Page 8 of The Hellbeast's Betrayal

“That she had to die first before she could then be reborn,” she said, her expression crumbling at what she had to do.

“What?!”I snapped.

“I didn’t want to do it. But it could only be me. I had to be the one and at the same time, do it when death was calling for me to do so. For hundreds of years, I hid her body in its unconscious state in the temple with me. Knowing that if I woke her up, she would still be under his control, and he would find her. That the Hellish cycle would never end,” she said, now with tears in her eyes, and it was clear to see the toll this had taken on her all this time. Making me realize that I hadn’t been the only one living with guilt and the pain of loss. That was why she told me that she knew how it felt. I understood that now.

“But how was that possible?” Orth asked as Marcus muttered,

“Sounds like some twisted fairytale.”A comment we all ignored.

“We had a spell cast when trying to break her free of his control. One that would keep her suspended in time in an unconscious state, until the time was right.”

“Until the time was right for what, Lerna?” I asked with gritted teeth, as I had a good idea I knew what was coming. She lifted her teary eyes to Koro, who nodded for her to go ahead and tell us.

“Until I would have to force myself to do the thing I loathed to do the most… The one part of the plan I had no choice but to see through. The part where I had to end her life.”

“Fuck!” I hissed, knowing it was coming but feeling the effects of it all the same.

“We thought with you in the mortal world, it would have been sooner, but it was not. The Fates told us to wait for Death’s call and I did what I had to do when it came,” she argued as more tears fell, giving Koro cause to comfort her, turning her body into his and making me release a heavy sigh.

“That is why we need to find her, if he gets hold of her again, then I don’t know what would happen this time, or how we would bring her back from it,” Lerna cried and honestly, it was worse than I ever thought it could be.

“How did she come back?”

“I am not sure exactly. I heard Death’s call and did what needed to be done. After that, the soul I had protected disappeared, along with her living body, as it turned to stone. After that, it took me a while, but I discovered that she had been reborn a mortal, just like she had been fated to.”

“Carrick, the Death Dealer,” my brother said, quietly piecing things together, whereas my mind was spinning.

“What?”I uttered, even though the second he said it, those pieces started to make sense.

“He helped deliver Keira’s sister’s child, her father is an Angel, they fathered a child, and the vessel must have been destined for her, that would have been the call of death,” he explained, and Marcus agreed.

“That makes sense, his presence there must have acted like a beacon, leading her soul from the Elysian Fields and tethering it to the mortal realm. It’s the only explanation of how Frank, an Angel, would have been able to father a child. It was Fated.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” I said, knowing that this made sense but all the while wishing, for selfish reasons, for it to have been sooner.

“She was always supposed to find you,” Lerna added, making me grit my teeth when I thought back on our first meeting and how foolish I had been not to recognize who she was to me.

“She did,” I replied, not wanting to add that I had been too fucking stubborn to see it that way.

“But what of her illness?” my brother soon asked, making Lerna sigh.

“We needed to mask her presence as we got her back to our temple. It had to seem as if the Summoner Queen she had become under his control had been killed. To this we had to ensure her blood would not be recognized as belonging to Hades. My only guess is that it must have crossed over to her mortal body once she came of age. Something Koro discovered when he was trying to get her back to me and safely away from the Garmr.”

I felt my blood boil at this, knowing the pain and suffering she had endured and then to be kidnapped and near dragged to Hell!

“She was fucking protected!” I argued furiously, glaring at Koro now.

“No, she wasn’t, for you had failed, HellBeast.”

I went to lunge for him, but my brother knew me well enough to hold me back.

“You wanna say that to me again, dickhead?!” I seethed.

“Garmr had his minions in the mortal realm kidnap her and bring her to the caves. I turned up just in time to ensure that didn’t happen. But I couldn’t get her to cross over and without you claiming her, her blood was tainted enough that it was not recognized,” Koro stated calmly, something that only riled me more.

“A good job too!” I snapped.

“Yes and no, for it was clear that she was too vulnerable and had become too exposed. Garmr continued to pursue her, and soon Orson could no longer protect her.”

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