Persephone was fighting beside Artemis and Apollo against Hera and Aphrodite. Heph and E were still fighting demons, and my parents were fighting against several spirit daemons. I didn’t know their names or what they were the spirit of, but they were clearly on Strife’s side. Apparently, a few had joined my side as well. I saw them standing back to back with Rayna’s vampires, Jones’ shifters. Brennan and Jones fought against more shifters. We seemed to have it under control.
I should really, really know better than to ever think that.
Chapter Eighteen
I was watching Levitt when it happened. I was telling myself to congratulate him on being one of the fiercest damn fighters I’d ever seen as he cut down three vampires, then fought a demon who tried to sneak up on him. I cut down the last of my current wave of attackers.
And that was when Aphrodite appeared behind him. I screamed my warning, but I was too late. Her sword appeared, stuck through his chest, blade sticking out of the front of his body. I screeched, charged her, but she disappeared, leaving her sword in Levitt’s body. Levitt fell, and I crouched beside him.
“Levitt. Come on, man. Wait for Asclepias,” I urged, putting my hand on his head. He was already pale, his yes unfocused.
“I’m done, my Lady. Thank you for helping me live a life of purpose,” he said, his voice weak already.
“Hold on, damn it,” I ordered. Shanti had made her way over to us, and she was sobbing as she bent over him.
He looked at me one more time. “I’m going to die protecting innocents and fighting by your side. I’ll take it.”
And then his gaze shifted to Shanti, who was holding his face between her palms.
“Thank you,” he whispered to her, and she started sobbing harder.
And then he stilled. Gone. I screeched in rage and rematerialized in a group of vampires, just wanting to hurt something, just wanting to destroy. I was crying, snarling, and the vampires didn’t stand a chance against my rage. I was lost in my anger and grief, cutting down or setting any enemy I could reach on fire. I was so lost I barely heard Jamie’s scream from a few feet away.
I looked that way and watched Jones fall, his head taken from his body, still in wolf form. Jamie herself was caught between shift states, more human than wolf, but with an elongated snout, ears. Her scream was something between a scream and a howl.
Aphrodite again. And she was studying her work with pride as Jamie continued to howl.
She wouldn’t get another chance.
I took a play from her own book of dirty tricks, rematerialized behind her and grabbed her by the hair. Jamie charged her and tore into her throat, ripped with such viciousness it nearly made me sick. But she needed it. Her father, her pack’s alpha, had just fallen. Vengeance was hers, and I was glad I could give it to her.
Aphrodite fell, gurgling, missing most of her throat, eyes glazed over.
I tore into her mind, destroyed whatever was left as she lay bleeding on the ground.
So ended the goddess of love.
She was shitty at her job anyway.
When it was done, I fell to the ground. Exhausted. Sad, Angry. Full of rage and loss and guilt. Bleeding.
And I saw Brennan a few feet away. Watched him cut down an enemy.
I felt rage rise within me. Excitement. I fought it down.
I tried to, anyway.
Nether’s excitement only heightened as she freed more and more of herself from my control. I fought, begged. Did everything I could to keep her in control.
Watch this, Fury, she said in my mind.
And then I heard myself/her cackle and now our situations were reversed. She was the one in control, and I was the one forced to watch, forced to fight for control. I raged against her, fought harder than I’d ever fought anything in my life.
She zeroed in on Brennan, and I heard her laugh again. I heard Nain shout, heard my father say Nether’s name. Chaos.
And then she released a barrage of pure power, something I’d never seen before. In her insanity, still focusing on Brennan, still determined to destroy him. She didn’t even know why anymore. And I raged against her as I watched her release the power straight at him. And just when it was about to hit, my mother jumped in front of it, took the attack.
Saved his life, and fell, still, to the ground.
I screamed from my place inside Nether, fought her harder, raged against her. In her confusion over what had happened, I had a chance to fight through, and I did. Barely. I wrestled control back from her, pushed her down again as she raged against me.
My father was roaring as he crouched over Tisiphone’s still body. The battlefield had gone silent. Some of Strife’s people started running, coming to the conclusion that maybe this wasn’t a fight they wanted. Not today anyway. I crawled toward my mother. Hades snarled at me.
“It’s me, dad,” I said. “Oh my god.” Tisiphone’s body was a mess. A gaping, smoking wound in her stomach, where she’d taken the attack meant for Brennan.
“Save her,” Hades shouted, and I looked up to see him staring at me. “Save her, Mollis.”
“I..”
“Use your blood, damn it. Now!” Hades shouted. He looked insane. Desperate. Afraid. He sliced his veins open with one of Persephone’s daggers and let his blood pour into my mother. I dug my knife out of my pocket and did the same.
“Come on, mom,” I murmured. She was still there. Just barely. Nether, using my powers… shit. She could die. She was close to it, and there would be no coming back because of the nature of what I could do. I felt panic rise within me as my father and I tried to save her. Hades and I let our blood, our life forces, pour into her. I lost track of how many times I sliced my body.
I could feel myself weakening. I could feel my heart start struggling against the demands set on it by the constant loss of blood, I could feel my mind clouding, my body tiring.
I couldn’t lose her. Not this way. I couldn’t live, knowing she’d died by my hands. My mother, who’d done what she thought best to keep me safe. Who’d wanted nothing more than my happiness, my safety. My mother, who taught me what it meant to be a Fury.
I started crying as my body started giving out. She didn’t look a whole lot better. I couldn’t feel any improvement in her. I let out a gasp, struggled for breath as my body started failing me.
“Enough, Molls,” Nain called. His voice sounded all weird and echoey.
A being appeared out of nowhere in front of me, and I looked up.
Right into Strife’s glowing purple eyes.
“Remember who freed you, My Lady. Find me when you are able.”
And I felt her blade slice across my throat. I heard Nain roar.
And the world went black.
Chapter Nineteen
I rose from the darkness slowly. Black faded to gray. I felt air fill my lungs. I felt the moment my heart started beating, wildly at first, then slowing to a normal tempo.
I was in a soft place. The first thing I felt was him. His energy, his rage, feeding me. His love for me surrounding me, so real it was nearly as physical as his arms wrapped around my body, the beat of his heart against my arm. I slipped in and out of the darkness, and the only constant thing was him.
I opened my eyes, glanced around, remembering. I remembered my name. I remembered what I was. Bit by bit, I remembered everything.
Everything.
I started shaking, my breath coming raggedly, and Nain shot awake from his spot beside me.
“Molly,” he said. His voice was hoarse, and his arms went tighter around me, trying to calm me. I was practically hyperventilating, and he held me, whispered to me, tried to calm me down. His touch did more than anything else could have, and I started to pull myself together. “Molly,” he whispered against my hair, and I could feel the gratitude coming from him, the remnants of his fear. “Do you remember?”
“I remember that I failed,” I said, and it felt strange to use my voice.
He sat up and took my face in
his hands. “You failed? How can you say that?”
“I was supposed to keep Nether imprisoned. She got out, and I didn’t even save…” I trailed off, bit my lip against the pain. Wished I could blot out the memory of seeing my power destroy my mother. My father’s anguished roar, the way he’d pleaded with me to save her.
“Molly, you saved her,” he said, still holding my face between his hands.
“I… I did? Really?”
“Really,” he said softly. “Really. She’s okay, Molls. She’s weak still, but she’s alive. She and your dad have been staying here.”
I breathed, and ended up crying. Relieved, overwhelmed. Nain held me as I fell apart, and kept holding me as I tried to pull myself back together.
“How long have I been out?”
Nain’s eyes met mine. “Eight days.”
I tried to jump up, and he held me still. “Eight days? Oh my god. I have to get Nether. I have to find fucking Strife. I have to—”
“Molly, stop,” he said. “You’ll handle all of that shit later. And you know you’re not at full strength yet.”
I growled, frustrated.
He laughed a little, and I glared up at him. “It’s good to see you back to your normal, calm self.”
I shook my head. “Eight days? Really? Why did it take so long?”
He had been looking at me. Now he looked away. “You were really weak, baby. You’d used all of your power to save your mom. So much blood,” he said, shaking his head. “We carried a husk here. A husk without a head, so pale you looked like you’d disappear at any second. You were on the brink of falling to dust. This body nearly failed you, and your dad was freaking out because the Nether would have been a really bad place for you if you ended up resurrecting beyond the gateway. I guess things are bad there.” He stopped talking, overwhelmed by the things I was making him remember.
“We weren’t sure even you could fight back.” He curled himself around me, holding me, shielding me as if he was trying to protect me from any threat that appeared. “For the first three days, nothing happened. They started telling me it was time to let you go,” he said, and he clamped his lips together, and I could see he was fighting back a wave of anger and fear. I raised my hand to his face, gently stroked his jawline. “I told them I’d destroy every fucking one of them if they tried to take you. I told them I could still feel you.” He bent his head, rested it against my chest, and I knew he was listening to my heart beating. “And then on the fourth day, we started seeing your body healing. Your heart didn’t start beating until the fifth day.”
“Nain,” I whispered, his anguish, his fear washing over me. “It’s okay. I’m here.” He wrapped his arms tighter around me, and I held him, too. “I’m here,” I murmured again, and he just held me. I’d never seen him look the way he did then. Pale. Tired. Drawn, like someone who’s been sick for a long time.
He sat up, got out of bed. “You should drink something,” he said, and he grabbed a bottle of water off of the dresser. I glanced down at myself. I was dressed in clean pajama bottoms and a tank top. My body was clean. I knew it had been covered in blood. Mine. The blood of too many others.
“Did you clean me up?” I asked him. He nodded, and handed me a bottle of water. I was sitting up now. I took a few sips of water, and the liquid going down my throat made me want to throw up. I set the bottle aside and pulled his hand, made him sit next to me. “What’s wrong, honey?” I asked him, and he pulled me into his arms again, buried his face against my neck, and I knew he was breathing me in. The scent of me, my touch, calmed him just as much as his calmed me.
He shook his head. He couldn’t stop touching me, holding me, running his hands over my body, as if trying to reassure himself I was real. “That was… don’t ever make me live through something like that again,” he said. “I am never going to get the way you looked out of my head. I’m never gonna forget the way it felt to be next to you and not feel your power roaring around me.” He kissed my neck again, nuzzled it as he held me tight to him.
“We have a long time, Nain. I’ll do my best to make you forget,” I said softly. I ran my hands up and down his back, trying to relax the tension there.
“I had a moment there where I thought, ‘if I lose her, the whole world is going to pay.’ I remembered how angry I was early on, before I tried to be somewhat decent. I wanted someone, anyone, to hurt. I was there again, waiting for you to come back. I wanted someone to pay for what happened to you, and I didn’t even give a fuck who as long as I had someone to hurt.”
I rubbed his back some more. I knew how he fought for control, much the same way I did. It’s in his nature, as a demon, to cause pain. He’d made a life of causing it to people who deserved it. I understood what he was saying. People who turn to booze when things get bad don’t really care what they’re drinking as long as it’ll make them forget. Pain is the demon’s booze. I thanked whatever it is out there that you thank for things like this that I’d held on, as much for his sake as mine. “And I would have been eternally pissed at you if you’d acted like a typical demon over me,” I told him, knowing he needed that. “I can’t die. You goddamn know that.”
“I wasn’t the only one. Asclepias and your dad were freaking the fuck out too. Your body was there with us, and nobody could feel you, at all. I wasn’t even sure I could feel you, but I kept telling myself there was something there. Asclepias said it was like you were stuck somewhere between death and resurrection.”
“Limbo?”
He shrugged. “Something like that. He didn’t really understand it either. He said you guys live or you die. And that you just live. If there’s a body, we should feel you coming back right away. That’s how it works. There is no in between. Except with you, there was.”
“Well. I’m grateful for it, then,” I said.
“Me too. Do you remember anything?”
I shook my head. We sat in silence, holding each other, the only sound in the room the clock on the nightstand ticking the seconds.
“I’m surprised Bash and Dahael aren’t in here,” I said after a while. I was feeling sleepy again, my head resting on his shoulder, my body close to his.
“It’s weird. They haven’t been around. None of them have. Maybe they’re hunting Strife for you,” Nain said.
“Maybe.” I ran my hands over his shoulders. “You look exhausted. Sleep with me.” We settled back into the bed, and he pulled the blankets up over us.
He kissed me. “I love you, Molly.”
“I love you more.”
“Not even possible, woman,” he said, kissing me again, groaning when I sucked and nibbled his lips.
He held me, and I felt myself start dozing off again. “I gotta get up soon. Nether—”
“Isn’t going anywhere. She doesn’t even have a body yet. Asclepias figures we’ve got a couple months.”
“And Strife is fucking dead,” I muttered as my eyelids got heavier.
“Rest, Molly. You have the rest of eternity to kick ass,” he said, and I started to fall asleep again, comforted by his arms, his breath on my neck.
We stayed in bed, both of us slipping in and out of sleep, for at least another day. And eventually, I felt like myself.
Actually. I felt better than myself. I felt new. Whole. A lot of it had to do with Nain, who still looked drawn and pale after spending so much time worrying, so much of his power, his essence, feeding me as I’d healed. I’d never taken enough from him to affect him in any way, so I felt guilty about it and when I’d tried to tell him that, he’d given me one of his Nain glares and kissed me hard and told me he was mine.
So, I’d shut up and told him to go back to sleep. And then I got up and took a shower, got dressed. My wings were all screwed up from being in bed so long, the feathers skewed and kind of flattened. In general, my wings don’t require a whole lot of care. I’m not a bird. I don’t have to preen (thank god. I am not the preening type.) But this did require some fluffing with my fingers, straight
ening errant feathers with my fingertips.
I went back into the bedroom, where Nain was snoring in our bed. I leaned down and kissed his bare shoulder, and he tried to pull me back into bed with him.
“Sleep,” I told him. “I’m going to go talk to my mom. Where’s my armband, babe?”
“Don’t go kicking any ass yet,” he said.
“I have to. I got this.”
He sighed. “There’s a loose floorboard in the closet of my office. There’s a safe under that.” He told me the combination.
“Thanks. Go back to sleep,” I said, leaning down and kissing his cheek.
He brought my hand to his lips, kissed my wrist. “You are in so much trouble when I get my energy back,” he murmured sleepily.
“I am looking forward to it, husband.”
He smiled a little, then closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep. I watched him for a few minutes. I wanted to claim him, as I’d done with Brennan. That would have helped him get his strength back faster. But I didn’t want to do it without telling him first. I didn’t want to do it behind his back, the way I’d done it with Brennan.
This was my husband. My heart. My partner in life, death, and everything else. There would be no more lies between us. No more secrets. I watched him for a few moments longer, then I left the room, closing the door behind me.
The loft was more crowded than I’d ever seen it. Nain’s team, my team, several of the immortals who were on our side. Jamie and a few of the shifters from the chief’s pack. Ronan and a few vampires. They all stared at me when I walked out of our bedroom.
“Hey,” I said, and was immediately surrounded by people. My teammates were hugging me. The only one I didn’t see was Brennan, and I figured he was out on patrol. Ada kissed me on the cheek, and Stone pulled me into a one-armed bear hug, his other arm in a cast and sling. I answered questions, accepted hugs and kisses and congratulations on not dying. I looked around for Shanti, who was sitting in the corner of the living room with a man I didn’t recognize.
Strife: Hidden Book Four Page 23
