Out of Tune Read online

  Contents

  Out of Tune

  More Books by Amy Sumida

  The Playlist

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  A Sneak Peek

  Chapter One

  Grammar Giggles

  Pronunciation Guide/ Character List

  About the Author

  Out of Tune

  Amy Sumida

  Copyright © 2019 Amy Sumida

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9798635423332

  Legal Notice

  This book is copyright protected. It is only for personal use. You cannot amend, distribute, sell, use, quote, or paraphrase any part of the content within this book without the consent of the author or copyright owner. Legal action will be pursued if this is breached.

  More Books by Amy Sumida

  The Godhunter Series (in order)

  Godhunter

  Of Gods and Wolves

  Oathbreaker

  Marked by Death

  Green Tea and Black Death

  A Taste for Blood

  The Tainted Web

  Series Split:

  These books can be read together or separately

  Harvest of the Gods & A Fey Harvest

  Into the Void & Out of the Darkness

  Perchance to Die

  Tracing Thunder

  Light as a Feather

  Rain or Monkeyshine

  Blood Bound

  Eye of Re

  My Soul to Take

  As the Crow Flies

  Cry Werewolf

  Pride Before a Fall

  Monsoons and Monsters

  Blessed Death

  In the Nyx of Time

  Let Sleeping Demons Lie

  The Lion, the Witch, and the Werewolf

  Hear No Evil

  Dark Star

  Destiny Descending

  The Black Lion

  Beyond the Godhunter

  A Darker Element

  Out of the Blue

  The Twilight Court Series

  Fairy-Struck

  Pixie-Led

  Raven-Mocking

  Here there be Dragons

  Witchbane

  Elf-Shot

  Fairy Rings and Dragon Kings

  Black-Market Magic

  Etched in Stone

  —Completed Series—

  The Spellsinger Series

  The Last Lullaby

  A Symphony of Sirens

  A Harmony of Hearts

  Primeval Prelude

  Ballad of Blood

  A Deadly Duet

  Macabre Melody

  Aria of the Gods

  Anthem of Ashes

  A Chorus of Cats

  Doppelganger Dirge

  (Out of Tune)

  Spectra

  Spectra: A Cynical Superhero

  A Gray Area

  A Compression of Colors

  Blue Murder

  Code Red

  With Flying Colors

  Erotica

  An Unseelie Understanding

  Fairy Tales

  Happily Harem After Vol. 1

  Including:

  The Four Clever Brothers

  Wild Wonderland

  Beauty and the Beasts

  Pan's Promise

  The Little Glass Slipper

  Happily Harem After Vol. 2

  Including:

  White as Snow

  Awakened Beauty

  Twisted

  Codename: Goldilocks

  Historical Romance

  Enchantress

  The Playlist

  Listen to the playlist for Out of Tune for free on Spotify:

  Out of Tune Playlist

  “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” by The Tokens

  “Bad Things” by Summer Kennedy

  “Soak Up the Sun” by Sheryl Crow

  “Underneath it All” by No Doubt and Lady Saw

  “New Blood” by Zayde Wolf

  “Return to Innocence” by Enigma

  “Make it Out Alive” by Jennifer Hall

  “The Devil Within” by Digital Daggers

  “Un-Break My Heart” by Toni Braxton

  “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” by Miranda Lambert

  “Magic Man” by Heart

  Chapter One

  The Zone Lord stood at the balcony railing, staring across his underground domain like a king surveying his kingdom. He wore only a pair of tailored slacks, zipped but unbuttoned. I knew they were unbuttoned because I'd watched him slip them on several minutes earlier, after he'd left our bed. The bed's base was constructed of crystal, as was the palace that held it, and it faced the balcony. Which meant I didn't have to leave it to watch Slate, but I did. I wanted to do more than watch.

  I slipped out of bed and retrieved the silk robe I'd hung on one of the quartz points of the headboard. The entire bed had been carved from a single cluster of enormous clear quartz, scooped out in the center to contain the mattress. The sides had been smoothed and polished so that only the head and foot of the bed had those amazing points; the shards at the foot having half the height of those at the head. But I barely glanced at the gleaming quartz; I was focused on Slate.

  I padded on bare feet across luxurious rugs that had been imported from Zuja, the Jinn planet. Slate had spared no expense when he'd built the palace for me. You might think that was obvious just from his choice of building materials, but he didn't have to pay for any of the crystal. The Gargoyles had discovered massive deposits of several types of precious stones surrounding an underground lake—even more underground than the zone. Slate had constructed our palace over that lake, using the bounty they'd found there to build it.

  The entire thing wasn't crystal, there was stone beneath the jewels, but it appeared so from the outside. Even inside the gleaming edifice, the stone walls were accented by veins of crystals or studded by gems and several rooms featured individual jewels, showcasing them with complementary color and light. One of my favorites was the crimson di
ning room with its polished garnet walls. If I didn't know better, I'd think that Slate was trying to one-up the Shining Ones in the castle-building department.

  I wasn't a Shining One by birth, but I have the reincarnated soul of their Goddess inside me and I ruled Kyanite, a Shining One kingdom. Tír na nÓg, the planet of the Shining Ones (humans call them Fairies), is divided into Jewel Kingdoms and a vast forest called Primeval. Each kingdom has a castle featuring the kingdom's jewel predominantly; usually built entirely of it. Slate's palace resembled those magical mansions in its use of precious stones if not in the actual construction.

  But Slate didn't go to such lengths for petty reasons like jealousy or envy or even pride. He could feel all of those things, of course, but he generally didn't allow them to affect his behavior. He was a cool cat who ran his zone with a firm but fair hand... sometimes a stony fist. But he didn't look so calm at the moment.

  As I joined my Gargoyle boyfriend on the balcony, I noticed how his hands laid upon the polished crystal railing as if bracing for impact. His shoulders tensed as I approached, making me frown. I had a feeling that I knew what had driven him out of bed so early in the morning, but I couldn't imagine why he wouldn't want me by his side.

  “If you'd rather be alone—”

  “No, of course not,” Slate murmured and turned to take my hand and draw me into his arms. “I'm just... unsettled.”

  “The Zone looks even better than it did before the battle,” I noted, referring to the work that had been done to fix the damage Gargo, God of the Gargoyles, had done to the Oregon Zone when he came to kill us in my great-grandfather's body. My great-grandfather who also happened to be Poseidon, Lord of the Sea. Long story. Let's just say that my grandpa used to call himself a God but that was before he'd been possessed by a real one.

  “Yes.” Slate's expression tightened. “I'm grateful that so many Beneathers volunteered to help us repair the damage. We're very lucky.”

  “But?”

  “But I have a bad feeling, sweetheart.” He glanced down at me, his silver eyes turning an odd bronze in the faux sunrise of the Zone's automated lighting.

  For a second, he looked like a stranger.

  I shivered. “What do you mean?”

  “I feel as if...” Slate made a derisive sound and shook his head. “Never mind.”

  “Tell me, Slate,” I insisted. “Secrets can hurt us.”

  Slate sobered. “You're right. It's not a secret, El. I just feel as if the other shoe hasn't dropped. Killing Gargo was too easy.”

  “You call that easy?” I chuckled.

  “He was a God.” Slate's expression didn't lighten. “I keep feeling as if we're missing something.”

  “Gargo is gone,” I said firmly. “If he wasn't, we'd know. He'd make it violently clear that he survived and he'd make sure I was the first person to know it.”

  Slate grimaced. “I suppose you're right. Gargo hated you above all others.”

  “You can't win them all,” I said flippantly and winked at him.

  I finally got a chuckle for that.

  “There's just one thing that keeps bugging me,” Slate said. “I remember you telling me about the time when you were Faenestra.”

  “Which one? When I was originally the Goddess or when I was reunited with the other half of my soul and it tried to take control of me?” I teased.

  “The latter. Faenestra made your body immortal—truly immortal as no other Beneather is—by simply inhabiting you.”

  I nodded as my grin faded. A small knot of fear was inexplicably forming in my gut.

  “It was her soul that gave you immortality,” Slate went on. “But you cut her away and put her in a prison of Darc's magic.”

  “Yes, we did. She'll never come back.”

  “Are you certain?”

  I hesitated. There had been a moment recently when rage had threatened me, and I thought that Faenestra might rise inside me, reborn through the memory of her in my soul. The memory of myself.

  “Honestly, I can never truly be free of Faenestra because I am Faenestra,” I admitted. “I'm different from her only because of my experiences. When I cut her away, I was removing the part of my soul that had been left stagnant in a prison. Maybe I might have been able to sway Faenestra into becoming as I am but that would have taken centuries and I didn't have that kind of time.”

  “But if she could be swayed, you could be too. What if something happened to change your heart or your perspective? Would you become Faenestra again?”

  “If I'm not vigilant, it's possible.”

  “And what about Lucifer? You said that you had to stop him from letting the Devil back in when he rescued you from Petra. Will Lucifer always have the potential to become the Devil again?”

  I paused. I had trapped Faenestra in a prison but I'd merely released Lucifer's Devil after I removed it from him. What happens to a God soul after it's severed and set free? A God soul is pure energy and energy doesn't die, it merely transforms. So, where did it go and what did it transform into? At full power, a God can become spiritual and move about at will then create a physical body when necessary. But what about a piece of a God?

  I knew that I was diminished when I was separated from Faenestra and that had led me to believe it would be similar for Lucifer. I had experienced a sort of split-personality effect when she was inside me, and my personalities could interact with each other. It had been much the same for Luke and his Devil, but I'd never considered that Lucifer had split himself, whereas I had been cut apart by others and evolved into someone new through my experiences. Did that make a difference? I assumed that the Devil had simply dispersed—sort of a spiritual death—without the rest of its soul to anchor it but now, I wasn't so sure. We saw evidence that Lucifer could become the Devil again, just as I had the potential to become Faenestra, but I wasn't sure why or how. Was Lucifer struggling because he had it in him to be the Devil or had the Devil never left?

  “Luke may have the taint of the Devil inside him,” I whispered. “Or the Devil could be haunting him.”

  “What does that mean, Elaria?” Slate growled as he turned to fully face me.

  “It means that I didn't catch the Devil when I removed him from Lucifer,” I confessed. “I drew him out and released the magic. I never considered that it could survive outside of his body, cut off from the rest of his soul. Magic needs a host.”

  “But a God soul is more than mere magic,” Slate said grimly.

  “Yes.”

  “Now you see what's been eating at me.” He took my hand as if for comfort. “We didn't imprison Gargo's soul either.”

  “Lucifer just forced it out of Poseidon.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he wasn't even severed. We killed his body but released his soul intact.”

  “Yes.”

  “Fuck me,” I whispered.

  “If Gargo's soul is still floating around the Zone, we're all fucked, sweetheart.”

  Chapter Two

  “Slate!” Binx, Slate's brutish younger brother, came stomping into our bedroom like a bull looking for a matador.

  I was just emerging from my dressing room, in one of the chic dresses Slate stocked the racks with. Yes, he likes to pick out my clothes; it's a habit that started early in our relationship and one which we both let continue because it adds some spice. Hey, if a guy wants to buy me clothes and they happen to be of the quality Slate prefers, I'm all for it. Go ahead, call me a kept woman, I don't care one whit.

  Slate rushed out of his dressing room, which was directly across the massive suite from mine, attired in his usual; a tailored suit and polished shoes. The dark gray of his jacket made his eyes shine a brighter shade of silver and the cut emphasized his broad shoulders and narrow waist. His mahogany hair swept back from the sharp angles of his brutally handsome face; angles that sharpened when his stare landed on Binx.

  “We've got a problem,” Binx growled, hunching shoulders even thicker than Slate's. “You might want
to take off your pretty clothes; they could get dirty.”

  Slate shrugged out of his jacket and went back into his dressing room. He emerged seconds later in jeans and a black T-shirt. “What kind of problem?” he demanded.

  The men headed out of the room and I followed, clicking over the bare portions of the crystal floor in heels that I probably should have traded for flats. But I wasn't thinking about it and now, I didn't want to get left behind.

  “A catfight,” Binx growled as he pounded down the curving staircase. “A bunch of fucking Kaplans lost their damn minds and jumped some Báalams.”

  I made a shocked sound but the men didn't spare me a glance. The Kaplan are Tiger-Shifters and the Báalam are Jaguars. They usually get along well enough... so long as the males stayed far away from each other's mates. When they did fight, they did so in single combat and it was something to behold. But a catfight—a battle between several feline shifters—was rare. In a zone where Gargoyles maintained the law, it's unheard of. Cats may be frisky but they're not stupid. Not like Loups.

  We ran down the central staircase then out of the palace and down yet another set of winding stairs. At their base, to the left of the gardens that were still being planted, a Jeep waited for us; engine running. I jumped in the back. Slate got in front with Binx, who slid behind the wheel. In seconds, we were tearing toward the residential area of the Zone, cars jerking out of our way as we approached.