Page 39 of Hell Kissed
I’ve been told about myths and gods my entire life.
One of them, any fucking one of them would be helpful in a time like this.
Echoing screeches hiss through the main hall of the temple. They’re muted at first, growing louder the closer I draw to the surface after the many hands clawing through the water slowly disappear one by one. Energy as pure as lightning bolts through me and whips out with the force of a tornado when I emerge from the water.
My wolf nearly breaks through my skin in her eagerness to shift and defend.
It’s all I can do to keep her back. With weakened arms, I pull myself from the pool and collapse onto the smooth marble.
I’m still just trying to get my lungs to stop hurting so badly, but all around me ice giants drop to the ground as all the life is sucked from their tall, skeletal bodies. Their faces bunch in horrifying screams and their gleaming bones lose their luster. Ice melts across the ground, dripping from their dying forms. Everything they’ve created out of snow and ice starts to disappear, running in rivers across the slick floor.
“Rhys!” Torben comes roaring up the stairs, finally freed in the chaos. “Princess!” His sharp bark is punctuated by a growl, his fist flying into one of the storming giants who tries to stop him from reaching me.
The giant cracks beneath Torben’s strength, and he falls hard with a thunderous sound, but another rises in its place. The two of them are so close to me, but I can’t feel any sensation in my legs or hands.
I physically tremble to help him. It only gets worse when an enormous skeletal hand lashes out, bones slicing across the patch of hair I’d just admired not long ago. Rage burns inside of me as crimson colors drip down Torben’s golden chest. My magic strikes out in an instant. It doesn’t make sense, but the giant screams that same dying sound, like a rabbit caught by an owl in the dead of night. It pierces me with the sharp reality that somehow I’m the one doing that to him.
Fear tangles with my rabid rage, and it booms out of my chest in waves of power.
One by one, they fall to my magic.
Silence cuts in.
Torben falls to his knees next to me. His warm palm pushes along my spine, but I can barely feel his touch as he helps me to sit up.
“Are you okay?” His jade colored gaze travels over me with dark intensity, trying to assure himself that I’m still in one piece.
“Yeah,” I manage to croak past the rawness in my throat and the dull ache still left in my chest.
“Let’s get you out of here.” He helps me stand, but I’m slower than he is as we make our way to the entrance.
My feet give out on the last step of the podium. I hate how weak I feel. I can’t feel much of anything at all from the cold, but I feel that pathetic feeling rising up in my chest.
“You’re okay,” he murmurs against my neck on a hot breath.
And I feel it.
I feel his words whispered across my skin in tingling waves.
Large arms band around me, one under my knees and the other a strong bar behind my back. Holding me against his chest, he makes it to the door in giant steps that would have taken me triple the energy to keep up with.
His heat washes into me, blanketing me in his hellish magic. It hurts but it’s also bliss that sinks down and warms me to my core.
I’ve never been so happy to see the sky in my life as we burst through the iridescent veil of the temple. Wind lashes out at me, pulling at the very breath in my lungs. He bends at the waist and holds something up. It looks like a battered piece of trash, but upon closer look…
“Loki!” I snatch the small cat from him and try my best to warm the icicles clinging to his fur. He blinks in a daze at me and lowers his little head onto my stomach.
I’ll murder those big ass fuckers all over again for hurting him.
My fingers push through soft fur as reassuring purrs rumble through the hellcat. I snuggle into Torben’s chest, absorbing his warmth and letting him be strong for me right now. The amount of magic or power or energy or whatever it was I expended in there wore me the fuck out, and between that and my lack of sleep, I’m practically a dead woman in his arms.
“You scared the shit out of me back there,” Torben growls, the rumble vibrating against my cheek where it lies against his chest.
“Sorry,” I murmur, truly needing sleep. The darkness hangs heavy over us, officially making this the longest day of my life. “I’ll try not to get murdered next time.”
Torben huffs a small laugh that startles me so badly I stiffen in his arms and pull away far enough to look up into his face. Thick scruff lines his angular jawline, and his long hair lightly brushes against my bare arm with every step he takes. Mirth flares in his eyes, lighting the green from jade to something so much brighter for the briefest moment before they harden again.
I know. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I wouldn’t have believed it either.
