by Callie Rose
Fredrick ignored Kingston so thoroughly that I was almost certain he was deaf. Jayce braced himself, then relaxed as the brand touched his skin. He went into a sort of meditative haze, probably trying to disassociate from the moment entirely. He even had a bit of a smile on his face—though honestly, that was his default expression.
Some people have resting bitch face. Jayce has resting afterglow face.
I couldn’t even smile at my own joke. My stomach twisted when Fredrick got to me. I tried to mimic Jayce’s thing, but failed miserably; I tensed up and stayed tense.
When the brand touched my skin, I nearly took Fredrick’s stupid head off, and only the blistering magic kept me still. It paralyzed me. White-hot flames licked the inside of my veins, snaking through my entire being, leaving a permanent mark. It was so strong and so distinctive that it would act like a goddamn beacon to any supernaturally trained person in the world.
Fredrick pulled away, and the absence of pain felt almost like pleasure.
My face was wet. Damn it.
I looked across the circle at Hannah. She caught my eye and held her head high. She was so confident in her goodness. So fearless to meet the consequences. Not even her own consequences, but mine. Pride and love washed over me in a wave and tears slipped down my cheeks even faster.
She’s come so far. She’ll be just fine in the underworld. We all will. As long as we have each other, we’ll be okay.
At least, that’s what I kept telling myself over and over. Maybe if I repeated it enough times, it would be true.
“By the power vested in me by the Custodians of the earth,” Clipboard intoned grimly. “I hereby banish each of you to the underworld.”
I held Hannah’s gaze for as long as I could. Then the floor opened up and blackness swallowed me whole.
Chapter Twelve
As the swirling darkness receded from around me, the first thing I became aware of was a brutally cold wind.
Cold didn’t fit with what I had experienced in the underworld before, and it immediately set me on guard. I had landed face-down in the dirt—which was more like tiny shards of black glass than anything resembling soil—and I pushed myself up onto my knees and dusted off. I looked at the spot where Hannah should have been.
She wasn’t there.
Nobody was there.
Panic strangled me, and I leapt to my feet. I didn’t recognize this place. Towering stones rose from the ground as if they had grown there, full of uneven holes that made the wind howl and shriek. Scrubby, thorny brush carpeted the landscape. There was no blood red, bruised purple, or acid green to be seen anywhere; everything was gray and black and desolate. Even the sky seemed duller than usual.
I could have handled all of that and more if my guys and Hannah were with me. But there was nothing but twisted rocks and thorns as far as I could see—which, admittedly, wasn’t far.
Damn it. I need higher ground.
What if we had all been sent to different places? What if I was alone in this blustering, freezing, howling desert? I couldn’t handle that. The thought of wandering the underworld infinitely, searching for my tribe, made every synapse in my brain short-circuit with panic.
I looked around frantically and found a huge boulder. Higher ground. I pulled myself up, scraping my knees and fingers on the jagged stone. My heart clenched in my chest, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.
When I reached the top, the landscape didn’t change. It went on and on, all gray and cold and empty.
No. Please, goddamn it. No. I can’t do this without them.
“Xero! Jayce!” My voice seemed to be snatched away from me by the wind, which scattered it uselessly across the threatening landscape. “Hannah! Kai! Kingston!”
What sound wasn’t scattered was drowned out by the howling of the wind through the stones. My voice wasn’t enough.
Calm down, Pipes. You can’t project when you’re panicking.
I sucked in oxygen, calling on every ounce of meditative discipline that Jayce had taught me, breathing into my center. There it was. My power was still there—just trapped and hidden under panic.
“Xero!” I called his name with my voice and heart at once, sending a beacon out across the underworld meant only for him. “Jayce!”
One after the other, I called their names again. Then again, and again, until I was hoarse. My heart sank. Just as I was bracing myself to accept that I was really and truly alone, I heard something in the brush below. Prepared for a fight, I watched the plants move.
Then I caught sight of the figure as it emerged, and it felt like all my bones dissolved as a sound that was half sob, half laugh fell from my lips.
“Xero!”
“Piper. Oh, thank fuck.”
Relief drenched his features, and I saw sharp fear leave his eyes. He’d been worried about the same thing I had.
Jayce, Kingston, Kai, and Hannah all found their way to us moments later, called to me by my succubus power. I had even managed to call Hannah, despite not having quite the same bond with her as the guys. I scrambled down off the rock and ran to them. I threw my arms around Jayce, feeling his heart race against my chest.
“You’re okay.” I pulled back and cupped his face in my hands, gazing into those warm, sky-blue eyes. “I would have died if you weren’t.”
“I’ll always be okay, Piper,” he said, brushing the hair off my face. “As long as I have you.”
I kissed him deeply, then felt Kai’s warm, strong arms around my waist. Laughing through tears, I turned to him and kissed him. “And you,” I breathed. “My voice of reason. My grumpy knight. Fuck, I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’d have let you find me again,” he said with a little smile. “And if you didn’t, I would’ve found you. No matter what it took.”
I reached for Kingston, and he came with a sly smile and a little swagger. “You know how dragons are about their treasure,” he said. “I could never lose track of you. Even if I wanted to. Which…” He raised his brows as if considering the benefits of such an outcome.
“Oh, shut up, ass.” I smacked his taut stomach as I laughed.
He grinned and kissed me, then twirled me like a ballroom dancer into Xero’s waiting arms. Xero kissed my forehead and cheeks and neck, then my mouth. He lifted me in his arms as if I weighed nothing at all.
“I’m sorry you’re back here,” I murmured. “But I’m glad you’re with me.”
He smiled, and there was pain in it. But there was truth in his voice when he said, “Anywhere you are could never truly be hell, Piper. If I’m here with all of you, it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
He lowered me and kissed me again, threading his fingers through my hair. Then he set me down on my feet, and I held my hands out to Hannah. She stepped forward, her gaze flicking between me and my guys.
“I’m lucky you’re so patient,” I told her with a smile. “I can’t imagine what it’s been like for you to have me constantly surrounded like this.”
“Eh, it’s all right. They’re bearable creatures; I don’t mind.” She grinned at my bond-mates as she hugged me.
Xero was still frowning thoughtfully at the world around us.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I don’t recognize this place,” he said. “I couldn’t even begin to guess where we are. I can tell you where we aren’t though, and that’s anywhere near civilization.” He glared at the plants, which were singular in species and excessive in number. “Or food. Also, it’s cold, which has me kind of fucked up.”
“So what do we do? Climb up on that rock and use a portal to transport as far as we can see, then do it again?” Jayce asked.
“No, you dumbass. I’ll do a flyover and see what’s up.” Kingston shook his head at Jayce, but his tone and expression were fond.
“That’s not a bad place to start,” I said. “Go ahead, we’ll wait here. But if you see anything threatening, come back for backup. Don’t be a hero.”
Kings
ton nodded grimly. He shifted, then flew up and began circling. I watched him until he was out of sight, shivering in the cold. We weren’t dressed for this weather. Xero put his arm around me and led me to the big stone. We found the one spot the wind couldn’t touch and cuddled up together there. Kingston had stamina, and he’d become a very strong flyer during our previous time in the underworld. He could be up there for hours.
“It’s not what I expected,” Hannah murmured. “I figured it would be more… I don’t know. More volcanos and swamps and finger bone trees.”
“That’s what it always has been before,” Xero said, looking unhappy. “I don’t like this place. It makes me nervous.”
The feeling was unanimous. We sat in silence for a while, listening for anything threatening, but all we could hear was the wind. Which actually sounded very threatening, to be honest. The high-pitched shrieking kept making me think of harpies, and I obsessively checked the sky every few minutes.
It wasn’t long before I spotted a black speck in the distance. As it grew bigger, I could see that it was actually green, not black.
Kingston.
He landed hard and shifted quickly, then dove into the middle of our cuddle pile. Violent shivers shook his body, and the whole group by extension.
“Too… cold,” he wheezed. “No fur, no feathers, no nothing. Just stupid lizard skin, and it’s too damn cold.”
“Did you see anything?” Xero asked.
Kingston shook his head. “More of the same as far as I could see. Can’t even see any mountains or anything. Just flat gray yuck.”
“Great. So flying’s out.” I wrinkled my nose. “We need a new plan.”
“Couldn’t we transport somewhere you guys have already been before?” Hannah asked.
Jayce shrugged helplessly. “But where though? Most of the places we’ve been, we barely escaped with our lives. I’m not super thrilled about the idea of going back to any of them.”
“Well, not every place,” Kai pointed out. He took a small throwing star from a hidden pocket and smiled tightly. “I kept a memento. Should be enough to get us past Michael’s wards.”
“Michael? That’s the werewolf guy who helped you break Xero out of Gavriel’s fortress, right?” Hannah asked.
“Yeah. He didn’t come with us, but he loaded us up with enough weapons to have a fighting chance,” I told her. Then I turned to Kai. “Okay, good plan. Michael’s it is. We can’t stay there, but maybe he can point us in a good direction. And at least it’ll be warm.”
We all linked hands and thought very hard about Michael’s basement. All except Hannah, who kept her mind as blank as possible.
The familiar tingling rush washed over me, and a moment later, a blast of hot air wafted over me. The red sun bathed my skin, welcoming me back to a place where I’d been treated well.
Wait. Sun? That’s not right.
I should be inside. We’d been aiming for Michael’s basement. Had we gotten our aim wrong?
No.
We stood where Michael’s basement had once been. Now it was nothing but a pile of rubble and a stone staircase leading up to the ground level. Sunlight beamed into the sunken hole of the basement.
A solemn quiet fell over our group as we slowly picked our way across the debris to the stairs. Scraps of Michael’s clothing littered the pile, and I found myself checking them for bloodstains.
“Do you think he was in here when it happened?” I asked nobody in particular, my throat closing around the words. I hadn’t known Michael well, but he’d helped us a lot. He had stuck his neck out for us.
Was this the consequence of that?
“God, I hope not.” Jayce’s voice wavered. “What could have done this?”
“Could be a lot of things. A herd of elephants. An army of cyclops. The second is more likely around here.” Xero surveyed the damage grimly as we made it to the top of the staircase.
Michael’s house had been utterly demolished, along with the garden he had probably tended with devotion. It did look like a stampede had come through.
I swiveled my head back and forth, realizing that as far as I could see in two directions, a wide strip of wilderness had been trampled to dust, as if an army had marched through here.
Michael had been targeted. I was certain of it.
The beaten path bent out of its way to attack this place and returned to its original direction on the other side.
Guilt brought me to my knees. Hot tears prickled the corners of my eyes, and I brushed them away with the back of my hand.
“He didn’t deserve this,” I gritted out, voice shaking with fury. An overwhelming sadness sat in my gut like cold oatmeal. “This happened because of me.”
“This happened because of Gavriel.” Kai’s voice was fierce. “All we did was ask for help, and all Michael did was give it to us. We did nothing wrong. You did nothing wrong. You understand me? Put the blame where it belongs. Be sad. Get angry. But don’t you dare take this guilt. It doesn’t belong to you.”
The words meant more coming from him. I knew he wasn’t the type to forgive himself easily, and that he carried his own guilt for things in his past. So if he was telling me not to carry this weight, that meant something.
Besides, guilt was useless without action. We needed to do something.
I wiped my face and rose to my feet. “You’re right. This is Gavriel’s fault. If we’re stuck in the underworld anyway, then let’s get that sick bastard. I’m not just letting Michael’s death go. I say we follow these tracks and figure out what the fuck Gavriel is doing.”
“Which way?” Kingston asked, not even hesitating.
Jayce jogged away from the rubble of the small home to the soft earth around it and peered at the tracks.
“That way,” he said, pointing. “They were traveling that way. And you were right, Xero. Cyclops. Unless there’s something else around here with feet as big as my whole body.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, allowing the sulfur-scented air to blow the stray feelings out of my head. I met Jayce’s eyes. He was waiting for direction from me, even though he knew what I was going to say. Knew that I was going to drag us all into danger again.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t dragging if they all came with me willingly. If, like Hannah had, they insisted on coming with me and staying by my side no matter what.
I still didn’t know what I’d done to deserve him. To deserve any of these men, or a friend like Hannah.
But I had them. And they had me.
And together, we would take on the lord of the underworld himself.
I nodded. “Then that’s the way we go.”
Chapter Thirteen
I kept expecting one of my companions to come to their senses over the next few days, as we tracked whatever it was that was sweeping a broad path over the underworld, leaving a trampled swath of land behind.
Surely one of them would suggest we just hunker down like Michael and Vee had, that we try to stay off Gavriel’s radar and live as quietly and peacefully as we could in this hellhole.
But none of them did.
I guessed hiding wasn’t really in any of our natures—not even Kai’s anymore.
“Man, I’m not looking forward to catching up with whatever this is,” Jayce commented on the morning of our fourth day back in the underworld.
He was examining the tracks again, the way he’d done every morning for the last three days. I stretched the kinks out of my spine, wishing I hadn’t taken my bed for granted while I’d had it.
“How far behind do you think we are?” I asked him.
“At least a few days.” He shrugged. “Maybe more. I don’t know, do cyclops sleep?”
He directed the question at Xero, who looked like he’d just been asked to find the square root of 3,492, but Hannah surprised me by answering.
“Yes. For one full day every six days when they’re sedentary, and for twelve to sixteen hours every three days when they’re active.”
Xero shot her a grateful look, and she smiled at him.
“They’re certainly active.” Jayce frowned at the footprint in front of him. “But they’re walking more slowly than they were before. However far ahead they are, I think they’ve had to sleep at least once. Still…” He shook his head and didn’t finish the thought.
“Still, we probably won’t catch up with them until they get to where they’re going.” Xero finished Jayce’s thought for him. “Which will probably be a training camp or some other kind of military outpost belonging to Gavriel. Unless it’s his stronghold itself. Something bigger than the fortress where I was kept.”
“Which would suck,” Kingston said with a grimace. “Let’s hope it’s just an outpost.”
“Better not hope and just stay away.”
I jumped. That comment hadn’t come from any of my guys, or from Hannah.
The voice came out of the bushes beside us. It was a sultry, smoky voice, like one of those lounge singers they always force into those movies set in the nineteen-forties.
I was on the defensive in an instant, squinting at the bushes. “Who’s there?”
The laugh sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once. It snaked into my brain and tried to lull me into a peaceful, receptive state.
I blocked it, my jaw clenching. “All right, siren, show yourself.”
The laugh stopped abruptly, and the bushes in front of me exploded as a wild-haired, sleepy-eyed woman jumped forward. She tossed her head and sniffed in my direction.
“Siren? Siren, she says. Have you been in the underworld long, dearie? You should know better than to accuse a stranger of being a”—she spat on the ground—“filthy siren.”
“She meant no offense,” Xero assured her hastily. “You are very powerful, wherever those powers come from.”
She offered a crooked smile and her black eyes darkened appreciatively.
“I am, aren’t I? My mother was a siren. That’s how I know they’re filthy. But my father was a witch, you see, and that’s what I am. A witch. A witch who knows better than to follow Gavriel’s beasts anywhere. Bad as the Custodians, he is. All control, no sense of propriety.”
