Free A Taste for Blood (The Godhunter, Book 6) by Amy Sumida

mouth, when he finally pulled away. “Go, zen,” he pushed me toward the tracing point.
    I stared at him hard, taking in his heaving chest, the disarray of his usually smooth hair, and his flashing eyes. He was so beautiful. I wanted to take that picture with me, in case he was right and I never made it out of the Aether. At least I would have one vibrant memory to hold onto. Then I turned away and focused on the task.
    I knew the most important thing in tracing was focus and tracing wasn't something new for me. I'd faced this very same fear when I traced using a chant for the first time. I was merely graduating to a new level, tracing without the use of a directional chant. It would be fine. I could do it, just as I'd done chant tracing before, even though humans hadn't traced in centuries. I'd already proven myself. All I had to do was take it one step further and I'd have unlimited freedom. I'd never have to rely on another god to carry me through the Aether again.
    Okay, focus on the Palace. Pride Palace, with its lofty ceilings, airy rooms, and safari feel. My beautiful inner courtyard and the wide surrounding plain. Home, it was home for the Intare and now, for me. I needed to go home. I focused on this and then stepped into the Aether.
    “Take me home,” I whispered.
    There was that confusing moment of becoming pure thought, of having my body shift to a different form of energy. Then I was flying, coasting through the currents of the Aether rapidly. I felt my body condense, become whole again, my lungs filling with crisp, clean air and my feet forming on solid ground. I had done it! I traced the Aether on my own. I knew it! I knew I could do it!
    I opened my eyes to a landscape completely foreign to me. A landscape foreign to anyone on Earth. Somehow, I knew that not only was I not in Pride Palace but I was no longer in the God Realm and I was most definitely not in the Human Realm. I stared at the massive trees around me, the trunks wider than my house back in Hawaii, and felt a jolt of terror slice through me.
    They were just trees, massive trees, but trees nonetheless. It wasn't what they were that was so frightening. It was how they were. How they creaked liked they were speaking, little clicking and clacking noises adding cadence. How their roots shivered, giving the impression that they could reach for me if they so chose. How their trunks seemed to expand just slightly with breath before condensing again. These were not normal trees.
    Then there was the strange, vivid green foliage surrounding the base of the trees. Luckily, I was standing in some kind of clearing with a straight path leading out ahead of me. If I had arrived in the bushes, I might not have been so calm. Not only were they a bright, poisonous green, they shivered along with the trees, some particularly sharp looking stalks actually striking out at the air as if defending their territory. Behind and among them, I could feel the weight of stares focused on me.
    Then another movement caught my eye. Up ahead, high above me, a graceful form was floating down in a slow and controlled manner. When it got close enough, I was able to see that it was a man. Well, a man with wings. Beautiful, illogically thin, membranous, iridescent wings. He landed about four feet away from me without a sound. Bright orange eyes raked over me while his wings settled and he flicked a long, yellow (not blonde but yellow) braid over a shoulder, before pulling an even longer sword from a sheath at his side. He leveled the point of his blade at me and said something in a language I didn't recognize.
    “ Oh fuck,” I breathed. “What the hell did I do now?”
    “ English?” He tilted his angular face, the tip of his sword lowering ever so slightly. “What are you? What House are you of and why do you speak the English?”
    “ I speak the English because I'm from the America,” I frowned at him, “and I'm a human. What exactly are you and, if you don't mind, where