Page 49 of Kiss of Death

It was just quiet…except for the burn of my torch.

Be careful,Sunieth.

Always.

I moved over the dirt, seeing a twenty-foot radius of light around me. I felt the urge to check behind me every few seconds, to be aware of my entire surroundings at all times, as if something would grab me when I dropped my guard. When I first came here, Callum could disappear and reappear randomly and at any point.

So could other things do that too?

Could other creatures of the underworld come here?

I stopped when I heard the whisper of a woman whose voice I didn’t recognize.

Lily, go back.

I didn’t hear it from the world around me…but within me. But I turned around in several different directions, bringing the light with me, searching for the woman who warned me.

Go back to your father.

Bumps formed on my arms at her words, because she seemed to know me.

And I didn’t even recognize her voice.

What is it,Sunieth? I feel your fear.

I—I thought I heard something.

What?

A woman.I stood there in the dark, the torch burning in my grasp, and I listened for more.

But there was nothing.

When I collected my strength once more, I continued my journey to the center of the island, relying on the compass my father gave me to guide me. The trees started to thin the farther I traveled, and they changed to dead birch trees, the bark rolling off in thick strips. The branches contained no leaves, but the floor was devoid of them too—like none had ever grown in the first place.

I took another step, and then the dark world was set ablaze by a ring of torches that came alive within a single breath. Instantly and in unison, the second I crossed an invisible line, a hundred torches were lit, making the world as bright as daylight.

And in the center was a massive rock of stone, perfectly carved into a skull shape with a missing jaw and teeth, the mouth an entryway. I gripped the torch like it was a weapon and felt my breaths go shaky. I did my best not to show fear, but this was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen.

But then it got worse.

I blinked.

I blinked…and he was there.

A man nearly seven feet tall, with fair skin the color of snow and eyes the color of turquoise waters off a tropical island. In a dark-blue uniform with black armor on top and an enormous two-handed blade across his back…stood the god of the underworld.

And it wasn’t Callum.

Slowly, the most sickening smile stretched across his face, grotesque in smugness.

I’d never been in the presence of true evil before now. I’d encountered Callum this exact way months before, and it had felt nothing like this. I’d never feared him, never feared the way he stared at me.

But this…creature…was a menace.

A breeze blew through the island, and the torches flickered. As they did so, so did his appearance. In the quick shadows, he wasn’t a fair man, but an eight-foot-tall demon with a dozen horns on his head, bearing a mass at least double what Callum’s was.

And then he returned to his human form, the smile still there.