did was all that bad. You were given a deck of cards, and you played your hand.”

“Coming from someone who has less morality than a charlatan peddling fraudulent wares, that means very little, brother.”

Folkoln snorted. “Well, at least your humor is intact. But what about your balls? Or did you chop those off and hand them over to her too?”

My lips thinned as I narrowed my eyes on him. “Funny. ”

“I thought it was,” he said with a masochistic grin before he lifted his glass to his mouth. He drank the remnants of it and then set it down on the counter, the cup not making so much as a whisper of sound.

The painters chatted on and off with each other as they worked, filling the void when my conversation with Folkoln trailed off. Sometimes one would laugh at something the other said. Sometimes they’d both laugh. They seemed to work well together, as far as I could tell.

I looked around the tavern—the word seemed like a lackluster way to describe it. Design wise, it would be unlike anything most mortals had ever seen. It would be a popular place once it was up and running.

I glanced back at Folkoln. “When do you plan to open?”

“I’m aiming for the end of the month,” he said.

“That’s coming quickly.”

He nodded. “It is.”

“How’s construction going on the other ones?”

“Six have already opened their doors. I pop back in to check on those whenever I get a chance.”

“Sounds busy,” I said, my lips moving on their own accord, but my thoughts were miles away. They were stuck on a white-haired goddess. In the beginning, I had planned to consume her, but in the end, it was she who’d consumed me.

For once in the history of all living things, she had done the impossible—

Life had trumped Death.

“So . . .” Folkoln started as he leaned on the counter, his elbows propping him up. “How are you going to get her back? ”

“Fuck if I know,” I said. “I gave her her freedom.”

“Then let her have her freedom, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be a part of her life.”

“No . . . I suppose it doesn’t,” I said, rubbing at my jaw, my rough finger pads sounding against the small bits of stubble.

Sage was angry with me right now, but that didn’t mean she would be forever. I wanted her, more than anything, and if that meant that I had to wait decades, if not centuries, to have her, then that was exactly what I would do.

I snagged the bottle we had been drinking from—it tasted just like the one he had brought to my chambers to celebrate Sage and I being bonded. I don’t know if it was because of that, or because it tasted so damn good that the off-breed whiskey had quickly become my drink of choice. I teetered the bottle back and forth, drawing his attention to it, and asked, “Did you come up with a name for this?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Folkoln said, reaching for his polishing cloth.

I nodded to the other side of the bar, to the rows of stacked glasses. “Give me two of those.”

Folkoln gave me a peculiar look but didn’t ask why. He retrieved two glasses and set them on the counter before me. I filled a few knuckles’ worth inside. When I was finished, I turned towards the painters, two cups in my hands. “You two, come over and try this.”

They looked at me and then to each other, confused. Afraid.

Although not all mortals could sense what I was, some certainly could. Judging by the looks on their faces, they knew.

“Don’t piss your pants, boys, it’s only booze,” I said with a lifeless chuckle.

Slowly, they set their brushes down and cautiously began walking over to us. The one dried his hands on his denim overalls, the blue hidden under years of paint. The other one ran his trembling fingers through his hair, as if he was gussying up to meet his maker.

Mortals were always so dramatic.

“Have a sip.” I offered them the two glasses, which they both took.

The one did as I said, sampling a small swallow. But the other one—a good-looking man in his mid-twenties—he couldn’t stop himself as he drank it down in eager gulps. The liquid was gone faster than a toupee in a windstorm.

“Impressive,” I said to the guzzler. “What’s your name, lad?”

He wiped at his lips. “Alexandre Bourbon.”

I turned to the other. “And yours?”

“Dominick Clutterbuck, sir,” he said, still sipping on his glass like it was a cup of fine wine.

Amused, my lips flickered at the sides, but I kept my composure. “Well, Clutterbuck, that’s an unfortunate last name to have.” I turned to the other. “How’d you like to have a new type of alcohol named after you?”

His brows slammed into his forehead as he stuttered, “Are you being serious?”

“I am,” I said, topping him up a bit more. I lifted the bottle, and said to the painters, “To you, Bourbon. And you, Clutterbuck, for making this choice an easy one. ”

Folkoln burst into laughter behind me, and I couldn’t help but grin.

It was quickly wiped out when Sage scampered across my thoughts.

Sorrows building, I drained my glass dry and then moved on to the bottle.

Shadows unraveling around me, I stepped into the quiet throne room, my head as hazy as my thoughts. Sure, I enjoyed a glass of alcohol every once in a while, but it had been a long time since I had abused the substance.

But tonight? Tonight, I’d abused the shit out of it.

All things considered, I had a valid reason.

I looked at the ceiling—taking in the swirling vines and lush white roses that claimed half of it. That, right there, was my reason.

“You’ve returned at last,” said a cold, cruel voice, pitched from high above.

I tilted my head to my right, eyes gazing up the stairs, tracing the voice to my throne. Sitting on it—Saphira. Or rather . . . two versions of her.

Fuck, I was drunk.

If she wanted to get a rise out of me, she would have to try harder.

“You seem to have forgotten your place, once again,” I said, shoving a hand into my pocket as I turned to face her.

“I should say the same for you, brother. You seem to have forgotten that you are a king and that you have a duty to your people. People who starve now because you gave up the realms that rightfully belong to us. I never thought you to be a foolish god, but in choosing her, you have proven yourself as such,” she said, her manicured fingers wrapping around my throne’s arms.

I flashed her a mocking grin. “Ah, but that is where you are wrong. The realms never belonged to you or any of the other Old Gods. They belonged to me and it was my choice to decide what to do with them. Not yours. Not Pertheus’s. Mine.”

“We went to war for you!” she screamed, the words shredding their way out of her throat. They echoed off the molten glass walls, bashing against them over and over again. Voice lowering to a trembling whisper, she said, “I went to war for you.”

I exhaled a long breath. “And I am grateful for that, for your loyalty. But what you are doing right now is the furthest thing from it. I have let you act out because I know of the pain you feel for losing Aryx.”

“You know nothing of my pain,” she snarled, a vein popping out of her forehead, threatening to burst through her smooth skin. “My mate died to protect the realm you carelessly traded so that you could have yours.”

“Is that what this is all about?” I had expected it was because of her jealousy, but I did not see the extent of it. Now, it made sense. My voice softened. “Saphira—”

“No!” she growled. “There can be no turning back from this day.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a step forward. My voice darkened. “What have you done? ”

“Now!” she shouted.

Hundreds of feet stampeded around me and I rolled my eyes. “You are staging a coup? How original.”

My hand raised. I’d show them all why I was the king of—

Something was thrown over top of my impaired ass—a net of some sort. The weight of it was crushing, knocking me down to the floor. I commanded my shadows to walk me out, but they did not answer. I turned to my power, calling upon my wind to shatter the bones of those who dared to raise arms against me, but nothing happened. I slid my hands beside me, trying to push up, but my immortal strength failed me. My body had never felt so . . . weak.

Damn, it would suck to be a mortal.

Heels clicked beside my head. Black fabric pooled as Saphira crouched down. She ran the tip of her sharpened fingernail along the rope. “Do you know what this net is made from?”

“I don’t really care,” I told her honestly. I’d done the villain spiel more times than I could possibly count, as if I needed to hear it from my little sister now.

“Well, I’m going to tell you anyway,” she said, crimson lips pinching upwards at the corners.

I groaned in response—purposefully exaggerating the sound.

“The rope is made from the hair of the giant—the Ancient One you keep in the lowest tier of the Spirit Realm. As you know, some of the Ancient Ones have the ability to make not only themselves mortal, but others as well, which is why her hair was the perfect choice. Naturally, I could not go down and speak with her, otherwise she would have consumed my soul, so I forced Ithar to go speak with her for me. Of course he was not willing to betray you at first, but with the right . . . persuasion, he realized he didn’t have a choice. So I had him go make a deal on my behalf—if she were to aid me in removing you from the throne, I would give her your soul in return. Of course, she agreed.”

“I’m not very fond of that idea,” I told Saphira. Having my soul devoured by the beastie in my realm’s basement was not on today’s itinerary—getting drunk and then sleeping for a year or two was more like it.

“Your dry humor isn’t going to help you,” she said, patting my cheek through the net. She raised to her full height. “Take him to her.”

“Saphira, wait,” I said as people descended upon me, rolling me up into the net and further locking me in. I imagined this was how mortals felt when they were bagged with a sheet, wrapped in a heavy chain, and then tossed into the depths of the Selenian Sea, never to be seen again.

“I wish things could have been different,” she said, turning away from me.

I struggled against my bonds, but it was of no use.

Suddenly, I was feeling very, very tired. And increasingly drunk—to the point the room started spinning.

Damn this fucking net , was the last thing I remembered thinking before I passed out.