Page 9 of Wicked Warlock
“I killed them all. ALL OF THEM.” I sobbed. “In the hopes that we’d end up here and you could bring us all back.”
“YOU DID WHAT?” The castle quaked around us, and for a brief moment, the sounds of the underworld stopped.
I sank to my knees. “Please… help us.”
“You can’t just waltz in and out of the underworld like it’s your playground, death girl. One of these days, you die and you stay dead. I don’t make it a habit of sending spirits back, and now you’ve gone and got yourself ghosted. You don’t even have a body.”
I didn’t have any other words to say. Nothing I could do. Hades didn’t do begging and neither did I. I looked up at him from my spot on the floor and met his eye. “Hades. Please.”
A low growl rumbled deep in his chest, and he jabbed his finger in my direction. “Little girl, you’re gonna pay for this.”
Chapter 4
Astrid
One moment there was nothing but purple sparks flooding my vision. In the next, there was nothing. Blackness. I thought dying might be some great journey into the light. Well, the first time I technically died, it kind of was. There was light and warmth and infinite peaceful nothingness that embraced me from the moment I left my body. But this, this was not the same kind of death. Wailing cries of torture echoed in the distance, yet on a gentle breeze, a soft song I couldn’t place danced around me. Warmth crawled over me, and for a second, I didn’t want to open my yes.
Yes, I knew I had to. Our mission wasn’t over. We got Logan; now we had to get him back home. We had to get all of us home. I peeked my eyes open only to be greeted by darkness. No, not darkness. An inky sky dotted with glimmers of light, like stars. Yet none of the stars were still and glittering. They all moved, shooting across the sky and down to Earth. I watched as they floated to the ground, landing one by one, changing shape from a glowing orb into a ghostly human. Some who looked like they’d lived good long lives appeared with a light smile on their lips and a look of wonder. Their faces transformed from wrinkled with age to youthful excitement. Others landed and looks of confusion filled their faces, like they had no idea how they’d gotten there.
I knew exactly how we got here. It was a choice, a hard fast decision made in a ridiculous situation. Our options were die, or die? We just chose the kind of death that had a better chance of getting us back… maybe.
“You had me killed.” Beckett’s voice came in a low growl just next to me.
I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, and sucked in a deep breath then let it go on a sigh. “I had no choice.”
“But to kill me? Your soulmate?” I could hear the anger in his voice.
I tried to rein in my own temper as I let my eyes slide open once more. I slowly sat up and sucked in a sharp breath. This… This was not what I expected. I’d seen the underworld only one time before when Beckett and I had to travel through the rivers as they connected. But it wasn’t enough time to remember the sheer infinite size of it. Droves of sprites littered the cave-like entrance. It wasn’t how the movies portrayed it, with a small cave and spirits entering one at a time. What a load of bullshit that was. But then again who actually had come back from the underworld to portray it the right way?
Shit! That thought did not sit well in my stomach. Did people actually come back? I hope so. I rose to my feet and spun in a slow circle. Behind me a towering rocky archway seemed to announce the entrance. Just outside of that, twelve-foot-tall people in long white robes stood on top of pedestals shaped like pillars. Golden wreaths wrapped around their heads, and those long flowing robes reminded me of a bad toga party. They lined both sides of the walkway, six on one side and six on the other. They pointed at the spirits laughing and joking with each other as though death were humorous. As though it didn’t mean anything for a person to leave the world of the living. To leave all their loved ones. I didn’t know who they were or what their purpose was here, but I felt the instant need to step back farther into the underworld.
“Hello. Earth to Astrid,” Beckett snapped from right beside me. “Are you listening to anything I say?”
I whirled around, meeting his ocean eyes. Usually they were so calm, so serine when looking at me, yet now all I saw was a stormy mess I didn’t know how to react to. Was he still evil-Unseelie Beckett, or was he my soulmate, the one I loved more than anything? “I did what had to be done.”
He sighed and shook his head then pinched the bridge of his nose. “You killed me.”
“Yes.”
“Dead.”
“Yes.”
“In the underworld kind of dead.”
“You keep saying that, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened. It had to happen.” I took a step toward him and placed my hands on his arms, yet they drifted right through. I tried again and again nothing.
“Um, you killed me.” He looked down at himself then at me.
“I know and I’m sorry, but—”
“You won’t be able to touch me.” He waved his hand through my chest, making his point. “Not until we get our bodies back… if we get them back.”
I wanted to cup his face with my hands and go up on my tip-toes to press my lips to his. I wanted to feel his arms around me and look into those eyes and know my Beckett was back with me. Yet in our ghostly forms, I couldn’t read him, couldn’t feel his emotions like I used to through our soulmate bond. I glanced down at my wrist and our soulmate mark was there. Those two lines and the intertwining circles that surrounded my wrist brought me some comfort to me. He might’ve been weird in Unseelie, but I didn’t want to lose him, lose us.
“I just did what I thought was best for all of us. We wouldn’t have Unseelie or Nylore if we stayed.”
“I know.” He stepped in closer, and I waited for his fresh scent to hit me, yet it didn’t, The only scents that hit me were a mix of burning embers and honeysuckle. It was such an odd combination and overwhelming to the senses. The heat and the cold, the screams and the light music, the sense of fear and contentment that hung on the air and ran over my non-existant body.
