by Helen Scott
“Angel?” His voice was soft as though he didn’t want to startle me.
“Hey,” I croaked.
He pulled me close and tucked me under his arm so my head rested on his chest. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I lied. My heart still felt shredded, and my brain felt as if it were a TV just showing static.
“Bullshit. Want to try again?”
“Like crap.”
“That’s better. Do you want to talk about it?” His voice was soft and rough at the same time in my ear.
What I wanted was for him to fuck me until I couldn’t see straight, let alone form coherent thoughts, but I knew he wouldn’t, given that I was still on the edge of crying. He would consider it unhealthy. Plus, I didn’t want to tarnish our relationship like that. I hadn’t expected the words to come tumbling out of my mouth when I opened it to answer him, but they did, and by the time I had explained what Hunter had told me, I could hear his heart thundering in his chest and a low growl emanating from him now and again. When I finished, he remained silent for a long time, and I looked up at him, not to make sure he was awake—I knew that—but to see if I could tell what he was thinking from his face.
His wrinkled brows and forehead made me snuggle back into him. I could wait until he had formulated his thoughts. After all, he had waited for me, so it was only fair. After a while, he said, “I don’t want you to answer this right away. I want you to think about it.” He waited until I nodded my head to continue. “Do you love him?”
I wanted to immediately deny it, to rage about the way he had treated me, but that would be going back on what Knox had just asked me to do. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to look into my heart as I would look at the bonds I had with my guys. I wanted some kind of indication of whether what I was feeling was permanent or just a knee-jerk reaction.
“I do.” The words slipped from my mouth, betraying every part of me that was still raging against the way Hunter had gone behind my back, but the truth was, if I didn’t love him, then I wouldn’t react so strongly.
“Then forgive him. We have so much to do and overcome that if the worst were to happen, you would regret it. Don’t argue,” he said when I took a big breath in to do just that. “I know you, angel. You would torture yourself over him and how the two of you left things. Now, I suggest we get some sleep, or at the very least, take a nap, so we can plan more tomorrow.”
“I love you,” I said. The words, the emotion itself, burned brightly within my fragile heart.
Knox tilted my chin up until I was looking him in the eye. “I love you most,” he said back, and the intensity of emotion he let show in his eyes made my breath catch and my heart burn even brighter within my chest.
Hunter
When I jumped to the castle that my battle brothers and I had stayed in during the times when we guarded the gate, I had expected it to be teeming with soldiers from one side or both. Instead, when I arrived in my room, I was met with silence. It was the last thing I wanted to hear, since all I could think about was Poppy’s silence after I had confessed my recent activities to her.
The look on her face flashed over my mind, and I felt nauseous. She looked so hurt, as if I’d torn her heart to shreds, but I knew I had to be honest with her if I was going to tell her how I felt. A small part of me was gleefully sitting back singing “I told you so” to the rest of me.
As I moved around my room, I began to collect the books I had gone there to find, books no one but me had looked at in centuries. The one person who needed to read at least some of them was Poppy. They covered everything from the origin of hellhounds and the Cerberus myth to the roles of each resident of the Underworld—at least, the immortal ones. I was hoping there was something in there that we could use to determine how Poppy had to claim the throne and maybe even rescue those spirits from the space between realms.
I found a backpack and began stuffing the books in. I knew I should probably be more careful with them since they were ancient, but I was also under a time constraint. I needed to get the books and get out of there before anyone found me. The last thing I wanted to do was lead them back to our current location somehow.
As I eased the door to my bedroom open, I heard voices growing closer. I paused and left it slightly ajar so I could hear once they had passed. When the door pushed in, two Alpha agents marched into the room. Before it could shut behind them I managed to slip through into the hallway. It was too close. The silence when I’d first arrived had brought my guard down just enough to get a little sloppy, and this was definitely not the time to be sloppy.
I ran down the hall on light feet, barely touching the floor, until I came to the winding staircase. The last book was in the main room, and it was, of course, the most valuable one. In that moment, I promised myself I would never leave my books lying around again.
The stairs were empty the whole way down, but as I rounded the corner, I found a lone guard standing watch. The kid couldn’t have been more than twenty-five. I should have killed him, but I couldn’t. I’d never been good at ending human lives. Instead, I snuck up behind him and slung my arm around his throat. He was able to manage a gurgle of protest, but it wouldn’t have been enough to attract any attention. As he struggled against my hold, my grip stayed firm, keeping him in place as he slowly lost consciousness.
Nearby were some stairs to a basement level that not many people knew about, so I moved his body over there. The guy would wake up with the worst crick in his neck, but he would wake up. As I moved through the main level of our building, I noticed that a lot of the old pieces of art had gone missing or were broken. It actually made me angry to see that. The stuff in the Underworld, whether it was books, vases, or paintings, all of it was priceless and ancient. The only thing I could do was hope my book was still intact and where I left it.
I entered the hall that led to the living area and heard more voices. My pace slowed as I tried to evaluate how many opponents I would face, and from the sounds of things, it was at least three. The book should be on a side table by the couch. It would be visible from the doorway. I knew what I had to do, the only thing I could do that wouldn’t result in a fight between the occupants of the room and me. I just hoped that I was fast enough to do it.
Without overthinking it, I lunged forward at a steady lope, gathering shadows in my wake until I got to the doorway, pausing just long enough for them to raise the alarm and confirm that the book was where I had left it. I pulled the shadows tight around myself and moved to the table, dropping them just enough to become corporeal and grab the book and then wrapping them around myself again and transporting to the Isle of the Blessed for good measure. The idea of going straight to our location was just asking for them to be able to follow me. At least this way they would have a few different stops before they could catch up to me, if they could at all.
I could hear the battle waging outside and fought the urge to throw myself into it. My next stop was the furies’ halls, and then the Gate of Horn, before finally returning to our rooms in the Halls of Night. I had barely even become corporeal when a fist met my face. Immediately I knew they were pissed I had made Poppy cry, and I got it. I hated that I’d made her cry too. No one liked to see the woman they loved upset, and I did love her, with every fiber of my being. I had hoped that bringing the books back would show her how much I was willing to risk for her.
The force of the punch had me falling to the floor, and I just had enough mental capacity to roll so I didn’t land on the books in my bag and end up breaking my back or something. Hellhounds might heal faster than a human, but I would still be out of the fight. Plus, we didn’t exactly have time to be a man down, not when we were potentially under threat of attack all the damn time.
“What the fuck?” I ground out as pain throbbed through my eye. I started to sit up, but another punch landed square across my nose. It wasn’t the first time I’d been in a brawl with my battle brothers, and it wouldn’t be the last, but they su
re had shitty timing. “Stop. Now.” My voice rose with each word.
“You broke her heart.” The voice was guttural and definitely not Knox as I had expected. Nolan stood over me with fury raging in his eyes. A snarl twisted his lips that let me know if I tried to get back up, he’d be only too happy to put me down again.
I was exasperated. I knew I had hurt her, but that wasn’t my intention. My frustration erupted in a yell. “I love her!”
“But you went back to your other queen? The one who lives on the Isle of the Blessed? How could you do that to her? She gave you everything you wanted.” Spittle was forming at the corners of his mouth as if he were a rabid dog.
“Nolan, I—” A door slamming across the room broke the tension and had us moving away from one another.
Knox strode toward me his face altogether too calm when compared with the anger boiling out of Nolan. Derek, on the other hand, was just sitting on the couch with his arms folded over his chest, scowling at me.
“We need to talk.” It was all Knox said before he turned and walked into the other bedroom.
The decor in there was hideous, all reds, golds, and black. It was sensory overload. Once we were in the room, he shut the door behind us and turned to me, his hulking form almost twice the size of my own.
“Tell me what happened,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest as he stood in front of the door.
It was clear that I wasn’t getting out of there any time soon, so I told him, relayed everything to him that I had told Poppy. “Do you get it now? I had to tell her the truth, but I love her completely.”
“I get it.” He nodded and rubbed the side of his jaw. “You need to talk to her again. Apologize. Help her understand what you meant. I honestly think she probably missed some of it because it hurt too much. She thought you were leaving us, and from what she told me, so did I.”
“If anything, I want the opposite. I’m tired of holding you all at arm’s length because I was afraid of getting hurt again. You and Emmett have always been like family to me, and now it’s just a lot bigger.” I shrugged. “I’ll apologize and do whatever it takes to make it up to her.”
“I know you will, brother.” Knox sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to get everything else figured out, and as much as I wish we did, we just don’t have time for this. I’ll talk to the guys and smooth things over, but you need to talk to Poppy.”
I nodded. It had been my whole goal in the first place. He walked out of the room without another word, and as I followed him, I realized I was glad we’d talked. He had helped me clarify my thoughts even further.
Without hesitation, I crossed the living area, grabbing the book I had dropped on the way, and went into the bedroom where I had spoken to Poppy before. She lay on the bed, her chest moving in the slow rhythmic breathing of sleep. I didn’t want to be creepy and watch her sleep, but I wanted to talk to her without the others around, so I decided to wait.
I pulled a chair around to the side of the room she was facing and sat down, plopping my bag of books on the floor next to me, before opening the one in my hand. While Poppy slept, I would learn as much as I could from these books and act as guard. No one would hurt her while I was around. That was a fact.
16
Poppy
I rolled over to try to curl into Knox’s form only to find the rest of the bed empty. He had left while I was asleep. Pain clenched around my heart at the thought. I couldn’t handle any more of my guys leaving or disappearing. They needed to stay with me. I loved them and couldn’t bear to lose them one at a time. Eventually, it would break me.
A soft rustling made my ears perk up. Someone was in the room with me, but it wasn’t Knox. He always seemed to know when I was awake or asleep, or when I needed him like the night before. I rolled toward the sound, feigning sleep. When I heard what sounded like a page turning, I cracked my eyes open and was stunned to see Hunter sitting on a chair in the corner of the room, clearly keeping his distance, but there nonetheless.
The idea of pretending to be asleep until he left danced through my mind, but judging from the stack of books by his feet, he wasn’t leaving any time soon. I rubbed at my eyes and could immediately feel him watching me. When I pulled my hands away, I pushed myself into an almost sitting position with my weight resting on my elbows, and I narrowed my gaze on him. “What do you want, Hunter?”
“I was hoping we could talk,” he said so quietly that I struggled to hear him.
My mind raced out and searched the bond between us for any sign of malice or dislike directed toward me. I didn’t find any, but I was still frustrated with him, so I said, “Didn’t we do enough of that already?”
“I don’t think I got my point across.”
“That you wanted to go back to Katherine? I understood that just fine.”
“That was the complete opposite of what I was trying to say.” He got up and walked over to the side of the bed, dropping to his knees in front of me. “Please hear the truth in my words, Poppy. I love you. No one else.” His words rang with truth, and as much as I wanted to call him a liar and ignore him, I knew he was sincere.
“But you didn’t. You loved her.”
“I thought I did, but I loved the memory of her more than I ever loved her. It helped me keep a wall between me and everyone else, something to prevent myself from getting hurt again. When I saw her, the idea of being with her physically wasn’t something that appealed to me, but I tried to ignore it and push forward, pursuing the feelings I had held on to for so long, but the truth is, they just aren’t there anymore. They haven’t been for a long time. I was just being stubborn about it. Look at our bond, and you’ll see it’s true.”
The pieces all fit with what he had told me before; I just hadn’t wanted to hear it. I pulled up the bond between us in my mind and checked it thoroughly. There was nothing about it that indicated he was lying. As soon as he’d said that Katherine’s spirit was on the Isle of the Blessed, I had shut down. Part of me had known he had found her, and the rest of me had been convinced that he was leaving to go to her. He had told me he loved me, though. I just hadn’t understood what he’d meant through the pain.
“I’ll make it up to you. Anything you want, anytime, anywhere. I will do whatever you want. Consider it a blank check,” he said as he reached a hand out to me.
I was still mad at him, at least a little, but I wanted his touch. I craved it. As I reached out to take his hand, I had to silence the part of my brain screaming at me in protest. When our skin connected and I wound my fingers through his, I immediately felt at ease.
The physical connection offered the bond between us a thread of strength, and I looked at it even more closely in my mind. It might be thin, but it was as strong as steel. Spider silk would define it perfectly—strong, thin, flexible. It didn’t glow like the other bonds, but there was a quiet power behind it that I never would have noticed if I wasn’t looking closely.
“A blank check, huh?”
“All yours.” He kissed my knuckles without breaking eye contact, as though he were asking permission or watching for rejection the whole time. When his lips brushed against my skin, tingles erupted all over my body, making the feral need that had been riding me the day before stir from its slumber.
“Don’t tease me, Hunter. I couldn’t take it, not after everything that’s happened.” My words were soft. I wasn’t angry, but they caused him to flinch anyway. “If you mean what you say, then show me.”
He withdrew his hand, and my heart sank. Had I misunderstood everything again? Was our relationship so broken that we would always be on different pages? When he got up and went back to his chair, it felt as if my heart had sunk straight through the floor. He came back with a book. This time, I sat up properly in bed, pulling the blankets around myself so I could sit cross-legged.
“I went to get these for you,” he said, gesturing to the pile of books by his chair. “These are the books I found a few years back and was hol
ding on to until we found you. There is also a book in here that will allow us to find any resident of the Underworld and tell us where they are so we can find your ghost friend’s husband.”
“And the others? What are they?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.
“Logs from previous hellhounds, judges, and queens. I was reading them while you were sleeping to see if we could understand more about your powers, or at least figure out how you claim the throne. Most of the information that I’ve found useful is in this book, which I had been keeping in the living room as some light reading. The others are proving to be more diary-like than anything else, but still might contain some nuggets of wisdom.”
My brain was racing at a hundred miles per hour at his words. “The living room? Did you go back to the hounds’ castle?”
He nodded. “We needed these books.”
“You went there alone, didn’t you?”
Guilt twisted his face as he looked at me.
“I can’t believe you did that! You could have died!”
“I was fine. I only had to knock one guy out.” He shrugged as though it were the most normal thing in the world.
He stood by the bed once more, having drifted closer as we spoke. I took the book from his hand and tossed it to the other side of the bed. A frown creased his forehead for a split second, and I guessed he was none too happy about my treatment of the book, but it didn’t matter. I pushed to my knees and placed my hands on his cheeks until we were staring at each other, mere inches separating us.
“You are more important than books. Whether you love me or not, we need you. I hate pulling out the big guns, but as your queen, I forbid you from doing anything like that again. Understood?” My eyes bored into his as I spoke, and I saw laughter sparkling in the green depths of his eyes.
