by Chloe Jacobs
Isaac.
Whether it was the eclipse, the fury of battle, Ray shooting at him outside—or a combination of all three—the goblin king had fully turned.
Huge. Angry. Skin almost black. Teeth made for ripping. Hands curled into thick fists. Eyes lit by a fierce, wild light.
She lifted her blade between them, heart hollow and empty. She hadn’t wanted it to come to this.
Chapter Twenty
“Isaac,” she whispered. Even like this, she couldn’t think of him as a monster. The real Isaac must still be in there somewhere.
Her throat constricted. Now it seemed so natural to say his name, so right. What had once been anathema was now a plea, her last link to the boy who’d invaded her carefully guarded heart and dared her to accept herself for the person this world had made of her.
“Greta.” His voice rumbled over her like steel wrapped in velvet, startling in its controlled clarity. “Come.”
She could sense the pull in him—between beast and man—and was amazed by the blunt power of his will.
Greta made the decision to put her trust in Isaac’s strength. “Ray, let’s go,” she yelled. When he hesitated, she grabbed his arm and pulled him with her. “He won’t hurt us,” she promised.
Isaac made short work of any who dared get in their way. When they reached the other side of the chamber and passed through the wide doorway carved out of the rock, he stayed back so nobody could follow them through.
Ray sprinted ahead down a dark corridor. “We have to go this way!”
“Wait,” she called, turning back. “Isaac, hurry! I’m not going without you.”
He slugged a gnome and sent it flying back before growling at her over his shoulder, but then he stepped over the threshold, looking up and down at the loose rock strewn across the ground. His gaze stopped on a particularly large piece. She knew what he was going to try to do.
She held her breath as he lifted the massive boulder over his shoulders with a great roar. He surged upward and pushed it out of his hands and into the stone above the entrance to the chamber, releasing a cascade of rock that tumbled downward and blocked the way.
It also started a rumbling throughout the mountain that echoed all around them.
Greta grabbed his clawed hand and pulled him with her as she ran toward Ray. “Where are the cells?” she asked.
He pointed down a narrow corridor. “That way.”
Isaac gripped her arm. When she turned to him, he shook his head. “No.”
“No, what?”
“Leave now.” He started to pull her in the opposite direction.
She yanked her hand back. “I can’t,” she said. “Not without the others.”
He glowered, looking fierce and wild as if her refusal just might push him over the edge into total madness. “Agramon needs you,” he bit out. “To complete his circle and give his spell the power to open a portal. Can’t let him.”
“What spell? What are you talking about?”
“He’s a prisoner here. Wants to tear open the gate, escape this world.”
“Why doesn’t he just make the Lamia open it for him?”
“Witch’s magick…not powerful enough to break the spell keeping him imprisoned.”
“We can make Agramon use his own spell to send all of us humans back home,” Ray said.
Isaac snarled at the boy, taking a menacing step forward. Greta held him back. When he turned to her, she could see he was fighting to contain the fury of the eclipse.
“Let me guess,” she said. “The spell Agramon has concocted requires human participation to make it work, doesn’t it?”
Isaac nodded. “Human blood.”
Of course it did.
“If all that’s true,” Ray said, “if Agramon needs human blood to fuel his magic, why has he put us to work as slaves? Why doesn’t he just do it already?”
Without the fires of the chamber to give them some light, Greta couldn’t see more than Isaac’s great hulking shadow…and the glow of his eyes. He paid little attention to Ray now, his focus wholly on her. “Have to be special.” A low grumble. “Humans descendant from a particular bloodline. The rest were used to build the…altar.”
She’d been clenching her hands so hard her fingertips were numb. So were her lips, her legs, and feet. She felt disassociated from her own body—everything but her heart. That hurt so bad she couldn’t breathe. It felt like a mortal wound, as if her blood should be pouring out onto the floor in front of her.
“You knew.” She took a step back, not wanting him to see that he was killing her with every word. “You knew all about this from the beginning. When Luke died and I asked you…you lied. When I found out about the contract on my head…you lied. And in my dream when I asked you again… You told me you had no idea Agramon was holding humans prisoner, and you didn’t know what he wanted them for.”
When did it end with him? The lies, the tricks, the games? She thought she’d finally begun to see the true Isaac, but now she wondered if there was any such thing. Had anything he’d shown her ever been real, or only delusions of her mind—all of it a dream she couldn’t wake up from?
The guilt in his face was the last straw. Greta’s blood chilled until there was nothing left but the unfeeling skill of the ice-cold bounty hunter rushing through her veins. “Why are you here now? How did you get in?”
Would he deny it still, or finally tell her the truth?
“You’re actually in league with him, aren’t you? With the demon. What do you do, return the humans lucky enough to escape his clutches? Do you watch them being tortured, maybe you like to wield the whip yourself every once in a while?”
Isaac came forward, but Greta took another step back, and another. “Ray, go on ahead and get the boys.” She didn’t look at him, didn’t dare break eye contact with Isaac. “I’ll hold off the goblin and any others.”
“Are you sure?”
“Just do it. Before it’s too late.”
Isaac didn’t even blink when Ray turned and ran. She’d known he wouldn’t bother with him, because he hadn’t come here for just any human. Not today.
He’d come for her. Only her.
“Return with me, Greta.”
She gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, finding little comfort in its familiar weight. “Not going to happen. Now…or ever again.”
“No time to explain.”
As if he could. “You don’t have to explain, I get it. Anything’s fair for you, isn’t it? You’d betray your own mother—”
Both his hands snaked out and grabbed her arms. She sputtered with outrage as he dragged her close, trapping her sword arm between their bodies. He glowered down into her face, and she was surprised by how controlled he seemed. Was it because he was still young enough, the moons didn’t overtake him completely? His skin had almost returned to normal, if not the length of his teeth and claws. Could it be that his fury in that chamber had come not from the eclipse, but from within—maybe even out of fear? For her?
She couldn’t bear to be so close to him. So close his scent teased, his eyes mesmerized, his touch…
Damn him. “Let me go.”
“You must understand.”
“I understand perfectly.” She twisted and writhed, but that only brought home to her just how seriously outmatched she was.
“You do not. You have no idea what this monster has done to my world.”
“And I don’t care!”
At that, he shoved her away from him in disgust and swatted her sword. It went flying from her hand. “No. You don’t care about Mylena or its people, do you? I don’t think you care about anything at all.” Looking down his nose, he said, “But I do. And after centuries of suffering, when the leaders from all the counties finally forced Agramon’s evil underground, believe me, it was worth the price. A price my father paid, and a price I was expected to pay when I assumed leadership over the goblin territories.”
“What price?”
“The faerie magick keeping h
im here wasn’t made to last. When I took the throne—for you,” he reminded her with a harsh look, “I learned that my ancestors had agreed to help Agramon find the humans he requires to open the gate, in return for his promise that he would finally leave Mylena once and for all.”
Greta felt the wave of vehemence radiating off him, the utter conviction that he’d done nothing wrong. “So you all made a deal with the devil. All the counties,” she whispered. The light dawned. “That’s where the moon madness comes from, doesn’t it? All those stories about humans bringing on the curse of the moons, the eternal winter…it was all a lie to hide the truth—you brought it on yourselves. You broke the laws of nature by aligning yourselves with Agramon’s evil, and the Great Mother is punishing you for it.”
His face contorted in a snarl. “Humans brought Agramon here and we have suffered the consequences. But we finally had the chance to banish his poison from our world. Don’t tell me you would not have done the same.”
As much as Greta wanted to deny it, could she say for certain she wouldn’t have paid a similar price for something that was important to her…like the chance to go home? “Thankfully, I don’t have to answer that question.”
“I was not so lucky. The burden was set upon me whether I wanted it or not.”
“So screwing with my dreams was just an extra thrill before it came time to hand me over?”
“I won’t apologize for doing what I thought was necessary to undo the damage humans have wrought on my land. But I never agreed…it was never about that between us—”
“How do you know it was humans?” she yelled up at him, punctuating the words with a hard shove to his chest, trying desperately to push all her rage into him. “How exactly did humans bring a demon to your world?” she yelled. “Well? Give me the details. Show me some—” Shove. “Damn—” Shove. “Proof!” Shove.
He grabbed both her shoulders again, baring his teeth. Her breathing ragged and painful, Greta had a moment before he shook her to notice that her goblin—no, not hers, never hers—looked almost completely normal now, but for the impatient curl of his lips.
It was Greta who felt like a raging beast without any control.
“You are all the proof I need. Your blood will prove it!” With glowing eyes and a muttered curse, he clasped her head in his trembling hands and crushed his mouth to hers in a hard kiss that proved just how strong Isaac’s control had been until now, how tight a leash he had kept on his true emotions.
She shivered and clutched his shoulders.
Real.
The tips of his claws grazed the back of her neck.
Real.
His pointed incisors nipped the soft flesh of her lips, and his body was rock solid against her.
Real.
This was no dream. It was more real than anything she’d ever felt.
More real…and more devastating.
She’d convinced herself that their kiss two nights ago had only been as intense as she remembered because it had been a dream. She’d convinced herself that the reality couldn’t possibly compare. She’d steeled herself for disappointment. And yet, as her senses reeled and her body bloomed with heat, the opposite was true. In his kiss, she felt what she’d never completely experienced before—the melding of Isaac who plagued her dreams, and Isaac who tormented her waking hours.
And nothing had ever felt so vivid, so consuming, so amazing.
When he drew back, it was with a whisper of her name against her forehead in a hoarse and broken voice.
A harsh cry of protest escaped her throat. She didn’t want to let him go yet. His thunderous gaze met hers and he groaned in defeat at whatever he found looking up at him, finding her lips once more as the thing that had been building between them refused to be denied any longer, sweeping them both up in its fiery storm.
There was no mistaking his frustration and anger, even his pain. It came off him like a fever, engulfing her with a blast of terrible heat, but she still felt safe, protected. It may only last for as long as he held her, but for now that was enough.
His tongue slid past her lips and she gasped with shock and excitement. A deep shiver ran through her as claimed her, harder and deeper with every thundering beat of their hearts.
His hands were on her waist now, gripping her, holding her to him. Her head spun, she was spiraling out of control, and couldn’t let that happen. Not here, not now.
Finally, she pulled away, gulping air deep into her lungs. Guilt overtook passion. Had Ray found the others? Was he even now calling for her help?
The grip on her waist tightened. She looked up and steeled her expression. “If you’re going to give me up to Agramon, then let’s get it over with.”
“You still believe the worst of me.” His tone was flat, but for once, he couldn’t hide his true feelings behind his royal mask. Greta shrank from the despairing intensity in his eyes.
“Don’t you understand anything?” He shook her. “It never mattered what you are, or what I should have done. Not since the very beginning. I fought my own uncle to keep you safe, I’ve fought my own people. I have no intention of letting the demon have you now. You’re mine.” A distinct growl of possession. “Agramon will have to make do with—”
With the blood running fast and hot through her veins, she pounded his chest with her fists. “Don’t tell me you could coldly substitute another helpless human in sacrifice to him. Agramon won’t make do with anyone else. We’re getting them all out. Even if you stop me, Ray will succeed.”
His hands fell away. “You can’t save all of them. Your friend might reach the cells, but he won’t find the ones Agramon has kept separate to fuel his spell.”
Her chest tightened like a vise around her heart. “Damn it, Isaac.” The weight was suffocating her to the breaking point. She felt the cracks travelling, widening, and splitting off in all directions.
I can’t keep doing this. She was so tired, and there was still so much to overcome. She felt sure he sensed her bone-deep desperation. Would he use it against her? “I can’t leave them.”
His punishing stare held her, cut her.
“Please.” A murmur. She couldn’t manage any more than that.
He knew what she was asking. He knew, too, what she would be forced to do if he refused. She didn’t want to fight him anymore.
Finally, he nodded. She let out a long sigh. Even after everything, Greta had hoped he would help her. She should hate him for his betrayal, should hate him for what he would have done to her own kind, should hate him for all the lies.
She didn’t. She couldn’t.
A month ago, she would have been able to deny how she felt. Even a week ago, she could have tried. Now, Greta understood what it meant to feel a responsibility that went beyond her own needs and desires, and she didn’t have room in her to hate Isaac. It would be like hating herself—and she didn’t have room for that either.
“Come with me,” he said.
They followed a dark corridor. Instead of going deeper into the depths of the mountain, it climbed steadily.
After ten minutes or so, the corridor came to an end, opening into a large chamber illuminated by natural light from the open ceiling, which confirmed that the eclipse was over. Mylena’s suns still looked almost completely aligned with one another, glowing as lightly as they ever did, but her twin moons had passed completely in front of them and were beginning to break apart back into their natural orbit.
Greta gasped as she entered the room, stopping before she crossed over the distinct line marking a circle that vibrated with magick. “Oh my God. What is this?”
The area had been divided into a pie of twelve, marked at each outside point by a stone figure. In the center was another, smaller circle, empty except for a tall dais—no, it was an altar.
Isaac didn’t respond, but she didn’t need him to. Her head thumped with the force of the circle’s power, her heart pounding in time with it, so loud that the echo was all she heard.
Ap
proaching one of the figures, she was startled to discover that she was looking at an inanimate statue of a human child. She continued on to the next.
“Why would he build these…?”
The sickening, stomach turning feeling of horror built slowly since it took her a long time to accept the truth of what was right in front of her. And then it took every bit of her will not to fall to the ground and weep.
“These aren’t statues. These are…” Walking from one to the other, she glanced over her shoulder at Isaac in a demand for confirmation, but he remained silent.
She stopped again at the fifth figure in its place in the circle.
This time her knees did meet the floor, having lost the ability to hold her weight. She pressed both her fists to her mouth and bit down on her knuckles, but the strangled scream forced its way out anyway.
No. God, please no. It must be some kind of trick.
“Isaac, tell me this isn’t what I think—” She looked up as he stopped beside her, but her gaze was drawn immediately back to the silent stone face of one young boy in particular—a boy who, in life, had grinned with irreverent dimples in his chubby cheeks, and blinked up at her with bright blue eyes that could never quite hide his impossible stubborn streak. “There has to be some other explanation.” A waver in her voice. “Please.”
“They were all real human children.” Such finality in those words. “Once.”
Boys. All boys. Each one a different age, each frozen with such an expression of terror…including Greta’s own brother. She reached out, touching her hand to his cold, gray one. How had this happened? When? The thing she’d been certain of all these years was that Drew was safe. To find out she’d failed in that one thing, the most important thing…
“How is it even possible?”
“This is the Lamia’s work.” A stony, unfeeling tone that made Greta feel all the more isolated in her anguish. “Agramon knew it would take time to find the number of acceptable humans required to open his gate. The witch he captured to retrieve them was compelled to give him a way of safeguarding the vital components of the spell.”
“What do I do to reverse it?” There had to be a way. Greta wouldn’t leave here without every one of these boys—even if it meant she didn’t leave at all.
