Sworn to the Shadow God Read online

  Sworn to the Shadow God

  Ruby Dixon

  Copyright © 2020 by Ruby Dixon

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Image: Sara Eirew Photographer

  Cover Design: Kati Wilde, Badass

  Edits: Aquila Editing (All typos are mine because I always change shit after she sends it back to me. I’M SORRY, GIRL. I make you look bad when we both know that you’re amazing!)

  Created with Vellum

  For Mr. Ruby, because when I was an asshole and asked for a map in two days, you did it for me.

  For Kati, who encouraged every step of the way.

  For Marina, who sprinted word count with me even when I was working for 14 hours a day on this book and was probably tired of hearing me talk about it.

  For everyone that read the first book and actually liked it. I’m still a little stunned (and thrilled) that my weird project of the heart made you happy.
  Contents

  Content Warning

  Sworn To The Shadow God

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Pantheon of Aos

  Need More Ruby Dixon?

  Content Warning

  Hello there!

  Let’s talk about triggers for a brief second before you crack this open. SPOILERS BELOW - STOP READING HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED.

  * * *

  This is a book about death. The hero is the god of death, and because of that, there’s no getting around discussing death ad nauseum between these pages.

  Death in all forms is discussed quite a bit. There’s references to suicide, murder, infant mortality, sickness, and zombies in these pages. If this sort of thing is going to be problematic for you, please don’t read this book. It won’t make you happy.

  And because I’m trying to get better at warning about these sorts of things, there is also a trigger for an attack/attempted rape on a character.

  * * *

  Sworn To The Shadow God

  Adventure.

  It's what my boring life is missing, so when I fall through a portal into another world, I'm excited. Here, I'm important. Here, I'm special.

  I find out just *how* special when I meet Death.

  Yup. That guy. He's been exiled to the mortal realm to work through his flaws, and he's just as spoiled and awful as you'd think. Rhagos, the Shadow Lord, is arrogant and rude and controlling and demands to get his way. He's selfish. He's impossible.

  He's also utterly gorgeous. Magnetic. Lonely. And strangely protective of me.

  Thanks to a magic bond, I now serve him as his anchor to the mortal realm. It means that I'm his conscience, his guide...and the target for any assassin or glory-seeker. After a few days of this, I'd rather go home than continue on this 'adventure'. I need a way back to Earth, and fast.

  As the world falls down around us and we're hunted simply for existing, I find myself wondering what it'd be like to serve the lonely god of death...in all ways. To kiss him. To touch him. To bed him.

  Except...I'm supposed to be finding a way home, not trying to kiss Rhagos. No matter how tempting he is. No matter how much he stares at my lips.

  No matter how much I want it.

  Prologue

  RHAGOS

  Rhagos the Undying, Lord of the Dead and ruler of the Underworld sat on his throne and drummed his fingers with irritation at his anchor.

  Sniveling fool.

  The man in question—a mortal now granted eternal life by tethering to Rhagos as his “conscience”—was currently sitting on an ornately carved chair across the room, pretending to read a book. Every so often, he would sniff and swipe at his eyes, and Rhagos knew all he had to do was glare at the man and he would turn into a quaking, shivering mess. Had he always been so spineless? So pathetic? Clearly when Rhagos had been trapped in his mortal form, he’d simply taken the first mortal that volunteered, not the one best suited for the job. Or perhaps he’d wanted a mortal that was obedient. This one certainly was. He didn’t have a disobedient thought in his head. Or a clever one. Or a unique one.

  And therein lay the problem. Eternity was a very, very long time to be saddled with a nitwit.

  He drummed his fingers on the arm of his throne again, thinking. In the distance, the songs of the souls were a soothing cacophony at the back of his mind. He could focus in on any one of those thousands of voices and know their boring history, know their boring life, their bland and too mortal innermost thoughts. He could raise them up, pluck them from the various circles of the Underworld, and make them part of his eternal court. And then they would simper and grovel and kiss his boots and do whatever he asked, simply because he asked it. Because he was Rhagos, and everything after death was his domain, his to command, his to oversee according to the rules of the High Father.

  For some reason, that bothered him more and more with every day that passed. Not that days mattered in the Underworld, but mortals thought in that manner and he’d taken it on out of habit.

  How many days had passed since he’d returned from the Anticipation? Which Aspect of himself had succeeded? He wasn’t entirely sure—he’d asked to be left without the memories of that humiliating time—but looking at the pathetic anchor he was saddled with and his current displeasure? He wondered if somehow the flaw of Apathy had managed to persevere.

  Which meant he would be like this until the next Anticipation…if there ever was one. The High Father had established new rules for his
Twelve to rule over Aos, though. He’d decided it would be better for them to keep their touch on humanity, and thus an anchor would be their constant companion in this realm as well as the human one.

  Rhagos hated it.

  He hated being told what to do. Hated being forced to be around the puling idiot who had somehow managed to remain as his anchor. Yet he couldn’t get rid of the fool. Because of their tether, they had to stay in close proximity to one another.

  Close proximity…to an idiot he hated…for all eternity.

  Surely his brother Kalos would laugh and laugh hard at Rhagos’s irritation. He could hear his brother’s mocking laughter in his head, even now. Kalos would not simply settle for the anchor he’d been given. He would sneer at such a thought. Kalos would find what the rules were and bend them to his needs.

  And so Rhagos would take a page from his brother’s book. He got to his feet, his black robes swirling as he stood.

  His anchor stood as well, a look of fear on his pale face as he clutched the book to his chest. “My lord?”

  The lord of the dead looked over at his anchor. He stared at him for a long moment, thinking. “Tell me something, Varian.”

  “Varias, actually—”

  He raised a hand to cut off the man’s trembling voice. “I did not ask to be corrected. I asked to be entertained.”

  And he waited.

  The mortal’s eyes went wide. He glanced around him, as if the other ghostly nobles that filled the Halls of the Dead would be of some assistance. When they avoided eye contact, he swallowed hard, his thin neck working, and spoke. “I…would you like a story?”

  “About?”

  “The…gods?”

  Rhagos knew all the stories of the gods. He’d lived them. Fighting the urge to roll his eyes, Rhagos pulled his hood over his face and took his leave from his throne room. The anchor attempted to follow.

  Rhagos raised a hand. “I do not require you.” He strode away, ignoring the irritating pull that reminded him he was leaving his anchor too far behind. Time and space could be warped in the Underworld, and as a result, his anchor had to stay even closer than most. A dark scowl creased his divine features. Was he not the god of the dead? The Lord of the Underworld? Why must he bow to so many rules even in his own domain? It was ridiculous.

  It was not to be borne.

  He needed a solution.

  He paced the halls of his keep, looking for ways to solve this problem. It was a small one, as far as divine problems went, but an irritating one that seemed to grow larger by the day. He thought of that buffoon Aron of the Cleaver, who’d given back the eye he’d stolen from Rhagos millenia ago in exchange for his anchor. A female, with pale blonde hair and a lean figure. She hadn’t even been beautiful or well spoken, but there had been something about her that had entranced Aron to the point that he was willing to wage war on the gods to retrieve her.

  That intrigued Rhagos.

  What would it be like to have a companion that one actually wanted to spend time with? That one valued the words coming from his or her mouth? He’d met Aron’s female—kept her in his realm for a time because she was dead and thus part of his domain—before Aron had stormed his gates, demanding her back. He’d found her curious. She was unafraid of Rhagos, unafraid of Aron, and so full of a certain…spark that he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

  He’d gotten his eye back, his vision whole once more, but…sometimes he wondered if he’d made a poor trade.

  What would it be like to have a companion? A real companion? Someone that would have actual conversations with him instead of simply telling him what he wished to hear? Someone that would look at him with welcome in their eyes? Someone that would smile when he walked into the room?

  Someone that was a friend and lover both. Someone to ease the lonely ache in his soul.

  He thought about Aron’s anchor a lot. Far too much, perhaps. Not that he wanted that particular mortal for fucking. If he wanted to fuck, Belara, goddess of beauty, would welcome him. Any of his subjects would gladly take his cock and act as if it was their duty.

  Perhaps that was it. Duty irritated him.

  Where was the free will, the spirit that he’d seen in Aron’s anchor? He wanted that. He needed that.

  Rhagos needed a new anchor, he decided. He could banish his current one to the depths of the Pit of the Betrayers, even though he’d been loyal. The underworld was Rhagos’s to command, after all. But the agony of their stretched tether would pain him and Rhagos would still be bound to the idiot. No, there had to be something else that could be done.

  But what?

  He walked his keep, thinking, and still no answer came to him. When he found himself back in his throne room, the court had made itself scarce, disappearing to avoid his foul mood. Only Varias remained, as pale and trembling as ever.

  He raised a hand and sent him to the pit anyway, simply for being irritating. Anchor on his humanity be damned. If the High Father wanted him to be kinder and gentler then he needed a damned reason.

  And Varias was not it.

  When Rhagos remembered the mortal that Aron had come crashing to his door to retrieve, he remembered not just the female, but Aron’s reaction to her. Aron had been the Battle God of Aos since nearly the dawn of time, back when the mortals were little more than a crude tribe here and there. He’d become as jaded as Rhagos and the others, perhaps more so. But when he’d seen the mortal waiting for him? When he’d heard her squeals of delight at the sight of him?

  He’d cracked.

  For the first time, Rhagos had seen pure and utter joy in one of his brethren.

  Rhagos hungered for that.

  Fucking envied that. He wanted that joy. He wanted to care about something so very much that it drove him mad. Right now? He did not care about much of anything.

  Had to be the Aspect of Apathy that had won, damn all the luck.

  How to get that joy, he wondered. He couldn’t simply steal the woman away from Aron. Not only would he likely lose his eye again, but he’d felt nothing for her. He’d had her in his clutches for weeks and she’d inspired nothing but curiosity and a hint of confusion.

  This was the creature that Aron was storming the underworld for?

  He fingered the deep scar across his face, the one from when he’d lost his eye. He had his eye back—but he kept the scar as a reminder of the past. It did not pain him, but Rhagos rubbed it anyhow, thinking.

  Perhaps he could lean on one of the other gods who had returned. Steal their anchor if the mortal proved to be more pleasant and entertaining than his own. His brother Kalos would assist him in this…provided that Rhagos did not attempt to steal his own anchor. Brothers they may have been, but gods were also incredibly possessive.

  Kalos would want something from him, though. Brothers though they were, Kalos only sought out Rhagos when he could use him. Perhaps in centuries past, Rhagos would have gone along with such plans, but he’d tired of them – and of being used – and so he avoided his brother entirely.

  He thought of who else had returned. Magra, but the harvest goddess was useless to him. Vor, Lord of the Seas—not a friend. Gental of the Family would likely have some sniveling idiot—or worse, a mother with twenty children—hitched to him, and the idea was unappealing to a one. Perhaps one of Tadekha’s crystal-crusted handmaidens, or Belara, though he had no idea if either of the goddesses had returned.

  Besides, Belara would have picked a male, and Rhagos was far more interested in a female. He thought of Aron and his blonde anchor, the way she’d flung herself at him and twined her legs around his waist. That had hinted at far closer a relationship than mere companions.

  He definitely wanted a female.

  Kassam was long gone, Anali would be a bore and…

  The Spidae. Hmm. Rumor had it that they had a lovely and willing anchor. Now there was a thought.

  Rhagos flung himself up from his throne, crossing the long pillared hall that was now empty of souls. His footsteps ech
oed on the stone floors, and the walls seemed to vibrate with his sense of purpose. At the far end of the Hall of Souls was his own web, stretched between two pillars, that allowed him to contact the Spidae and other gods in their realms. The threads of the Spidae were magic, able to span space and time, and Rhagos brushed his fingers over them now, strumming them like a harp.

  He waited.

  The threads shimmered. A picture focused, and a pretty female with dark skin and a thick braid came into view. She wore a crimson dress that made a bright contrast to her flesh, and her hands moved back and forth as if sewing. She had not yet noticed him, so he studied her. This was their anchor, then. Her form was shapely, and he wondered if she was intelligent. Clever.