⁰²⁸ | Hope

Mass release: 14/17

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🎧 Tennessee Whiskey by Austin Giorgio

The second I said that, he retracted his hands further away from me, and it got me thinking if he has something wrong with his hands. Maybe they are full of scars? Maybe he is full of scars? He is all covered up, that could be the case, and with all honesty, be would weirdly look awesome with them, it would suit him.

"It's my style," he groaned.

"If you say so," I rolled my shoulders. "So, he lost his mate?"

He looked thrice more uncomfortable with that, "Yes."

"Couldn't he, I don't know, bring her back from the dead?"

His eyes were furious when he glared at me, "No."

"But he's the God of Death," I frowned.

"He would need her soul for that, you need the soul of the dead to practice necromancy, you idiotic little thing, because if you only practice it on the dead body, it will become an undead, a walking corpse, the soulless and irrational kind of monster you do not want to ever see in front of you. They become slaves to the master who brought them back," that send a cold agonizing chill down my spine. "However, her soul vanished. He tried to look for it all over the nine realms, but it was useless, so all that's left for him is revenge."

I've heard of the concept of necromancy, but I always took it as a legend, never some real, it's like building an army of zombies or some shit. It sounds heartbreaking to lose your mate like that, when you have the very power to bring them back to life, but can't because their soul is gone. "What happens to a soul that vanishes like that?"

He stared into my eyes for what felt like an eternity, as if weighing if he should or not tell me that. "There are three possibilities. One," he rose his right index finger, "a demon Lord ate it. Two," he rose his right middle finger, "it was sucked down the bottomless pit of the underworld where the Primordial of Chaos resides, and where not even the God of Deaths dares to wander, which would result in the soul being consumed by the Primordial forever. Or, three," he rose his right ring finger, but said nothing.

"What's the third possibility?" I asked, feeling annoyingly anxious.

"Rebirth," he muttered, "reincarnation."

"So, there's a possibility that,"

"Hope is dangerous, curious little thing," he whispered haunted. "It was hope that made the God of Death look for Freya endlessly in all the 9 realms, but he couldn't find her anywhere. Rebirth is a complex thing, those who are fated to be reincarnated after death, are sent to a limbo that's out of the God of Death's reach, away from any God or Titan's reach, a limbo that is under the Primordial of Time and Fate, Malya, the mother of all Titans, the mother of all Gods. It could take a year or nine hundred millennials for a soul to reincarnated, it all depends on their fate. Fate is fucked up."

I had no idea about that. "So, she was Princess Freya."

"The one and only," he said it with so much sadness in his voice, I was left speechless, unable to mock him in any way because of that. Just by the tone of his voice, I can tell that he knew her, he did said he was older than me, so that could be it.

"What was… what was her race?" I asked carefully.

But he steeled up again, "It doesn't concern you, little girl. And you better stay shut about this, or you will learn what it means to really suffer, and it won't be by death, I assure you, inconvenient little thing."

"My name is Davina," it's the name I chose, in her honor.

"No, it ain't, that's your chosen name, not your real name. Faes do not tell anyone their real name, because the person who knows will have power over them, hence why the only ones who know are their parents and their mate. So, no, Davina is not your name, and I refuse to call anyone by a name it isn't theirs," he snapped, back to being a rude bastard.

"You called Dove by her name," I glared at him, annoyed.

"That's how she's known by, it's not her chosen or birth name."

Oh? I thought it was her chosen name. "What is your name?"

"How long have you been fighting against your pride to ask me that question?" He grinned mischievously, and I felt like slapping his left cheek.

"Do you even have a name?" I asked instead.

"Of course, I have a name," he scowled. "I am known by countless titles, I have different names, and I have a chosen and a birth name. But you are not worthy of knowing any of them."

"Is that how you will make me fall in love with you?" I mocked.

"You don't need to know my name for that."

"What are you planning to make me scream then?" I asked with a stone cold poker face, even though it was, indeed, a naughty question.

And by how he turned ten shades of red, it worked, "What?"

"What, what?" I blinked, feigning cluelessness.

"You did that on purpose," he accused me, annoyed and red.

"I did what?" I played dumb.

His eyes darkened, "I told you to stop playing with me."

"You told me many things," I tilted my head, my hair following.

"What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?" I blinked.

"You are trying to look charming."

"I don't have to try, I was born charming," I said with a smug.

"It ain't showing. In fact, the only thing that is showing's how much of a devious little thing you are," he whispered, leaning into me.

I leaned back, "This is invasion of privacy."

"What is that?" He purred.

"Invading one's personal space," I groaned, leaning further back.

"What's one's personal space?" He whispered, leaning closer.

I felt my heart thundering in my chest and nearly jumping outta my damn throat, "The space you're invading right now," I struggled to say.

"Who is flustered now?" A sexy grin curled the corner of his lips as he leaned in, towering over me like a titan, consuming all the air inside my lungs, making me struggle to breath.

"Cornering a female like this is assault," I babbled.

"Assault is touching, I'm not touching you," he countered.

Hah, so he does know what assault means. "Disturbing then."

"Am I disturbing you?" He breathed, eyes darkening and on mine, his nose nearly touching mine, so close I can feel his hot breath on my lips.

I gulped, leaning far from him as I can, "Yes," I whispered.

"Am I really?" His voice was a whisper as he nuzzled our noses.

"Assault," the impertinent word left my lips before I'd control it.

And fuck, if the grin that curled his lips was not the sexiest grin I ever saw in my entire fucking life, as he leaned back away from me. "You may have won morally, but you can't lie saying you're the least, even if just a very tiny little bit, attracted to me."

"I am not," I hissed, still out of breath, still leaning away from him.

But when his fog silvery hypnotizing eyes lingered in mine, I felt like a mouse caught in a trap, dragged in by the most appetizing cheese in all the nine realms. "You lie as easily as you breath, but if you keep lying so much, you are bound to get caught in the edges, lying little thing."

"When you live like me, lying because a mechanism of protection."

"How are you going to live if you keep lying about everything?"

"That doesn't concern you, bastard," I made of his words, mine.

"Thankfully it doesn't, I was just asking for the sake of it," the dam bastard mocked. "So, will you tell me where she is or will I have to make you tell me, obnoxious little thing?"

"What part of 'you will only hear me tell you what you wanna know about Ravenna, over my dead body' did you not understand?" I mocked. "You can't force me to tell you a thing. And you are the obnoxious one."

"Except, I can," he grinned wolfishly.

"No, you cannot."

"If I make you that question, in a moment where you're out of your mind, and too damn busy thinking of something else to even mind what you are saying to me, you will tell me, even if you don't want to," he licked his lips and that was enough to make me take it dirtily. "There is a way to force the information I need out of you, without causing you pain or death, while causing you an addicting feeling instead."

He can't be insinuating what I think he is. "And what is that?"

"Pleasure," he tilted his head.

Fuck, this damned bastard. "You will not fuck me."

"Fucking isn't the only way to pleasure someone," he countered. "What? Are you thinking of me fucking you now?"

Yes? "No. Ew. You are not my type."

"The flush on your skin disagrees."

"This is an embarrassment flush, because I'm embarrassed for you. Besides, that's great talk for a virgin, is it not?" I snapped instead.

His jaw dropped and he clenched it, "I am not a virgin."

"I doubt that. You look, act, and sound like a virgin."

He frowned, "Lacking sex doesn't make me a virgin."

I was not supposed to know that. "You didn't have to say that, the fact that you lack sex is every obvious, your body screams stress. Though I doubt you're not a virgin. I'm very confident in my gay and virgin radar, and mine is soaring that you are a virgin. I doubt anyone would dare to be with someone like you physically, you look like the Praying Mantis type."

"What's a Praying Mantis type?"

"The type to kill the partner while fucking," I scoffed.

"I don't fuck my enemies and I only kill them," he groaned. "I am not a virgin, but I don't haven't anything to prove to the likes of you, fae."

"Tsk, racist," I mocked. "Either way, I said you look like it, not that you could be that type. But you do look like a psychopath who would enjoy murdering victims while sexing them. And you say it has nothing to do with me, but you also said you will make me fall in love with you, but for that impossibility to happen, you would have to make up for your lack of good physical appearance that could suit my type, with experience in bed. If you are a virgin, as I believe, that will make your impossible mission, even more impossible."

"Is that your way of saying you want me to fuck you?"

"Where did you get that from?" I mocked. "You are not my type."

"Just like you think I'm lying and I'm a virgin, I think you're lying and I am your type, because I am everybody's type, you are no exception."

"Narcissistic cunt, I am not everybody," I cursed, annoyed.

"You're so short, you're barely one person, even less everybody."