House of Neptune ✓ - Sample

Chapter 1

There's no light without first knowing darkness. There can be no moon with no sun. It's all a balancing act that hinges on having both, and that mix of white and black make for a muddied gray where nothing is ever written in stone. Life is like that, unfortunately.

And death? Death is cold and inevitable, a beast of habit that pulls each and every one of us down to the dirt eventually. But life? It's feral and untamed, unsteady, and nothing about it is predictable. Life's hard and weary and, more often than not, it's dirtier than death.

There he stands, in all of his unwanted glory: High Chancellor Aiden. And we have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. It's just him. He doesn't have an entourage around him. He doesn't need it. The marks on our wrists burn like there's venom in the veins. He knows he can do what he wants.

"I'm impressed," he says. "It's been, oh what, six days? Well, I guess technically five. Today's the sixth. That's a long time to hide from me. Good job."

Lennox is already on his knees. And then it occurs to me, seeing him in pain like that, remembering when I almost lost him, that I have no clue why he got his mark from Aiden. There's so much about him that I still don't know. Lennox is sweating bullets, and I don't feel a thing.

"What are you doing to him?" I squeal. "Stop!"

Aiden looks over at me with an all-knowing smile. "He's your anchor."

So, that's why. That's why I don't feel anything because he's not even doing anything to me. He knows I won't leave Lennox. I won't run. I can't.

"So, what do you want to do?" I ask Aiden. "I didn't bring you the key, so you're going to kill us?"

"You didn't bring me that key," he says. "I'm a generous man. And I have a special place in my heart for the two of you. So, I'm going to give you the chance to make it up to me."

That's when he snaps his fingers. That's when the pain starts. And that's when we lose. Just like that. Black creeps inside my eyes, and the last thing I really remember is somehow looking up at Aiden's eyes: completely blackened in, a veritable void.

When the light finally comes back to me, I'm alone. Lennox is gone. It's just me in a dark room on a bed. And it's a bed I recognize. It's in the House of Saturn—where Lennox and I were planning to try and hide out. I can see enough in the dim light to make out the same dresser and books and one of the same, mysterious looking clocks that Aiden has in his tower.

It projects the time on the wall: 3:04. It's late. I must've been out a long time. My head is spinning like that one time when Mason and I decided to down some liquor for fun. Only, it wasn't fun. It was nauseating, like now. And whatever happened has been over and done with for several hours now.

I'm so distracted by my head, that it takes me another minute or two to realize I'm actually not so alone in the room. There's a shadow in the corner that's a little bit darker than everything else, the shadow of a person.

"Hello?" I call out.

But they don't answer me. The shadow shifts in its seat, crosses one leg over the other, and just sits. I can't see them. I can't see their clothes or their face. It's all much too dark.

He must have a lackey watching me so that I don't run away, like I could. I've learned to do some stuff, but I still suck at most all of it. If I knew how to actually summon my wings, yeah, I could do that. But I don't know what made them come out to start with, and it's kind of hard to fly out of a room with no windows.