Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“Is he coming to pick you up?” Lucian asked.
“I am meeting him back at work,” Pandora told him, knowing he would be disappointed not to get the chance to scare her date. “I just wanted to run home to change. I have to get going.”
“Have a good time,” her father said.
“Yes,” her mother said, but Pandora didn’t like the way she was looking at her. “Have a good time. I expect to hear all the details.”
That was absolutely not happening.
Pandora had to run to catch her train back to Luna Bean and as she made her way down the street, she saw that Victor was already on the pavement, waiting for her.
He was dressed smartly in a cozy burnt-orange jumper and a pair of black trousers, with a black peacoat.
“Sorry I’m late,” Pandora called out as she approached, watching Victor turn at the sound of her voice.
His green eyes moved over her, taking in her legging-clad legs and the way her dress clung a bit to her chest.
She wouldn’t say her hunter’s moons were on display, per se, but they were definitely peeking.
And she felt a warmth tease over the areas of her body that Victor’s eyes had roamed, making desire pool in her lower belly. She hoped it wasn’t reflected in her eyes, as his gaze finally held hers.
“I haven’t been here long,” he told her, tucking his hands into his front pockets and making his shoulders hunch forward in a way that had no right to be as charming as it was. “So, did you just want to … walk?” He looked down the street.
“Sure.” She fell into step with him.
The street cleaners had been out in force earlier that day, but the trees had already dumped piles of more orange, red, and yellow leaves all along the streets and pavements, and Pandora couldn’t help but smile at how Victor seemed to go out of his way to step on them, clearly enjoying that crunch as much as she did.
“So … what should we be talking about?” he asked.
“The basics, I guess. Full names, ages, families, interests.”
“OK. You first.”
“I’m Pandora Von Ashmore.” Technically, she was Pandora Louanna Morrigan Van Ashmore. But she wasn’t about to open up that can of worms. “I’m twenty-four. I work at Luna Bean because I’m a bit of a, you know, night owl. I like bright, happy colours. I have a pet raven named Vlad. And I have a mother named Ophelia and a father named Lucian. As well as a little brother named Dante.”
“I should probably be taking notes,” he said, glancing over at her.
“Maybe it will be better if we also come up with some stories about our families to really make them stick in each other’s heads. Like my parents once caught Dante sneaking a toad into his room. But when they confronted him about it, it turned out that it wasn’t just one toad. He had twenty-seven toads in his bathroom. He fancied himself some kind of toad king or something.”
“What’d your parents do about it?”
“My father ordered him to get rid of them immediately,” Pandora told him. “But my mother has a soft spot for Dante, so she had a pond built in the back garden where he could visit them. They’re still there, all these years later. Well, maybe not them. But their grand-toads maybe.”
Victor gave her a small smile at that and Pandora noticed for the first time that he had a slight dimple in his cheek when he did.
“Dante is the toad king. Got it,” he said, nodding. “I don’t have any siblings, so I don’t have any toad-king stories. I’m twenty-nine. Working toward my PhD. Have a best mate named Sebastian. We met in primary school. We bonded over hating PE. Have been friends ever since. He lives in Manchester now, but we catch up a lot.”
“Sebastian the PE-hater. Does he like football?”
“Who doesn’t?”
“Fair enough. What about your parents?”
“Both my parents are in education. My mother is a primary school teacher. My father is a secondary school teacher, in maths. What do your parents do?”
“My mother is a … homemaker,” Pandora said, despite her mother never lifting a finger to cook or clean. “My father is in … business.” It was as true as it could be. He’d always been good with numbers and investments, always seeming to know which human invention was going to take off and becoming an early investor. Then he’d make a killing and cash out.
It was impressive and obscene the kind of wealth that immortals could amass over the course of their endless lives.
“What about your brother? Does he work?”
“He’s still figuring things out,” Pandora said. It was true enough. She’d never really heard Dante talk about what he wanted for his future. To them, there was truly nothing but time.