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Then, when I graduated high school, I briefly moved to San Francisco for an internship at a fashion app start-up. Even though it was still in the same state and a long day’s drive from LA, I felt totally alone. I didn’t know a soul, and the job wasn’t what I thought it would be (unpaid internships are a capitalist scam). I ended up quitting the internship long before I told anyone, because I was too afraid to be seen as a quitter. I just wanted to go back to where the world was familiar to me. It turns out, I didn’t hate stability and comfort as much as I thought I should.
And now, well, now, the world has never seemed more at odds with my existence. I feel like a literal ghost, someone who died and came back to life in time to see that the world has moved on, as it always does.
I suppose thatiswhat happened, though. Ididtrade my life for my father’s. I essentially gave myself to Death, in two different but literal ways. I was never supposed to come back here like this.
Neither was Tuoni.
Which is apparent when he reaches out and actuallyknockson the closed elevator doors.
“Tuoni, no,” I say to him with a quick shake of my head.
“Ah yes, we need a key,” he says.
I sigh softly and push the button for the elevator. At least he’s taking things in stride, much better than I am. He probably feels just as unmoored as I do, yet I don’t think he’s too concerned about not getting back to Tuonela. I suppose it’s hard to lose confidence when you’re an immortal god. He has spent his existence getting everything he asks for.
The elevator dings open, and I step inside before waving for him to follow me. He does so with great suspicion, his brows furrowed together. The elevator shakes a little from his weight as he looks around.
“Surely you know what an elevator is,” I say to him, pressing the button for our floor.
“Of course,” he says with a scoff.
Mmmhmm. I try to hide my smile.
We make our way to our room, which is nice, if not small in the way most European hotels are.
“This is what they consider fit for a king?” he asks, looking around with a shocked look on his face. “I would hate to see a room fit for a queen.”
I laugh and sit down on the edge of the bed, testing the firmness. “The bed is king-sized,” I tell him. “That doesn’t mean the room is.”
At that, my stomach lets out a loud growl, hungry as hell. I guess the last time I ate would have been the dinner at Shadow’s End. “I know we’re exhausted, but I’m starving,” I say.
He looks at me on the bed, and his eyes turn molten as he tosses the duffle bags on the floor. “So am I.”
He’s on me in a second, and I’m giggling under his weight, pressed into the bed as he kisses my neck.
“I’m serious,” I tell him, pressing my hands up against his chest to meet his heated gaze. “I need to eat before I havethe strength to do anything, whether that means thinking or fucking.”
His mouth curls into a carnivorous smile. “You don’t need strength. You can just lie there, and I’ll do all the fucking.”
“I wantfood,” I tell him. “Or you’re going to have a Hangry Hanna on your hands, and you don’t want that.”
“Is Hangry Hanna the same as a Hungry Hanna?” he asks with a wag of his brows.
“No, she’s terrifying,” I warn him.
“I might like that.”
“You won’t. Besides, you can finally get that coffee you’ve been harping me about.”
His eyes light up. Hmmm. Seems coffee and sex are of equal importance to the king.
He gets up and brings me to my feet. I grab my duffel bag and head into the washroom to do my business and freshen up.
While I’m washing my hands with the round bar of hotel soap, I glance at myself in the mirror and nearly faint. I look dirty and slightly deranged, dark circles under my eyes and a rat’s nest for hair, coated with who knows what kind of filth from Inmost. My eyes themselves don’t even look like their normal brown. There’s a slightly golden sheen to them, or it may just be a trick of the bathroom lights. It makes me look otherworldly and decidedly not normal. Looking back now, I’m not sure if everyone was staring at Tuoni or atme.
Okay, maybe I need a shower first, then food. Then sex. Then thinking about the next step.
I open the bathroom door and shout into the room, “I’m going to take a shower first.”
