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Chapter 1

I woke up naked and in a strange bed

For several ently feminine – but totally unfaure out how, exactly, I’d gotten here

And where the hell "here" was

My brain was decidedly fuzzy on any sort of detail, however, and that could only ht and blot out emotion had actually succeeded And that surprised the hell out of me

Thanks to our fast o on a bender I ht be only half were, but I usually hold et anywhere near drunk I certainly hadn’t expected to be able to forget – if for only a few hours – the anger and the pain

Pain that came from both the worst kind of betrayal, and , but this time no tears fell Maybe because I had very little in the way of tears left Or maybe it was simply the fact that, somewhere in the alcohol-induced haze of the past few days, I’d finally coh it wasn’t like I had any other choice

If I had, then I would have died Should have died But Azriel, the reaper who’d been uard, andso, had taken away the very essence of what I was

Because in forcing me to live, he’d not only ensured that my soul could never be reborn, but he’d el

The next time I died, I would not move on and be reborn into another life here on Earth I would join hiray fields – the unseen lands that divided this world froates to heaven and hell

And that ain Not in any future lifetiht have been mine, because he’d stolen all that away froe that he’d saved me not because he loved ates

And because I was carrying his child

The stinging incoged htly to rief washing over me

If he’d said, just once, that I mattered more than any quest or key – or even the child we’d created – then perhaps the bitterness and anger would not have been so deep, and I wouldn’t have banished him from my side But he hadn’t, and I had

And now all I could do was try to figure out what had actually happened in the days that had followed his departure, and move on

Because despite his actions, ed I still had keys to find, and I very much doubted whether the patience of either my father or the Raziq – the rebel Aedh priests who’d jointly created the damn keys with rasp only to lose theer

Hell, it was surprising that one or both of them hadn’t already appeared to slapthis time

But maybe they had no idea that I’d actually found the second key After all, this time it had been stolen not only froed to pinpoint its exact location Which meant the thief – the same dark sorcerer who’d stolen the first key, and who’d perateway to hell – wouldn’t knohich of the ate key in disguise Thanks to the fact that my father’s blood had been used in the creation of the three keys, only one of his blood could find them

And I would find them Without my reaper Without my protector

A sob rose up h with the self-pity, I toldGet over it and move on