Shit, I’m naked too. Frankly, it was one of my lesser concerns at the moment, but ahugeconcern nonetheless.
“Miss Vivian,” a soft voice said from behind me.
I snapped around in surprise at hearing my name, finding a woman draped in white silk holding a…clipboard?
“Where am I?” I clutched a very still and apprehensive Nurghle to my chest. At least he was naked, too.
“Your mother’s palace,” she answered flatly. “Come with me.”
Mother?! As strange of an answer as that was, I hesitantly followed behind her through a series of magnificently carved archways, not eager to stay in the den of hedonism.
“I think you may be confused. I don’t have a mother,” I laughed dryly.
If it was up to me, I wouldn’t have a father either. I may as well have been an orphan. After months of being warned the world would “eat me alive” whenever I’d threatened to run away, I finally did so at the ripe old age of twelve. Being eaten alive sounded better than living with him. I chose the slums over his mansion, hunger over his private chef, dropping out of school over his private tutors.
“I wouldn’t advise repeating that sentiment to her,” the woman replied, her angelic voice ringing along with the golden wind chimes we passed.
I’d never been anywhere like this, even with my privileged childhood. Everything was pristine, glowing, alive.Did I die?The scenery was similar enough to heavenly stereotypes. The dress draping from the woman’s shoulders and hips reminded me of Greek goddesses. She fit in with the statues and carvings of women of all shapes and sizes posed throughout the palace. Had I seen someone feeding grapes to their lover in the pool? So far, the afterlife was pretty cliché.
As we passed through a loggia of marble arches streaked with gold, I noticed the courtyard outside was framed by a field stretching as far as my eyes could see. Wheat rippled like ocean waves in response to the breeze.
Idefinitelydied.
We stopped outside of a set of extravagant wooden doors, at least thirty feet tall. A massive, engraved golden tree was centered along the split, its branches stretching to the matchingdoorframe. Its leaves were emeralds.Realemeralds. They glistened blue in the beams of sunlight spilling between the surrounding columns.
The woman sucked in a deep breath. “Say as little as possible,” she instructed, waving her hand in front of an amber crystal where handles should have been.
I jumped involuntarily as the tree’s trunk split down its center, the doors opening with a low groan. A blinding light poured in through the gap.
I blinked away the glare. Figures and shapes slowly bled through the assault on my pupils, revealing the room. It must be pretty important, with all the entrance theatrics.
My escort walked ahead while I stood back, dumbfounded.
“Goddess Eva,” she greeted humbly. “I bring Vivian.”
GoddessEva. On a gilded throne ascending to the arched ceilings, sat a tall blonde woman clad in decorative jewelry—and nothing else. She was heavily pregnant, the chains around her waist draped over her rounded belly. At her feet was a man, fully undressed and positioned between her open thighs. Her curved leg draped over his shoulder as if he were nothing more than a footstool. Part of the furniture.
He moved to stand.
“Stay,” the blonde woman called “goddess” commanded in a powerful, sultry voice that echoed in the throne room.
He obediently lowered back down, leaning his face into her full inner thigh and licking subserviently.
“Arella, why in all the heavens is thatthinghere?” she asked with a disapproval that made my stomach churn. I’d had my share of people talking down to me, but that was new.
The woman who had escorted me here—Arella—looked at Nurghle.Oh. Not me.Him.
“I don’t know. It arrived with her,” she replied.
“Remove it.”
Arella stepped towards me.
“Don’t you fucking dare!” I snarled, my stunned silence broken by maternal instinct.
I stepped back and wrapped my hand protectively over Nurghle’s head, baring my teeth. They would take my cat over my dead body.Double dead. If that was a thing. They could send me to hell with his furry ass if they had to; he was staying with me. Nurghle was all the family I had in life, would continue to be my everything in death.
Arella cringed, raised hands hesitating to reach for him as instructed. “We will be leaving shortly. Perhaps she can keep the beast as a gift?”
