The Tower

by L. A. McGinnis

  The nonstop screaming was no longer her biggest concern. No, right now, on the other side of that thick steel barricade, she heard a sound that sent every instinct in her body into shut down. A deep, snuffling sound, like a large animal, issued through the inch-wide crack under the door. With her frantic gaze pinned on that narrow sliver, she spotted something big moving.

  Balder crashed past tangles of bodies, crushed and half devoured, stepped over what was left of the dead Domenic had raised from the Underworld, slid through pools of blood, and finally found his way down to the basement dungeons where he had discovered Hel weeks ago.

  He knew—if Gabriella was here—this was where he’d find her. And everything inside him urged him to go to her, to pick her up in his arms, and take her away from here.

  He hadn’t counted on one of Hel’s giant beasts guarding the door.

  Its enormous head was to the ground, its shoulders filling up the entire hallway, and it looked like to was trying to eat its way through the reinforced door. And no shit, with those long, leathery wings tucked in tight against its back, it really was a cross between a dragon and a snake.

  Gabriella had to be inside that room.

  He had a gun in one hand, a twelve-inch razor knife in the other, and felt woefully under-armed.

  Just as he was edging around to the thing’s left flank, hoping for a shot at its snaky, unguarded neck, the creature spotted him. For a quick, tense second, they just stared at each other, and then the thing struck. Like an asp. In and out, faster than anything that big should have been able to move. A low moan came from behind the door. They both froze. And then Hel’s creature resumed the hunt.

  Balder had killed lots and lots of monsters in his years. He was confident he could kill this one, too, but it seemed like a shame, when they were both on the same side. He figured he’d stall.

  “I’m here to get her out, you big”—stab, stab, stab—“stupid…” He punched that thick snout so hard the thing had to shake it off. “Snake.” It backed off a pace, sizing him up, settling its weight onto its haunches. “Look. We’re both here for the same, exact reason, and I hardly see the point in killing my allies, so why don’t we work together?”

  Funny thing was, the thing sank back farther on its heels, neck pulled in, as if to strike, but then just held that pose and waited. Cautiously, Balder reached for the door, slid back the deadbolts, and turned the knob.

  Gabriella lay on the floor, her eyes wide and staring, her face flecked with blood. At the sight of him, she blinked, then her face scrunched up as she began crying silently. He knelt beside her.

  “I’m here,” he murmured, his heart constricting painfully, feeling her tremble beneath his hand. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ve got you, Gabriella—and I’m taking you away from here. Domenic will never touch you again.”

  He found her. He’d found her and she was alive. He hadn’t lost her after all, and his life—their lives—could go on. As a little more of the dark fog fell away, a mix of fear and hope and relief washed through him with the strength of a tsunami.

  Gently, Balder gathered her up in one smooth movement and spun out of the door, telling the creature, “Clear a path so I can get her out.” And followed the sinuous, leathery back of the monster as it swallowed everything standing in their way.

  Hel raced to the form lying in the snow, feeling along the leathery hide for any sign of life. Her fingers came away wet and cool, dark with blood. Nothing. Her beautiful baby was dead. She glared up at the window. Someone was going to pay for this.

  She glided into the house, killing the first thing she saw, a man with a large automatic weapon. When he pointed it at her, she simply made his head explode. And on and on it went. Fury, the kind she’d never before experienced, flowed through her like the blood of her beast.

  She sang to their suffering, like the notes of the most beautiful orchestra, and left silence in her wake. Even her fear of Domenic was forgotten as she tore apart his world, this perfect, gilded, cage of his, and she intended to destroy it, sliver by glorious sliver.

  She heard shouting behind her and turned, intent on shredding the newcomers, only to come face to face with Odin and Loki, guns drawn. “Welcome to the party,” she crooned, proceeding to end a slew of guards skittering into the room, two of her beautiful babies hot on their heels.

  “Have you seen Ava?” Odin yelled over the chaos, “or Balder?”

  “Balder headed to the dungeons to get Gabriella. I haven’t seen Ava.” Hel raised her hands and four more guards dropped to the floor. “Where is he getting all these bodies?” she shouted over the din of fighting from above. Growling. Screaming. Not waiting for an answer, she headed for the doorway.

  Odin watched Hel disappear, as one of her monsters crashed down the hallway, trailing behind her like a pet dog. Pointing Loki to the right, he headed left, through a passageway, ending up in an open, glassed in room. Ava stood in the middle, night seeping from her like ink staining the snow, eyes obsidian-bright and flinty-hard, staring straight at him.

  “Ava?” Odin halted in her tracks. “Ava, thank the gods, I’ve come to bring you home.” Some part of him hoped the sound of her name would jog a memory, but there was nothing left of the girl he’d once known. Not a whisper of Ava Burke on the empty face in front of him.

  Whatever possessed her was overflowing its edges, like a river swollen after a rain. A dull, pounding force radiated from her, a heartbeat that made the glass around them vibrate. She laughed, the low, rattling sound rising and falling along with the radiating power, and then stared straight into Odin.

  That stare tore him apart. As if each layer of him—skin, flesh, bones—was being turned inside out, edge to edge, until coldness stabbed through his very middle.

  “Oh gods, Ava,” Odin moaned. “You’re killing me.”

  Pleasure danced in those glittering blue eyes of hers. “You should take what you came for. And leave.” Ava’s gaze shifted down to where the dungeons were. And then past the windows. Outside, to where the Hummers waited.

  The blackness broke apart in her eyes, just for a second, just long enough for Odin to believe it was real, and then Ava told him, her chest heaving, “He’s coming. You have only moments, Odin. Once he’s here, even your beasts cannot save you.” As if she were fighting an unseen foe, she stepped back, begging, “Please, please, don’t make me kill you.”

  When Odin tried to catch Ava by the arm, she stumbled away, blackness pouring from her in waves, and Loki raced in a moment later, his horrified gaze jumping between the two of them.

  A veritable cloud of ink obscuring her, Odin tried yet again. “I’ll carry you out of here if I have to, damn it.”

  But when she turned, her gaze was blank, and the Ava he thought he’d seen had vanished. In her hand the ball of magic spun, blue and fiery and pulsing with evil.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Loki rasped, dragging him away, “She doesn’t recognize you.” When she raised her arm to heave the elemental weapon at them, they raced from the room, the explosion chasing them down the hall. The place was littered with bodies, the floors slick with blood, then darkness overwhelmed the house as Domenic arrived, crushing everything in his path. “We leave now, Odin, or we don’t leave at all,” Loki warned, the house groaning around them as Domenic’s power surged through the structure. Common sense agreed, even though Odin’s heart dragged its feet.

  Regrouping on the other side of the wide yard, Odin helped Balder load a limp Gabriella into the back of the other Hummer. Wrapped in his coat, she looked half-dead. “She’s alive,” Balder muttered, “barely.” Jumping into the other vehicle with Loki, Odin pulled alongside and waited. From across the yard, Hel stumbled through a snowbank and climbed into the back of Balder’s vehicle and they took off.

  Balder leading the way, they drove fast and in silence. Overhead, Odin caught the shadows of Hel’s beasts flapping above them, intermittent silhouettes against the starry sky, when they weren’t c
aught up in a sheet of blowing snow.

  Fly, he thought to them, fly hard and fast. Get far away.

  Ava was still Ava.

  He had to believe it. Despite what he’d felt, despite what he’d seen, he had to believe Ava was still in there, somewhere. Fighting to exist.

  “How am supposed to tell Morgane what I just saw back there?” Loki asked, every word bitter. “Ava’s been through so much, but after seeing her like that… I’d hoped that maybe, she’d be able to survive that monster, but she’s gone.”

  Odin bit his tongue, part of him convinced of what he’d seen, part of him already doubting himself. One thing was for sure.

  Domenic was coming. He’d be coming for all of them now, and Odin knew they didn’t stand a chance. But saving his people was the only thing that mattered, like it always had. Pushing the vehicle harder, snow flew up behind them, a long, flowing rooster tail of white, flooded with red by the taillights.

  “Once we get back to Oak Park, we evacuate.”

  57

  Gabriella woke in a bed she didn’t recognize, in a room she’d never seen before, but Balder was curled up beside her, one big arm thrown over her, and for a moment that was all that mattered. For now, she was just Gabbie, and he was just Balder. Life was simple and right.

  When Balder opened his eyes and found her staring straight into them, he smiled. Not the wicked smile he’d been sporting these past few days, but a softer, warmer version of it. One she believed she could live with.

  “Are we safe?”

  He nodded slightly. “For now, yes, we’re safe.”

  “You came for me.”

  That mischievous smile broadened. “Well, yeah—me and seven of Hel’s beasts. It took all of us to get you out of there.” The light flickered and died in his eyes. “Not soon enough, Gabbie. Not before Domenic got his hands on you. I thought I’d lost you.”

  She reached out and traced his jaw, from his ear to the thumb-sized indent in his chin, pausing there. “You got me out of there,” she reaffirmed. “And I shouldn’t have gone back to Gavrinis in the first place.”

  “Why did you?” His words sounded tormented, even before he added, “And you know better than to go alone.”

  “I had to find answers. I had to know if I could help you. Or not.”

  “It wasn’t worth the risk, you never should have…”

  She pushed her finger up to his lips, hushing him. They were incredibly soft, like velvet.

  “I don’t want to talk right now. Words—they always mix everything up between us.” She sucked his bottom lip instead, pulling it into her mouth.

  The kiss turned dizzying and felt right too. Gabriella tangled both hands in his hair and kissed him harder, cataloguing the way he groaned when she delved her tongue in a certain way, tracing his teeth. That intoxicating scent of him enfolded her, spice and citrus, and her entire world narrowed down to that—the smell of him and the feel of his lips against hers.

  He might be different. He might be darker, but he was hers, goddamn it.

  And she wanted all of him.

  “This is what I want, Balder,” she informed him, her voice impossibly breathless. “No more Mr. Nice Guy. I want you to put me up against the wall. I want your fingers inside of me. And then I’ll tell you what I want next.”

  “Sounds fair enough,” he murmured against her mouth. “I tend to take direction well.”

  “We’ll see,” she countered, going in for another deep kiss, teasing another groan out of him, feeling a reciprocal spear of lust between her legs. She went to push him backwards, and he pushed up to his knees instead, bringing her with him. She growled slightly in protest as he stood, the covers falling away.

  “Wall, remember? Fingers?”

  “Oh… yeah.” She moaned, his lips on her throat, and then her back hit the wall at the same time her legs wrapped around his waist, pulling his cock right up against her until her weight rode firmly atop him, only the thin silk of her panties between them, the fabric slippery and wet. The slow strokes of pressure along her clit was the most erotic thing she’d ever felt, and chemistry sizzled between them, with Balder’s spicy scent filling her nose, and his teeth sunk into her skin.

  He overwhelmed her, a press of solid muscle, and all she could think of was him inside her, pounding.

  Rocking against him, she dimly felt him strip her underwear, and then he slid up into her until she settled upon him, her core full, so blissed-out she barely registered anything except the slide of him in and out, him lifting her to gain better access, the dancing of her orgasm along the edge of her consciousness, his furious breathing against her ear.

  Their lovemaking was explosive, against the wall, her arms aching from hanging on, him wrapped around her as he pounded into her, the orgasm spiraling higher until she broke apart, and the only thing holding her up was Balder’s arm and the pressure of his chest against hers.

  Three more furious strokes and he shouted, then released his grip on her, and she slid down his sweaty body, her head falling into the crook of his neck.

  “Okay,” she murmured weakly, “I’m good with this.

  “New Balder takes direction pretty well.”

  Epilogue

  As it turned out, Wisconsin was not nearly as comfortable as Oak Park and twice as cold. The emergency bolt hole was set up decades ago for eight immortals with no personal preferences and little need for comfort, not for this eclectic mix of immortals, women, and a newborn.

  But the cabin had heat. And it was remote. So, they made do.

  In the middle of the night, in front of a guttering fire, Gabriella stared into the midnight blue of Remus’s wide, inquisitive eyes. He stared back, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking. And maybe he did, since they always seemed to wake at the same time together every night.

  Adjusting the babe in her arms, she watched as one of Hel’s dragons, the Drachii—as the death goddess called them—flew overhead, the winged serpent casting a long, lean shadow against the moonlight. She watched the creature bank and make another graceful pass. They never left, guarding the small compound from above.

  Her mate and the Goddess of the Underworld had reached some sort of uneasy agreement, for the moment. Odin had taken charge of things, decreeing they were here until the weather broke. And she had a plan to heal Balder, although this new version was growing on her. He’d softened, his previous, nobly honorable personality tempering this new darker nature. He was changing, adapting, trying to regain a semblance of his former self.

  If Gabriella knew him at all, he’d succeed, just out of sheer stubbornness.

  Despite the changes, at last, she had the family she’d always wanted, instead of the one she’d been born into. A family she didn’t fear. When Balder’s steady hands slid over her shoulders, she leaned back gratefully. “I wondered where you’d gone off to. I thought you’d left me,” he teased.

  “I heard him crying,” she whispered. “I couldn’t sleep, anyway, so I sent Celine back to bed and told her I’d stay up with him until morning.” Balder had become her rock, a solid, resolute presence, and she leaned back further into his warmth.

  “I’ll sit with you, if that’s okay.”

  “That’d be nice.” They both watched as Remus’s thumb drifted to his mouth, his eyes shuttering closed. “Three months, Odin estimates, before the snows stop and we can move again. Does that sound right to you?”

  “Yeah,” Balder agreed. “Given how bad the weather’s been, and what he’s foreseen, I’ll take him at his word. I have to admit, I’m looking forward to spending three months with you, even if we are crammed into this cabin like sardines.” His embrace tightened. “Gabriella, whatever’s to come…”

  With a warm baby cuddled in her arms, she cut him off. “Whatever’s coming, we’ll deal with it together, Balder. We’re family now.” She turned to face him. “And I’ll be damned if I let anyone rip my family apart. Especially a wanna-be-god wrapped up in a mobster’s body.”
/>   “Amen to that.” Balder chuckled, his lips finding hers.

  Thank you so much for reading!

  If you enjoyed The Tower, please consider leaving a short review

  I would thank you from the bottom of my heart! -L.A.

  The Banished Gods Series

  continues with the final installment: The World

  Keep reading to find out what happens next….

  THE WORLD

  CHAPTER 1

  Odin watched the rivulets of snowmelt drip down the tips of the icicles like winter’s final tears.

  “About fucking time.”

  Three months.

  Three months, cloistered up here in BFE Min-e-sota, trapped by four-foot snowfalls and even higher drifts. But what had kept them snowed-in had kept darker, scarier things out.

  Mostly.

  So far, the creatures that had gotten through hadn’t made it past Hel’s dragons…or Drachii, as she was calling them, and what did make it through, Fen’s long teeth made quick work of.

  So the question was, as it had been for the past ninety days—to go north or south. Still split fifty-fifty on that decision, despite months of arguing. Retreat or fight. Tough call.

  “Road’ll be clear by the end of the week.” Tyr observed, all casual-like from the doorway. Tyr, one of the fifty percent who voted to head back to Chicago, with Hunter at his side, of course. Ready to fight this war till the bitter end. “We should send a scouting party out tonight. Be back in two days at the most.”

  They could. Except Odin had already looked down that particular road.