Page 117 of Tricky Princess
His words repeated in her head as his devastated face flashed before her eyes. She knew they were still glowing with white-hot rage; the world around her was brighter, more intense. She felt full to the brim with power and endless possibilities, but her heart felt empty.
I love you.
She hadn’t said it back. Not that she had the chance and she would hunt Belias down and rip out his heart for taking that from her. She needed to get to Hel; maybe she could save him before it was too late.
Garm!
Garm could get her to Hel. She went to race to her friends as two final snarls rang in the distance. Her eyes fell on her father in the distance, his still body. If Beelzebub had his soul, she would fight to get it back. She would travel to the off-limits part of Hel, torture Cerce for a bit, then get her father to his rightful place, back to the other trickster souls. She suppressed a sob; she would grieve later. Ellea stopped as her magic’s blinding light reignited. But it wasn’t her magic. A white-gold portal crackled to life where Ros had been ripped from her. Her heart raced, and she had to shield her eyes from the blinding light.
Gray horns tipped with gold materialized first, then wavy dark hair, a wicked grin, and freckles. Ethereal eyes took her in, and Ellea gasped at the magnificent male standing before her. It took her a moment to realize that he had someone grasped by the collar, dangling in front of him. Another crouched on the ground before his feet.
“Hello, princess,” the stunning male said. “I am Loki.”
“No!” the male in his grasp yelled, and Loki turned toward him with a sneer.
She blinked away tears caused by the light and power radiating around him to see that it was Belias.
Rosier.
Ellea looked down, ignoring the call in the back of her mind that a God was standing before her. She ran to him, to Ros, who was looking up at Loki.
“Ros!” Ellea yelled, cursing her feet for not moving faster.
Ros turned and ran, eating up the distance and crashing into her. She grasped him by the face as he lifted her.
He’s here. He’s whole.
Her magic sang as it was reunited with him; she felt it embrace his large body, all that was him. Ellea searched his face, his beautiful eyes and perfect lips. His beard scratched at the palm of her hand. She would chain him to her; never again would they be ripped from each other.
She went to tell him everything, but was cut off by another whine.
“I was promised Hel!” Belias screeched, turning in Loki’s grasp to point at Ros. “All I needed was to get rid of you.”
They both turned and looked at him, still dangling a foot above the ground. The snake was still going to die; she only hoped Loki would give her a chance to rip off some body parts before he laid into him. Or that’s what Ellea thought he wanted to do as he glared at the demon.
“Tell me more,” Loki said in a devilish voice that seemed to echo through her body. The baritone of it spoke of all things old and not of their world.
Belias gulped once before pressing his mouth closed, shaking his head with a whimper. The God rolled his eyes and threw the demon about twenty feet. Before he hit the ground, he screamed and was swallowed into another portal of white-gold light. Loki turned his eyes back to them, their glowing light dimmed to a grayish gold color that churned like the sea.
Gods, he was tall.
Not giant tall, but maybe seven feet. Was that giant size? Ellea cleared her thoughts, ready to go back to telling Ros all that she needed to, but as Loki opened his mouth to speak, she knew it would have to wait.
“We have some work to do, prin—” His commanding voice was cut off by Sam and Devon rushing toward them..
“We got them all,” Sam said proudly, swiping his hands with a loud smack. “Duhney Bug and Florence are beginning cleanup, and Seb is calling their sires. We wanted to check. Billy and Garm are—who the fuck are these soldiers? Oh no, your parents are dead! Who the fuck are you?”
Sam’s face contorted from pride to sadness to confusion so fast that Ellea felt like she was watching a cartoon character. He openly eyed the God before him, from his gold-tipped horns down to his emerald satin pants. The wolven shivered and stumbled, curling in his finger that had been pointing at a being who could wipe him off the face of the earth in a blink.
Ros set Ellea down. She swallowed past so much emotion clogging her throat. This was not something they could have predicted; it was beyond anything they had planned.
“Er…Sam, Devon…” She paused, wondering how to introduce them to a God. “Apparently, this is Loki.”
The loudest silence she ever felt snaked around them like a fog. Then, Devon screamed—screamed so embarrassingly high-pitched—before fainting to the ground. His body was a pile of noodles, and Loki chuckled in a low grumble that caused Sam to blush profusely.
“As I was saying,” Loki began, but Ellea wasn’t having any of that.
“Nope,” she said, holding up her hand to the giant of a God before her. “Before we get interrupted again and before you send us on yet another death mission, I would like to talk to my demon boyfriend who decided to say ‘I love you’ before he was dragged off to go die.”
