Fatal Ties: An Urban Fantasy Novel (The Lillim Callina Chronicles Book 7)

by J. A. Cipriano

“Can you guys hold the line a little longer while Thes and I go down there?” I smiled at them, trying to beat back the fear and doubt in their faces through sheer determination. “Cause if you can, we can win this.” I raised my fist. “Cause I’ve got a super-serious punch in store for Nidhogg.” I turned back to Thes and grinned maniacally. “What do you say? Want to help me punch that dragon in the face?”

  He was silent until Connor took a step forward. A sly smile played across his lips as he glanced from me to Thes and back again. He knew my game.

  “Either way, I’m coming with you, Lillim. Hot chicks in leather is kind of my thing.” His grin broadened as he began coming toward me, and yes, part of me wanted to shake him violently. Had he seriously just said that? “Thes, you can stay if you like, but I have no doubt in my mind these guys can hold up just fine without you. They’re big boys.”

  Struggle filled Thes’s features as he stood there looking at me. I could tell he wanted to come with me. I wasn’t sure if it was just because he wanted to find out about Sekhmet, but either way, he wanted to come. Only, he couldn’t abandon his post. Like I said, he was the kind of leader who would do anything for his people, and he would not leave their side. Damn.

  Thes started to say something, but as the first sounds of speech burbled out of his mouth, a chorus of cheers erupted from the gathered warriors. It pushed Thes’s retort back down his throat, and I was glad for it because that cheer meant he was going to go down into the depths of Nifelheim with me so we could fight a dragon the size of Godzilla. God-freaking-damn.

  11

  “So, you think I’m hot?” I asked, glancing at Connor. We’d been walking for about an hour. I’d sort of expected the sinkhole to go straight down, but it didn’t. Instead, it flowed down at an angle as though it belonged to the burrow of a giant worm. We’d long since left behind the remains of civilization and were now deep in the rocky strata. I wasn’t sure how far we had to go since the earth was nearly eight thousand miles in diameter, but Connor kept insisting we were close. I was beginning to think his definition of the word and mine were very, very different.

  Besides, it was cold, a lot colder than I’d expected. For some reason, I’d expected it to be moist and warm, like a journey into Hell ought to be, but instead, the suffocating cold of dead earth pulled the heat from my body and made me shiver. It made me glad my Dioscuri fighting suit had extra padding in certain places.

  Connor’s eyes went wide as he glanced at me. “Um—”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think,” I said, cutting him off with a wave of my free hand. “Did you think making a comment about coming with me because you think I look hot was a good way to make people think I was capable?” I settled a face-melting glare on him. “Comments like that set my gender back at least fifty years.”

  “I, erm…” Connor glanced at Thes for help, but the werewolf was very pointedly looking away from us, which was good because from the smile on his lips he was relishing this moment, although I didn’t know why. It made me wonder how many times Thes had seen Connor stick his foot into his mouth. Probably a lot.

  “Spit it out!” I waved my katana at him. Blue sparks leapt from the surface as it shined with pale indigo light. It was the only thing keeping us from absolute darkness, and while I wasn’t sure if Thes or Connor could see in the dark, I certainly couldn’t. I’d managed to make it about a hundred yards in the dark before I turned on the light.

  Sure, if something saw me it’d know exactly where I was, but come on, we were following a hole made by Nidhogg. It probably wouldn’t matter if he could see us coming or not since he was likely to smell us well before we came into view. I mean, yes, optimally, no light, but there was no way I was walking miles underground in the dark.

  “That wasn’t my intention.” Connor shook his head and had the decency to look embarrassed.

  “Of course it wasn’t. Guys never think about it like that. They think, ‘oh I’m complimenting her,’” I said, and the urge to punch him in his stupid face was nearly overwhelming. “Let me be clear here. You wouldn’t have said that about He-man over there.” I jerked a thumb at Thes. “He’s like a Greek freaking god, but I didn’t say ‘hey, Thes, come down here because you have big muscles, and I’m a tiny girl who needs a big strong man.’”

  “Lillim,” Thes said, and the way he looked at me, made me think I was being unfair. “Maybe you should chill a bit. I think we can all agree Connor is an idiot.”

  It was possible I was overreacting. I mean, I hadn’t started off this annoyed, but as we’d progressed down through the darkness, I realized the last thing my people had heard before I left was that the destroyer was going to follow me down here because I was pretty. Screw that noise. Connor wasn’t just some guy. He was the Dioscuri’s boogieman. That kind of power had responsibility.

  “I am an idiot,” Connor replied, examining the scuff marks on his Chuck Taylors like they were the most interesting shoes in the world.

  “Yeah, why else would you wear shoes with patented nineteen fifties’ technology for a walk to the underworld?” Thes shook his head. “You’ll have blisters the size of mountains by the time we get there.”

  “Firstly, I make these look good.” Connor clicked his heels together like there was no place like home. Unfortunately, he remained put. “Secondly, why don’t you put on a shirt or some pants?” Connor put one hand over his mouth, and the next bit came out in a startlingly clear rendition of Darth Vader. “I find your lack of pants disturbing.”

  Before Thes could reply, I socked Connor hard in the shoulder. He winced and let out a yowl as his eyes fixed on me.

  “I’m being serious,” I snapped, glaring right back at him. “If you ever do that shit again, I will cut off your balls and hang them beneath my pickup truck. I don’t even own a pickup truck, but I’ll get one just for the occasion, capiche?”

  “Yeah,” Connor said, shaking his head in a way that made me think he was blowing me off, chalking my reaction up to hormones and general bitchiness. I swear if the next thing out of his mouth was “I was on the rag,” I’d kill him. “I get it. I will never call you pretty again.” He crossed his heart.

  “Ugh!” I said, throwing my hands up as I marched past them. I had enough body issues to deal with without people thinking I was incapable.

  “I swear, Connor, it’s like you’ve never talked to a girl ever,” Thes said, shaking his head. I glanced sidelong at the werewolf to see him watching me carefully. I wasn’t sure what the gleam in his brown eyes meant, but I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “Admittedly, most of the girls I talk to start the conversation with ‘Ick, go away.’ There’s not a lot to say after that.” He shrugged, and as he did, I remembered something. Connor might have been joking about being unable to talk to girls, but he’d dated Thes’s sister, and the last time I’d seen her had been when a sniper had put some silver bullets into her. My heart leapt into my throat. Was she okay?

  “Speaking of girls who think you’re icky,” I said, spinning around and walking backward so I was facing the two of them. It was probably unwise since we were heading toward certain doom, but at the same time, this trek was boring. Yeah, I know, complacency kills, but you know what else kills? Boredom.

  “What?” Connor asked a lot more hesitantly than I thought he would.

  “How’s your sister, Thes?” I said, ready to put on my best apologetic face. I mean, I hoped she was okay, but I hadn’t seen her out there. Was she dead? I hoped not. I mean that too. I really, really wanted Charity to be alive, and not just because it’d make me feel less guilty.

  “She’s fine. She’s with Halcyon on the other front.” Thes shrugged. “I didn’t know you cared.”

  “I care,” I sighed. “I mean, I was right there when she got shot.”

  “Yeah,” Thes said, but didn’t elaborate. Was that why he’d been so pissed at me? It made sense. I’d be angry at me if were him. After all, I’d gotten his sister involved. If I hadn’t,
she wouldn’t have gotten shot.

  “Sorry,” I said because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “It isn’t your fault.” Thes shrugged, and I realized he really needed to stop with the whole shirtless werewolf thing. He was way too hot to go around bare-chested, and not the good kind of hot. No, he was the bad kind of hot. The kind of hot that made me want to hook up with him just so I could feel him pressed against me.

  I wasn’t even that kind of girl, and I had a boyfriend, who while he wasn’t there when I woke up, was pretty damned hot himself, and yet I still wanted Thes on an intrinsically human female level. A lot. It was scary, especially because I knew Thes knew that. He’d lamented about it before, and as much as I’d wanted to tell him it was okay and he was wrong, it wasn’t okay and he wasn’t wrong.

  To be fair, he probably didn’t want to be dressed in only gym shorts, but that whole shifting into a werewolf thing tended to completely destroy clothing. I wasn’t sure why the gym shorts hadn’t torn to shreds, but I was glad he had them. Let’s just say, if I saw any more of him, I might not be able to contain myself. I’d leap on him, push him to the ground, and well, you can finish that thought.

  Besides, how would it look to do that after I’d just admonished Connor for the same thing? No, I was keeping my thoughts to myself.

  “That’s nice of you to say…” I swallowed hard while trying to make eye contact. It was hard because my eyes kept dropping to those V-shaped muscles beside his abdomen that were like my version of kryptonite.

  “It’s true though.” He smirked at me. “I mean, yeah, you can totally blame yourself if you want to do it. I’m not going to stop you, but she should have smelled that sniper long before he got a shot off.” Thes tapped his nose, drawing my eyes back to his face. “That’s what Halcyon told her too.”

  “So are you saying she does blame me, and your alpha told her she should have been better?” Thes nodded, and I knew in that instant Charity would probably never forgive me. It was one thing to be responsible, but it was quite another for others to tell Charity to get over it because it was her own fault. I didn’t believe Thes when he’d said I was innocent any more than Charity probably did. While he might be a golden-furred wolf god now, he hadn’t been before. He’d have gotten shot too if that sniper had been around.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Connor said, shooting me a wide grin. “But I told her how hot she looked in bandages and she got over it.”

  I’m not sure what the look on my face was exactly, but Connor actually cringed. It was unfortunate too because I really wanted to be able to repeat a glare that could drive fear into the heart of the destroyer. C'est la vie.

  I spun around and let out a small sigh. Well, so much for small talk. So far I’d managed to bitch at Connor and make myself feel guilty. Awesome.

  “So, whas a fine lookin’ shawty doin’ round here?” The guy in front of us had appeared so suddenly, I hadn’t seen him until he was all up in my grill. He wasn’t tall, per se, especially when compared to Thes. Maybe five ten on a good day, but he was also all of three feet from me.

  He pulled on the straps of his stained wife-beater while staring at me with creepy brown eyes, and I knew, just knew, he was picturing me naked. A shiver ran down my spine as I surveyed the squirrel tattoos covering every inch of his exposed flesh. Squirrels playing hoops, jumping rope, using a rocket launcher to assault other squirrels. It was nuts.

  “Excuse me?” I said, pointing my katana at him.

  “Who the hell are you?” Connor said, taking a step between us. His hands were curled into fists and actual black smoke drifted off of him in a dark haze. He was pissed, and while I sort of wanted him to deck the guy, I’d sort of like to know who he was beforehand. He didn’t strike me as particularly powerful, and I had the destroyer and a werewolf with me. We could probably chat before we turned him into a puddle.

  “Wasn’ talkin’ ta you. Damn Great Value god. Think ya all that? You ain’t shit. Friggin’ discount destroyer,” the man sneered as he wove around Connor and stepped in front of me. It happened so fast it was almost like he had vanished and reappeared. Hell, maybe he had. I knew things that had been prone to do that. “I was talkin’ to this fine lil’ shawty. She built stupid good.”

  “You need to step back,” I said, but before I could do more, his hand snapped out, grabbing me by the hair. He jerked me toward him with so much strength I thought he’d ripped my hair out from its roots. I stumbled forward into him, and his smell, like cigarettes and cheap beer hit me full on. I probably would have gagged, but before I could my entire world exploded into blinding starlight.

  12

  When my vision snapped back into place, Thes and Connor were both gone, and I was standing in a room with plush pink shag carpet, mood lighting, and Kanye playing on the stereo, which was almost worse than the sudden displacement. I wasn’t sure how the hell I had gotten here, nor where here was exactly, but I knew one thing. It wasn’t somewhere I wanted to be. Not even slightly.

  The guy from before stood only a few feet away. He had his with his back to me and his shirt off, revealing more tattoos along with several Nordic characters stenciled across his shoulder blades like the last name on the back of some thug. Hey, I wasn’t judging. After all, my mom had been all tatted up, but my abduction, combined with him wasn’t jiving even a little. A sick little twist of fear welled up from my stomach, and as I reached for my swords, that fear leapt into frigging hyper drive. My swords were gone because of course they were.

  He must have heard me moving because he turned and gave me that same “I’m envisioning you bent over a table” look, only this time there was a lot more heat behind it. His nose twitched as he sucked in a shallow breath and smiled. His front teeth were huge and yellow, abnormally so, but the rest of his teeth were otherwise okay. It was a little weird, making me think that when he’d traded his Christmas presents for two front teeth, he’d made the deal with the Easter Bunny instead of Santa Claus.

  “How’s it goin’ shawty?” he said, his tongue flicking across his lips as he spoke. He leaned back against a burnt leather chair and watched me carefully. “Have a nice nap?”

  “Nap?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him while searching for some kind of weapon. Aside from the chair and a rather oversized bed in the corner, the room was completely empty. Awesome.

  He shrugged by way of answer and grabbed his jeans with one hand. He was wearing a belt, but it didn’t seem to be doing a very good job of holding his pants up because I could see a healthy portion of his acorn-patterned boxers. I watched him for half a second before realizing he was undoing said belt. My blood ran cold. Was he seriously about to do what I thought he was about to do?

  “What are you doing?” I said, my voice nearly empty of emotion as I curled my left hand into a fist. I was going to hit him so hard his grandchildren would walk sideways.

  “What ya think I’m doin’ shawty?” He grinned wider as he pulled his belt free and let it drop to the plush carpet. It seemed loud even over Kayne’s crooning. “Goin’ ta give ya the business.” His lips quirked. “Don’t worry. I gots the skills.”

  “Yeah, that isn’t happening,” I said, calling upon my power. While I didn’t have my swords to draw from, I was still strong as hell on my own, and what’s more, I had the power of Idun’s apple thrumming through my veins. I wasn’t sure if it was enough, but I was betting it’d hurt a lot more than a bee sting.

  His face fell as confusion played across his features. I wasn’t sure why, but my refusal threw him off, which struck me as odd. Surely girls didn’t normally go along with this. What was happening to the world? Either way, he was still getting punched. I shut my eyes, even though I shouldn’t have, and sucked in a breath. Power that tasted of oak and maple trees flowed into me.

  “Oh, I got it now.” He snapped his fingers, and the sound shattered my concentration. My power fell away from me as my eyes shot open to see him standing there with a fat stack of bills i
n his hand. As my eyes went to the money, then back to his face, I saw he was grinning. “Ya one of those Craigslist shawties. Got to pay to play. I can respect that. Bills is bills.” He tossed the money on the ground by my feet and made a show of turning around.

  Oh good. And here I thought I couldn’t possibly get any more pissed off.

  “Are you trying to pay me for sex?” I asked, and the surge of anger rising up inside me was damned near boiling hot. For one, I wasn’t that kind of girl. For two, no amount of money would get me underneath this freak.

  He turned back around, that same confusion from before playing across his face. “Not sure I follow ya, shawty.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ya stupid fine, but I’m not tryin’ ta make a career out of it. Nomsayin?” He took a step forward, one hand outstretched toward me.

  Oh, that was it! This bastard was going down right-freaking-now!

  “Oh, I understand,” I replied, taking his hand. My plan was to blast a hole through his smug, expectant face, but before I could, something strange happened. As his flesh touched mine, warm energy oddly similar to what I felt when I’d touched Thes, prickled along my skin. I wasn’t sure what he was, but it definitely wasn’t human. I’d have almost guessed he was a shifter, but that wasn’t quite right either.

  “Good,” he said, turning to lead me toward the massive bed. “Be bad if we din’t understand each other.”

  Real fear flooded through me. Suddenly, it occurred to me, I might not be the strongest person here… and what that would mean for me. It was enough to nearly make me crack, but I didn’t. If I did, I was screwed. Yeah, take that statement however you like because it’d be true.

  The three steps it took us to reach the bed felt like they took forever and passed in a second simultaneously. I tried to draw in as much power as I could with each step, but the dread from what he planned made it hard to concentrate. I could tell from his touch he was strong, stronger than I’d expected. If I hit him and failed, well, things were going to end badly for me. Call me crazy, but I really didn’t want that to happen.