by A. K. Koonce
Maybe what we have is magic . . .
“Your mother left the gods. She met a hybrid elf.” Aric’s sigh is long and unending, and I hang on his every unspoken word. “She met the wrong elf though.”
“That’s enough,” Torben growls.
“The King?” I ask, slowly piecing it all together little by little.
Aric just nods without a word.
“What happened?” I can’t take my eyes off of him as he dwells on his response, careful not to bring out Torben’s anger in the first hour of his release from his little museum prison.
“The King loved her. Some say she made him love her. Hela says it all the time. Love magic, the most pathetic magic of all as she would spew.”
I shake my head at that, sobering at the idea that the emotions I make people feel is just magic.
“It’s not magic.”
He stops in his tracks, his boots slopping hard in the mud.
“Prove it,” Aric stands before me, waiting to be transformed into some beautiful, lovesick puppy.
“There’s nothing to prove.” I lift my shoulders at him with a half shrug, but at the back of my mind, I can’t help but remember every time I made someone feel better with the magic I didn’t understand inside of me. I remember the kiss the shiest boy in school gave Bea on my last day in the Dark Moon Pack . . .
I—I don’t want to believe that those feel-good moments aren’t real. I definitely don’t want to believe that what I have with Aric isn’t real . . .
Torben grunts at the two of us, and Aric slowly lowers his gaze from me and turns to follow after our ruthless guide. I just refuse to let it go though.
I can’t.
My hand catches his, and with all my might, I send out the shivering magic that I’ve given away time and time again. It expels in a lame half power that’s stunted within this realm. But the way my dragon shifter’s big eyes widen tells me he feels that magnetic magic that I never understood.
I don’t believe those who feel it understand it either.
Maybe that’s what my magic and true love have in common: Both are undeniable enigmas.
My hand drops from his, and just as quickly as I sent that rush of power out, I take it away, leaving him with confusion weighing his brow.
It’s then that I kiss him. I push my hands through his hair and pull him against me hard, slamming my lips to his to taste every part of my beautiful, tormented lover. Needy hands grip my hips hard before sliding even lower to press me firmly against him as he deepens the kiss with a swirl of his tongue. It’s a consuming moment. I’m lost in him, and every single terrible part of this realm no longer exists.
It’s just us.
Even as I pull away and look up at those fiery russet eyes. They’re hooded as he stares down on me with a lost look of love.
“That’s the difference,” I explain with my words whispering against his parted mouth. A smile pulls there, and he nods.
“I see,” he says, still leaning into me as if he might dive right back in.
“We’re running out of time, if you two could wrap it up,” Torben barks, and neither one of us looks his way.
My fingers stroke against the hard lines of Aric’s jaw. His lips press over mine once more, and I nearly give in to that building desire he gives me with every teasing feel of his lips.
“Latham’s twelve stories up.”
That’s what severs the magic of our emotions in two.
I pull away and peer out into the darkness to find Torben standing in front of a building so black, it nearly bleeds into the night. The entrance is just to the right of the warrior who doesn’t seem too ready to lead the way inside.
With just a few steps closer, the shriek of screams crawls out of the enormous, towering building. The sobs of men are all I hear just behind that door.
Latham’s inside.
His voice might be one of those heartbreaking cries.
And that’s all I think about as I grip the handle and let the sound of all that pain crash over me.
9
Neverend
Rhys
Prisoners shriek at us as we pass, but I know I won’t stop until I reach the twelfth floor.
“It’s the tower of Neverend. The more powerful prisoners are kept on the last five floors.” Torben trails behind me as I pass the cages built into the walls. They line the hall, but every now and then, the building shifts, cutting me off at a dead end and making me hike back to find a stairwell to carry me up to the next floor.
We’ve been inside for around half an hour, and we’re only on the fourth floor.
Latham needs me. Maybe I can’t rescue him tonight, but I need him to know I’ll come back . . .
Torben grunts when I turn abruptly down an endless hall. Quiet seeps in, the yells of the others fade with every rushing step I take. Their screams are like whispers now, raking over my flesh with an eeriness that settles right into my bones.
Just as I turn onto the fifth floor, the wall shifts . . . and I’m right back on the second floor landing. My jaw clenches, and I just know it’s Hela’s doing. I don’t know if she’s watching or controlling this screwed-up game called my life, but I know she’s responsible for all of this.
“We don’t have time for this, Rhys,” Torben tells me for somewhere around the hundredth time as I turn abruptly and look for the everchanging stairwell.
“We have an endless amount of time here, really,” Aric argues, possibly for the sake of arguing.
I roll my eyes at both of them, and my tattered shoes squeak when I turn the hall at too fast of a pace, avoiding the shift in the walls.
The changes of this screwed-up labyrinth of a world won’t stop me from seeing him.
Cage after dark cage blurs by, but it’s a strange magnetic pull that stops me dead in my tracks.
Rhys, he growls at the back of my mind.
Except it isn’t Latham in my head this time.
My mouth falls open as I stare down at the once-honored son of my Alpha.
“Kyvain,” I say slowly, assessing the blood and dirt that smears the angles of his angry face.
“Hhhelp me,” he mumbles on a quivering lip.
My heart is so startled, it doesn’t remember how to beat. It’s too fast and then skipping and shaking all at once.
I’m not afraid of him though. I never was. Seeing him like this just confirms that for the first time in my entire life.
The other men in his cell are hunched down and silent. The will in them has been beaten out. That’s why they’ve been placed in this Neverend prison.
Just like Latham.
But this realm isn’t just a place for the dishonored dead. It’s a place for monsters.
And Kyvain is both.
Aric’s groan is more of a growl, but Kyvain doesn’t look at the man who sent him to his new eternal dwelling place. He only looks at me with those big eyes and etchings of pleading sorrow written across his sunken face.
My battered boots squeak as I turn my back on him and keep walking. I’m the reason he’s here. But if it wasn’t for me . . . he’d have given Bea a lifetime of torment as her mate. As my mate, he earned a lifetime of death.
It seems fitting. It seems like justice.
Then why do I feel bad for what I’ve done to him?
My mind goes back and forth as I race through the halls, doubling back with each shift of the building, until finally the number twelve is written in big black numbers at the top of the stairs.
I drop to my knees the moment I feel him. A sudden sense of tiredness in my soul settles in from everything I’ve been through in the last several hours. Life feels too heavy right now.
I just can’t leave the one man who I’ll never stop thinking about for as long as I live.
“You shouldn’t be here, Rhys,” Latham tells me, his hand dangling from the lazy way he rests his arm across his bent knee. His head never lifts from the black brick wall he leans against, like he, too, is too exhausted from
sitting here to fully move anymore.
I’ve been in this place for less than a day. How long has Latham been here in between jobs Hela sends him on? How many days does he have left of pushing forward? How does he bear it at all?
No. I won’t leave him.
I pull at the dark, metal cage, but my strength must be waning. It doesn’t budge an inch. I shake my head and step back at Torben’s side.
“Torben.” I don’t look at him, but I feel all three men feeding me their intense attention. “Rip the bars open.”
The snort of one of them is the only sound. And I just know it has to be Aric’s arrogant ass.
“Torben’s a god, not a superhero, Love.” Aric snickers a bit more. “These cells are enchanted by the Queen of Hela. And no one has power like she does.”
“I have a key.”
I blink at that grumbling admission.
My head turns ever so slowly to look up at the man whose superpower this entire time has been lying his ass off to me.
“You’ve had the key the whole time?”
“Why do you think we hate each other so damn much?” Latham keeps his eyes gently closed as he speaks. “He protects me when we’re on missions. And imprisons me in our free time. He’s as bad as Serpan.”
I twist so fast that I’m standing and in his face within a flash of a second.
“You’ve had the key the whole time?!”
“I can’t help him.”
“You’ve had the key the whole fucking time?!” I screech so loudly that the screams from deep down the hall heckle in the wake of my anger.
“Yes. But—”
“Give it to me.” My lips purse as my hand juts out until it pokes him harshly in his big, brutish chest.
“You can’t release him, Princess.”
“Give. Me. The. Fucking. Key.”
“If you—”
And then I leap.
I climb that warrior of a man like most women only dream of doing. Except instead of wrapping my thighs around him, my arm cranes against his throat and windpipe. With more and more shaking power, I drag that enormous mountain of a man to the dirty ground. He gasps against my hold, my strength trembling out in waves that just have my wolf humming in satisfaction.
A clanking clatter skids across the soot-stained floor. I release him the moment the old wrought iron key is spotted near the wall. It’s rusted and overused in appearance.
The cold metal fills my hand, and the sheer weight of the large object is a reassuring sensation. The scrape of metal against metal grinds as I twist my wrist.
And then the door opens with a cry of hinges that numbs my senses. Latham looks at me through the open door. No bars separate me from his kind eyes. The breath in my lungs stutters.
On his hands and knees, he crawls to me in a scattering rush, slamming his chest to mine in a way that holds all my broken pieces perfectly in place again. The hammering of his heart is strong, despite how battered he looks. It pounds into my chest, making my heart mimic his as his lips skim across my ear.
“It’s dangerous how much I want you, Rhys,” he whispers like sin dipped in honey.
He lashes lower as he pulls back from me just slightly, and before I can catch my breath from his words, his mouth covers mine. He kisses me slowly, tasting me like a savory memory he’s thought about time after time. Only to have the sweet memory come to life against his lips once again.
It’s a sky-falling, earth-clattering kiss.
Unless . . .
“I told you not to fucking open the door!” Torben grabs my arm, and as the floor cracks open beneath my feet, he shoves me hard against Aric’s chest. “Get her out of here.”
And then sharp claws and scaley flesh shift around me. A growl erupts from the beast of a man as he runs down the hall, avoiding the breaking beams and clattering brick that falls around us. Wings break free from Aric’s back, and his wild eyes burn with a fire as he urges me and Latham down the chaotic hall and stairs.
The screams and shrieks of the other prisoners can be heard as we come closer to the end of the next cellblock. We’re almost there. We’re almost halfway through the maze of this chaotic building.
Fingers grip around my ankle, and I fall hard. Broken brick bites into my palm as I tumble down.
“Rhys. Please! Please, I know you’re not like them!”
My gaze meets Kyvain’s manic gaze. Fear shines in his eyes where cruel arrogance once beamed bright.
Even the dead are afraid of death, it seems.
And honestly, he’s right: as much as my heart hardens itself in this world, I’ll never be like them.
No matter how hard Hela tries to break me.
Aric grips my arm once more, and before I stumble off, I toss the thing that got me into this mess. The heavy key clanks against his cell wall, and a surprised look of awe in Kyvain’s big blue eyes is the last thing I see.
Before the roof caves in on us all.
10
A Quiet Night
Rhys
Fire burns wild within the city below. Reckless violence roars through the wind from the destruction we just left. I think I caused that. I wasn’t meant to use that key. And I don’t care about the consequences one fucking bit.
Because I have them now.
Finally.
My arms wrap tightly around Aric’s dragon’s neck, and I lean my full weight into him as he carries the three of us away to a destination I don’t even care to know.
I let my lashes close as I take in the feel of his rough scales and the whipping of the wind. It’s a quiet sound really. The recklessness of the air slashing around me is like pure silence after everything tonight.
It feels like I’ve been in this maze of a realm for a dreaded lifetime instead of just one night. Latham’s head leans against my neck, and the warm feel of his breath against my skin calms me even more. His hold on my waist wraps fully around, hugging me against his chest like he’ll never let me go.
My eyes open to the cool wind, and I can’t look away. Torben, he sits casually atop the dragon’s head, his hand holding loosely onto the horn just to his left. His long hair blows loosely. Every inch of him is dirty and bruised. Still, he doesn’t look tired as he holds his head high like he can see our future written across the dark skyline. He’s every bit the god he once was before Hell sunk its claws into him.
My heart flutters stupidly as I continue to gaze at him. It skips and trots along inside my chest like all of this will somehow have a happy ending.
His head tilts then, and he slowly looks back at me. His brooding eyes soften as he holds my gaze, and once more my heart falls all over itself.
Why?
I have no idea why . . .
How has so much changed between us with every passing day?
My head jostles hard along the dragon’s warm body. The air knocks from my lungs, and I’m immediately on high alert from the impact.
Except . . . no one’s here. We’ve landed in shadows and silence. A long wall of old scrap metal makes up the fortress we stand tall upon. The smoke in the distance tells me how much space separates us from the thick of the city.
The danger we just left.
“Why are we stopping?” I ask with wide eyes searching the landing as Latham takes my hand and helps me hop down from the enormous dragon.
Fire singes the air, and a sound of cracking snaps quietly before a familiar voice answers just behind me.
“Because we’re safe here,” his gravelly tone says like pure, dripping sex.
I turn slowly, and Aric’s fiery eyes catch mine . . . and then I note his very, very nude chest . . . torso . . . hips . . .
I blink slowly as he smiles deviously.
Latham’s heavy sigh is all I hear before his hand flits between us, and in the blink of an eye, a heavy wool sweater hangs on Aric’s body like an ill-fitted blanket thrown over his delicious body.
“That’s better,” Latham murmurs on a tired voice.
“Bet
ter for who? It’s fucking hot here!” Aric’s curses continue as he pulls roughly at the thick material. The cries about his wardrobe are shortly lived before Latham gives in and magics a thin, black T-shirt and black jeans on his friend.
“Now that’s better,” Aric says happily.
“Get your rest.” A disgruntled Torben lies back on the smooth metal that spans a few yards from one side to the other. “We have to leave this realm in just a few hours’ time. You’ll need your strength.”
I stare down at him as he crooks his arms behind his head and closes his eyes.
I know that answer that’s coming . . . but I ask anyway.
“Need my strength for what?”
A beat of silence dips in as the three of us look down at the most powerful man I know.
And even he’s concerned for our safety.
“For when we have to return to Hela,” he says.
My eyes close again and again to the quiet night and the cool comforting air.
And yet I can’t sleep.
Latham’s heavy breathing settled in the moment he lay down at my side. Aric’s snores are a subtle, calming sound.
As for me, I toss and turn on the hard rooftop of the wall.
We have to go back. It’s the only way out of this realm. I get it. I do . . .
But I’m as defenseless as the day I arrived in Hela’s world. My wolf is still a prisoner of my own keeping. I’m still their prisoner as well.
We all are.
“Stop thinking and start sleeping,” Torben grunts on a quiet breath.
I shift toward him instantly, part of me just happy that someone else is as miserably awake as I am.
Deep green eyes like the center of a sea peer at me through thick, hooded lashes. Those eyes are so tired, barely open. And yet they refuse to close.
“You should take your own advice,” I whisper back to him.
“Don’t know what you’re whispering for. Those two can sleep through a herd of demons. Not one single worry in their demented brains.” He nods at the two men snoozing peacefully on my other side.
