Page 13 of Definitely Dead (Happily Ever Afterlife #1)
Six Weeks Later…
T he bell chimed over the door when Sunne entered the bookstore, a magical sound that rang to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata . Extra, but so was the shop’s owner.
“Did you get it?” he asked, making his way through the shelves to the counter at the back of the store. “Do you have it?”
“I have it,” Dorian confirmed, placing his hand atop a book of bound parchment, the pages glowing with a faint, silver light. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
As the overseer of the Hall of Records, only Dorian could give him the answers he sought. But his new boss had been dragging his feet for weeks, reluctant to show him what the Fates had recorded.
“Definitely,” Sunne answered, rounding the curved desk to stand beside him. “Besides, it’s less about what I want. I need to know.”
It was the last piece of the puzzle, the closure he needed to fully let go of the past and embrace his new afterlife in Watcher’s Grove.
“Okay.” Dorian’s lips pulled back into the semblance of a smile, but his hazel eyes tightened with concern. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He waved his hand, and the pages began to turn, flipping with a quiet rustle before coming to a stop. Sunne bit his lip, his eyes rounding when he realized the faint glow emanating off the pages came from the inked words written there.
Well, not words exactly. At least, not in any language he recognized.
“Can you read this?”
Dorian snorted, flattening the collar of his pink undershirt and smoothing down the front of his charcoal sweater vest. “Of course.”
Of course. How silly of him to question it.
Honestly, he still hadn’t figured out what the guy was, and Dorian hadn’t volunteered the information. Certainly not human, but not Otherling either. More like…something in between. A god maybe? A lesser deity?
“Okay, here we are.” He pressed his index finger to the page, skimming it over the words. “Aster Hornby. Last known physical location was Salem, Massachusetts.”
Sunne rolled his eyes. Not very original. “What do you mean physical location?”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
He held his hands up, palms out. “Sorry. Keep going.”
“The Aster you met here in the Underworld was not a soul. You might think of him more like an astral projection.”
“So, he wasn’t dead?”
Dorian shook his head, his eyes still moving across the parchment. “No, he wasn’t dead. He invoked forbidden magic to enter the Underworld.”
“And murdered thirteen people in the process,” Sunne muttered, the words bitter on his tongue. While all very interesting, it didn’t answer his most pressing question. “Why?”
Tyr had told him some parts. That was how he’d learned about the sacrifices, and that Aster had planned the soul-grab to trap Sunne in eternal punishment. Other things, he had worked out for himself. Like the fact that Aster had used his innate abilities to manipulate Sunne’s dreams, keeping him tired, weak, and on edge so he’d be more receptive when it came time to trade places.
The end goal, he understood. It was the catalyst that still confused him.
“He summoned and bound a Reaper,” Dorian read. “Then he forced the Reaper to give him the powers of necromancy.”
Sunne chewed his lip, his eyes glazing over as he pictured the candlelit courtyard, the hooded figure, and the circle of runes. When he had awoken in Aster’s apartment, he had thought it was a dream. Now, he realized, it had been remnants of a memory.
“But that kind of exchange demands a price.”
“Are we talking like crossroads deals? Fame and fortune in exchange for your soul?”
Dorian glanced at him from the corner of his eye, his expression dull…and vaguely disheartened. “Every soul, good or bad, ends up in the Underworld, Sunne. Reapers don’t have to make deals to meet a quota.”
“Right.” How stupid of him. Because any of this made sense. “Sorry. You were saying?”
“He was never meant to have that type of magic. It festers and corrodes the soul.”
“He was dying,” Sunne surmised. Similar to the wolf in the Whisper Woods. Rotting from the inside out.
Dorian dipped his head. “Yes.”
“And after he strapped me with his sins, he planned to return to his body.”
“Correct again.”
“Would it have worked?” Not that it mattered now. Poor timing had ended his plan. Permanently.
“I don’t know.” With a shrug, Dorian closed the book and turned to face him. “That’s where the record ends.” His expression softened, a sympathetic smile curving his lips. “Did you get your answers?”
Sunne considered the question, giving it the gravity it deserved, before finally nodding. “I did. Thank you.”
He had wondered why Aster had targeted him, and if he could have done something differently to prevent it. Now, he understood that it had never been about him. Not really. He had simply been…convenient. New to death, too fresh to have become numb. Too willing to trust.
The bell chimed again with its familiar melody, drawing Sunne’s attention toward the front of the store. He smiled when he spotted his mate at the threshold, his towering frame illuminated by the light that spilled through the doorway.
Their eyes met across the room, and the shifter arched an eyebrow at him, a smirk crooking one side of his mouth.
Cocky bastard.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Dorian asked.
Sunne shook his head, his gaze still locked on Tyr, his chest aching with the depths of his happiness. “No. Nothing. I already have everything I need.”