Mantle Of A God (Chosen by Freya Book 1) by Michael Anderle

Author:Michael Anderle [Anderle, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9798888785805
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2023-08-20T22:00:00+00:00

Northern Lights, Reykjavík, Western Iceland, early Thursday morning

She moved. With every song that ended, with every change of beat, tempo, and rhythm as the DJ expertly plied her trade, Terra thought this is the last one for sure. One more dance, and I’ll fall over, dead exhausted, and Leif will have to carry me back to the hotel.

It didn’t happen, though. She moved and turned in the pulsing light, brushing against men and women who moved, gyrated, and twisted with her. With the music. Energy came from everywhere. From the air around her, from the nameless, faceless people beside her, from the metal clasped around her arms like warm hands, from someplace deep in her chest.

Today, I fought a glacier, she wanted to say to the skinny guy wearing dozens of glow-in-the-dark bracelets and necklaces as they crossed arms and swung in an improvised dance. Last night, I fell asleep in a heart of ice and thought I might not wake up.

Today, I clawed my way out of the belly of the earth, she silently told the barefooted woman who moonwalked across the dance floor, tossing her mane of silver and fire-blue hair from side to side. Yesterday, I was betrayed and left to die in a lightless cave.

Today, I stretched my lungs wide, and the sound of my war cry shook the clouds and sent beasts fleeing before me, she declared in twitches, stomps, and improvised choreography as the bass shook the walls. Yesterday, I met a goddess.

And gods, she felt good. Time slipped away in fits and spurts, obscurely marked by the DJ’s warnings. Last requests, last call, remember to drink plenty of water, time to lift the chairs and thank the bartenders.

Slowly, the dance floor drained of bodies. She didn’t want to admit it or acknowledge it. The pool of writhing bodies shrunk, dissipating into the early hours of the morning. Terra moved with a group of holdouts, a handful of people who had nowhere better to be or too much E running through their system to stop. One tall drink of water with cheekbones like chips of granite and hair like the shaggy pelt of a black bear and a sharp grin that struck right between Terra’s ribs.

“I’ll have whatever you’re having,” he murmured into Terra’s ear as she pressed her spine against him and rolled her shoulders to the rhythm of the DJ’s newest mix.

She laughed. The sound echoed, making her realize how few people remained on the dance floor. She swung around, facing the nameless man with whom she’d been intermittently dancing all night. The air smelled like sweat, his and hers. Her T-shirt was damp with it. She saw the sheen of it on his forehead. She liked the way he looked, the way he smelled, the way he moved. She wondered what Leif would do if she brought him back to the hotel. What could he do? He wasn’t the one paying for the room.

Somewhere on the other side of the universe, the DJ called out the last song of the night.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.