Page 1 of Messenger of Death
Messenger of Death
The reincarnation of Loki informed me I had the most dramatic god reveal he's ever seen.
Yeah, most of Ouroboros Academy is saying that. They are also terrified. When my original gets reincarnated, something big is happening. If I get reincarnated with Liam's original, it's apocalypse level. Most of my group is associated with death, and there's at least one chaos god who is back.
Students are dying, and it doesn't make sense. The ones Khalid and I can feel die come to Khalid as the reincarnation of Anubis. Others just disappear without a trace. We only hear about it when someone reports it, and there's no evidence when anyone looks into it.
You can hide a body, but you can't hide a murder around Khalid and me. So, where are all the disappeared students?
So, can I dedicate this book to Blueberry Pancake flavored coffee, pitbulls who holler at the bed because the blanket won’t tuck them in, and crippling imposter syndrome?
Again, why not?
Also, some folks were worried this series was YA because there is no fucking in book 1. The fucking in this book starts on page 73. Bon Appetite
The last thing I remembered was fighting throwing up my dinner as Liam swaggered towards Sage to put his nasty mouth all over her. She started screaming, and Ithoughtshe was just coming to her senses, that she was going to allow the miscreant to kiss her, but the entire pub started losing their minds and then everything went blank.
I woke up in a dorm room, and it wasn’t mine because there were three beds and a cat in here. I wouldn’t mind a cat at all. I respected cats. If you touched them when they didn’t want it, they drew blood. People got mad if you did that as a human. I’d share a room with a cat before I had roommates.
I groaned and sat up. Sage was in one bed, and the rest of us had been spread out. Whose idea was it to putmeon the loveseat and give Liam a bed? We were the same height, but I outranked him.
“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded.
I wasn’t alone. Sage’s roommate Morgana was here along with two blokes I could already tell were going to annoy me, Headmaster Mykene, and an absolutely massive man—I couldn’t tell if he was a student or a teacher. That was tricky because, apparently, reincarnations stopped aging after a point. I didn’t like not being able to get reads on people from looking at them.
“A student is dead,” Headmaster Mykene said grimly.
“Well, why are you inhereinstead of outtherecatching the murderer?”
She looked at me as if I were a complete moron, and I didn’t like it. I was always the smartest person in the room. I was just a little out of my element because I thought all of this was fiction before.
“Khalid is one of two death gods here right now. The other is a particular kind of death god, and Kira didn’t go to her. The afterlife isn’t what everyone thinks. Different cultures all came up with their own thing, but you don’t so much end up in a good place or a bad place as much as getting reincarnated as reward or punishment. The nearest death god helps souls go to the place they will wait until the Fates spin them a new thread.
“Khalid already knows who he is and is at least smart enough to know what Sage’s scream meant. With everything that happened at the entrance exam, I’m hoping he’lltalkto the soul he’s guiding and find out who did this.”
“I don’t know what her scream meant, but Khalid is brilliant and level-headed. Why did weallpass out? I don’t give a shit about Liam; I’m asking for myself, Khalid, and Sage.”
“You’re going to have to give a shit about Liam because you’re all connected, or you wouldn’t have passed out when Sage did.”
Speak of the devil. Liam bolted awake with that stupid switchblade yelling about Sage and stabbed the massive man who was in the room with us in the thigh. He didn’t even flinch and thumped Liam on the head, which was immensely satisfying. Liam was out again, which was honestly how I preferred him.
“Hey, if I give you my blood to heal you and some money, can you punch him in the head every time he wakes up so I don’t have to listen to him?” I asked.
He just glowered at me. There were some people I was never going to fuck with, and I already knew this man was one of them.
“I’ve had worse. I’m the reincarnation of Ares, and I teach you idiots how to defend yourselves. I don’t want your blood because I have no desire to lust after a student, even if it’s temporary. I’m Professor Adamastus.”
Yeah, hesaidthat, but he was looking right at Morgana, so he was clearly already lusting after a student. I filed that away for later just in case I needed it.
“I knew I should have taken that knife away,” Headmaster Mykene sighed.
“He’ll need it to defend himself,” Professor Adamastus said. “He was just disoriented. Honestly, I expected to knockthatone out for biting,” he said, pointing at me.
Rude. Why did everyone think I was going to go around putting my mouth on people when I didn’t know their bathing habits? I’dneverlet myself get so hungry that I bit someone without their consent again, either. I was particular about people touching me without mine, so I wasn’t going to bite someone without theirs.
“When will they wake, and why did Sage pass out?”
“They will wake in their own time. Sage just confirmed who she is. I had my guesses, but this confirms it. And no, I’m not telling you before she figures it out.”
