Guardian (Hidden Book 6)

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “Better now?” I asked. He just gave a long, lazy swish of his tail in response, and I laughed. I rested my hand on his shoulder, then gave him a scratch behind the ear and he purred more loudly.

  “Is it offensive to pet you this way?” I asked, and in response, he moved his head closer to me, urging me to scratch some more. “Oh, you magical, beautiful beast. Artemis never would let me do this.” I gave him a few more scratches, then rested my hand on the sleek fur of his side, feeling the rise and fall of his body with each breath he took.

  We sat that way in companionable silence for a while. Eventually, he got up with a sigh and walked behind me. I felt the prickle again, a sign that he was turning back. He came back to me, jeans on, pulling his t-shirt over his head, and I looked away. Brennan sat down next to me and pulled on his socks and shoes.

  “Thank you for that,” he said, and I looked at him. He gave me a smile and I smiled back. “How did you know?”

  “I am very, very old and smart. And I pay attention. It wasn’t all that difficult to tell something was wrong.”

  He laughed, bumped my arm with his.

  “And I know you,” I continued. “When we all believed Nain was dead, we were the only ones Molly would allow near her for a while, remember?”

  “I remember. We’d sit with her in shifts, even when she didn’t want us to.”

  “She usually did not want us,” I said.

  “True,” he agreed.

  “How many times did I force you to finally take a break to get some sleep, because you were practically asleep on your feet? And you argued with me every single time, claiming you were fine.”

  “And how many times did I have to do the same to you, those first few days?” he asked in return, and I shook my head. “It was weird, wasn’t it? As terrible as it was, as broken as she was, it felt like we all became more of a team after that than we had been before.”

  “You all had something to rally around,” I said. “And I knew that my place was by her side.”

  “I’m glad you’re back, Eunomia,” he said.

  I looked at him in surprise, noting the use of my whole name instead of simply E, as they usually addressed me. He seemed to know what I was thinking, and met my eyes. “I like your name. I think you deserve a hell of a lot more than one letter.” I shook my head, unreasonably pleased by his observation. He continued, “we should go back. Sean probably has them tied up by now.” I nodded and took his hand.

  “Hey,” he said before I could focus on rematerializing us.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks again. I haven’t felt that way in years.”

  “We will have to do it again sometime. I bet you would love running in the desert. Or on the grasslands in Africa.”

  “You’ve been to those places?”

  “I have been everywhere, shifter,” I said. “Wherever there are people who die, I’ve been there.” Then I focused, and, within moments, we were standing on the roof at the loft again. He gave my hand a gentle squeeze before letting go.

  He glanced at me, then went to the door and opened it. He held it for me, and we went down the stairs that led into the loft. Brennan went to retrieve Sean, and I went and sat next to Mollis in the living room. The evening passed as so many had in my days with the team. I listened to Rayna explaining the latest issue she’d had with attempts by her enemies to pry control of the city from her. By the time everyone finally left, I was more than ready to sleep. I dragged myself up to my old room, changed into pajama pants and an oversized t-shirt, and slipped into bed. As I listened to the sounds of the household settling in for the night, of Stone and the vampires leaving for the night patrol, Mollis murmuring softly to one of her children in the room below mine, I began to doze. I smiled. I was home.

  The next morning, I woke to a pounding at my bedroom door.

  “Wake up, sleeping beauty. I need a patrol partner,” Hephaestus’s booming voice called from the hallway. I pulled my pillow over my head, glancing at the alarm clock beside the bed with a grimace.

  “Don’t you already have one?” I said back, my voice muffled by my pillow.

  “Yeah, but Brennan bugged off on me. Some work thing he absolutely had to attend to.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Come on. You know the main reason you came back was to hear my stories, E,” he said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

  I threw back my covers. “All right. Keep your trousers on.”

  “Pants, E. They call them pants around here,” he said.

  “What difference does it make?” I asked as I pulled on a pair of jeans, knowing he would just stay out there talking, because that is how Hephaestus is.

  “You sound like a ninety year old woman saying it like that,” he said.

  “Then I would be sounding young, considering,” I replied.

  “Except that you look like you’re in your twenties, so it’s weird. Didn’t we teach you anything about how to blend in?”

  I rolled my eyes and tugged a brush through my hair, then pulled on my leather jacket.

  “Do you mean like shouting like a fool so everyone within five miles can hear what you are saying?” I asked sweetly as I opened the door.

  Hephaestus grinned at me. “You know you missed me, you chipper little thing.”

  I tried to hide the smile that was sneaking its way onto my lips, and failed. I smacked his arm and he laughed. “Idiot,” I muttered, and he slung his arm over my shoulders.

  “Just think. You have the next five hours in a sixty-seven Chevy with me.”

  “You know, there is this work thing I have to do…” I said, and he laughed again.

  We made our way down to the garage and he showed off his current project, a 1967 Chevrolet Impala that he’d lovingly restored over the past several months. For the first hour of our patrol, he filled me in, in absolute detail, about how he’d found all of the parts, made what he couldn’t find. I enjoyed the familiar landscape out the window as he drove and talked.

  “Ah, damn. I’m sorry. I’m goin’ on and on. Sorry,” he said again after going through how he rebuilt the engine. I shook my head.

  “You are not. I like hearing about your projects, even if I have no clue what you are talking about most of the time,” I said, and he laughed. “Tell me about your son,” I said, and off he went.

  Three hours into patrol, after settling a dispute between two rival shifter packs on the west side, we were back in the car again and he was pressing me for details about my life.

  “So no one special? Not one lucky guy or girl who’s won your prickly little heart?” he pressed, and I ignored him. The “prickly” thing was a joke between us, since most of the immortals believed I was a little on the aloof side, apparently. In reality, I am choosy about who I give my attention to, and most of the immortals are annoying. Hephaestus, being among my actual friends, knows better, I suppose.

  “No.”

  “But there have been romances. You told me so.”

  “There have been companions,” I corrected.

  “Ah, Eunomia girl. We need to find you a nice person to settle down with.”

  “No we do not.”

  “We do. Don’t you want someone to come home to at night?”

  “I have approximately twenty people to come home to at night, now that I am back. I am not lonely.”

  “Yeah, but most of us can’t do any of the really fun stuff for you,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows at me.

  “That is what companions are for.”

  “Most people would call those flings, you know.”

  “Can we stop talking about me now?”

  “But nobody? Not a single person who makes your heart pound?”

  I ignored him.

  “Oh, wait…” he said, and I looked at him.

  “What?”

  “You’re not hung up on Nain or anything like that?”

  “Oh for the love of Hades, honored be His name. No, I am not hung up on Mollis’s
mate.”

  “I mean, I’d understand if you had been.”

  “I’m not. And I am really regretting telling you about that now.” There was a time when we had believed Mollis lost to us. She had been trapped in the Nether, away from the mortal realm, for years. Her bond to her mate, Nain, had broken in the process, and along with the revelation that she had bonded another (Brennan) during the time we’d believed Nain dead, things were a mess. The demon went through sexual partners the way most people went through tissues. I had been one of them.

  In fact, he had been my first. And I had asked him to do it, because I was curious. We both knew it for what it was: one night, and I have never felt anything deeper for him. “Absolutely not,” I reiterated to Hephaestus.

  “Nobody?”

  “I am going to leave if you keep asking. The answer is no, and I do not need anyone.”

  “But why not?”

  I looked at him incredulously. “Shouldn’t you be focusing on patrolling?”

  “I can multitask. Why not?” he asked. “And know I’m only being a pain in the ass because I love you. Right?”

  “Or because you are nosy.”

  “That too, sure.”

  I looked out the window.

  “I have no idea why I am here. Why am I the only of my sisters who didn’t betray what we stand for? What is my purpose? Do you see?” I asked, turning to look at him. “I do not even know what my role in this world is. I have nothing to offer anyone else.”

  “Oh, E. You know that’s bullshit, right there, yeah?” he asked, his voice softer, a tone of sadness in it.

  “Until I figure out what I am doing, it would be selfish of me to let someone else get lost along with me. All right?”

  He shook his head, a look of consternation on his face, but he let it go.

  After driving in silence for a few minutes, he looked over at me with a wolfish grin. “So, if you’re not doing anything else then, do you feel like babysitting for my beautiful wife and me?”

  I gave him the kind of glare I’ve only used against the most annoying souls I’ve ever had to deal with, and he drove on with a laugh. I shook my head and looked out the window. We pulled up to a red light, and, out of nowhere, an imp appeared in the backseat, tapping each of us on the shoulder.

  Hephaestus let out a rather unmanly shout, and I had to suppress my own gasp of surprise.

  “Will you stop doing that shit?” Hephaestus boomed, and the imp bowed as if in apology but didn’t look at all sorry, giving me a mischievous wink.

  “Our Lady sent me. Needs you in Netherwoods when you’re able,” it said to me, scratchy voice comforting in its way. These, like Mollis, were creatures of the Nether, and I felt most comfortable around them.

  “I will go now,” I said, and the imp bowed and disappeared with a “crack.” I glanced at Hephaestus. “Unless you need me?”

  “Ah, no. I’ll just drive around talking to myself. It’s fine. Really,” he said, squaring his shoulders.

  “Very well then,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. And then I focused, appearing just outside of the Netherwoods. I wondered what she could possibly need from me, that it couldn’t wait until we all got home later.

  I looked at the woods before me, took a deep breath, and walked into the trees. I supposed I would find out soon enough.

  Chapter Three

  I made my way through the Netherwoods. Even now, years after its appearance, the fact that it existed at all was a wonder. After the gateway between worlds had been destroyed, Mollis and her family believed their duties, those deeds they’d always done, of judging and punishing the dead, were no longer possible. Without Tartarus to hold the souls of the dead, there was no way to collect and control them. It looked as though all of us, Guardians, Furies, and Hades alike, were adrift here in a new world. It wasn’t until Gaia had appeared in the city that things had changed. She’d tried to heal the Earth, furious over the pollution caused by the humans. Instead of creating a virgin forest as she’d meant to, she’d ended up creating an Earthside version of the Nether. The best guess any of us had for why it happened was that there were so many creatures of the Nether gathered in the city, including Hades himself. At any rate, the Nether immortals had moved in and taken up their work once again.

  As I walked, I observed this new Nether, which we’d dubbed the Netherwoods. It was similar in some ways to the Nether I’d always known, yet not. The trees were the same; ebony trunks and branches dripping with nearly luminescent black leaves, like black pearls strung on a necklace. The sky, which had been overcast in Detroit, was the normal violet, the way a Nether sky was supposed to be.

  And yet, things were different. Mixed in with the usual forms of the trees were trees native, not to the Nether, but to Michigan. I could recognize maples, pine, and elm. Not in their usual colors, but in the muted tones of the Nether. I wondered how much of that had to do with the fact that the current Lady of the Nether had spent most of her existence in the mortal realm, and how much of it had to do with the fact that the Netherwoods mirrored a bit of Michigan itself, thanks to Gaia’s attempts to heal the environment there.

  Likely, it was a combination of both.

  Hades, before his death, had created a large black stone castle for himself and his mate to live in. A place where he would judge the dead and the Furies would exact his punishments. An enormous, never-ending walled field receded into the distance, full of the souls of the dead. In his day, Hades had changed the appearance of his home at will, according to his whims. It appeared that Mollis had not yet learned how to do that, because the castle was very much not her style. Or, perhaps she could do it and chose not to, preferring to leave it as her father had created it.

  Just inside the iron front gates that led into the palace’s courtyard, there was a garden that had not been there the last time I’d visited. An enormous black metal statue of Hades towered over the world there, taller than even the highest tower of the castle, a mass of black and silver blooms at the base. I looked up at it, recognizing Hephaestus’s handiwork. It was uncanny, almost chilling, how much this inanimate object looked like the former God of Death. Hades, the fallen king. Hephaestus had captured his firm, cruel mouth, his narrow nose, even the haughty gaze we had all seen so often. He stood tall, straight, threatening, his enormous wings billowing behind him, his muscular arm holding a sword as if he was ready to strike.

  It was breathtaking.

  At the base, tiny in comparison to the gargantuan sculpture, a figure knelt. A curtain of straight coppery-red hair cascaded down her back and over her shoulders, covering her face. Her head was bowed, and she was dressed in long black robes.

  Persephone. Hades’ former wife apparently still mourned him, despite everything that had happened in the last several years. Not only had she discovered the daughter he’d created, against all odds, with another, but she had insisted on breaking their marriage bond. Hades had bonded afterward with Mollis’s mother, the Fury Tisiphone.

  And then we had lost him.

  I considered going to her, saying a word, but it looked like a private moment, and she did not seem as if she wanted to be disturbed. I studied the sculpture, then glanced at Persephone once more and continued on my way.

  I walked the stone path to the castle, and was admitted immediately by two demon guards. I asked where Mollis was, and one of them answered “office,” pointing me in the general direction.

  As I approached, I slowed. I could hear voices behind the door, and I’d learned, in my time with the mortals, that walking into a room unexpected could yield embarrassing consequences. I could hear Mollis and Nain.

  That was definitely not something I wanted to walk in on. But then I heard words, and realized it was all right.

  “I don’t want to send her away already,” Mollis was saying.

  “I know you don’t,” the demon responded. “But this shit can’t go on and she’s the only one who can help you. You know this.”

  Moll
is didn’t answer, and I knocked, ashamed to have listened in on any part of a conversation that wasn’t my business. Well. That had probably been my business, but I supposed I would find out soon enough.

  Mollis called for me to come in, and I did, walking into the large office. This had definitely taken on Mollis’s personality. Gone were the severe stone tables and black furniture. An antique wooden desk sat at one end, near a window that looked out into the Netherwoods. In true Mollis fashion, it was piled with an assortment of papers, magazines, books, and the occasional baby toy. A pair of long red sofas flanked the enormous stone fireplace, and Mollis sat on one of them. The demon stood behind the sofa, his fingers pressing small circles over her temples, as if soothing a headache.

  “What is wrong?” I asked.

  Mollis smiled at me. “You never beat around the bush, do you?”

  “Not really,” I answered.

  “It’s a headache,” Mollis said. “Nether has been acting up today, and I’m tired.” The Goddess of Death was, aside from our strongest immortal, also the prison for a violent, confused primordial god. It was a constant effort to keep Nether contained, and it seemed that some days were better (or worse) than others.

  “That’s not all,” Nain said, still rubbing his wife’s temples. This was why they worked so well together, I realized. They were both brutal, demonic beings. Both of them took a certain amount of joy in pain and violence. But they were both so completely protective and devoted to one another, it was clear in every movement, every glance. And when Mollis behaved as she usually did, taking on too much and refusing to ask for help, he had no problem telling her what she needed to hear, whether she actually wanted to hear it or not.

  “That’s not all,” Mollis ceded after a moment.

  “What do you need?” I asked, and she smiled at me. She patted the sofa beside her, and I went and sat. She waved Nain’s hands away, and he stopped with an irritated sound, then went and sat on the other sofa.