Page 53 of Deadly Games
I sank to my knees with her as the others came around. A great howl pierced the silence in the room. If Fenrir had come through it, surely she would.
“She’s breathing,” Loki said, kneeling beside me. I’d never seen that look in his eyes. True fear. “Why isn’t she waking up?”
I didn’t have an answer. Our bond provided none, either.
“Damn it,” I muttered, sweeping the hair out of her face. “Don’t do this to me, you bitch. Not when I’ve already fallen in love with you.”
Her eyes fluttered and she moaned softly in her sleep. Of course that would be the thing that woke her up. I was too relieved to have the chance to look into her eyes to even be mad about it.
“What did you just say?” she asked, still dazed.
“I don’t repeat myself,” I snapped, pulling her into my arms and holding her as tight as I could without taking away her ability to breathe. “You gave us a fucking scare.”
“She’s not the only one,” Dionysus said pointedly. I could tell he was as relieved as I was, even if he was trying to keep a brave face.
“Yeah. That was a pretty convincing performance, even to me,” Loki confessed.
“If it wasn’t, you’d still be a statue right now,” I informed him. It still hadn’t fully sunk in that my father was dead, or that I was the one who’d killed him. I probably should have felt something, but the only thing coming up was relief. Relief and the realization that I had no fucking idea what to do now.
“You did it,” Kore said, pulling away enough to look at me. She touched my cheek and I only realized I was in pain when the contact soothed it. Her gaze turned to sadness. “What he said about your mother… was it true? Did you really give up the chance to bring her back?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I answered, sensing the shock coming from Loki’s direction. I turned to face him, steeling myself for the words about to come out of my mouth. “You were right. She never would have wanted that.”
Loki gave me a faint smile. “Given the current circumstances, I’m not even going to comment on the fact that you admitted I was right about something.”
“You kind of just did,” Dionysus pointed out.
Loki rolled his eyes.
A second later, Fenrir came barreling into the room, still in his monstrous form. He stopped to assess the situation, his eyes widening as they drifted to the pile of ash on the floor, but he quickly brushed it off and ran to Kore.
She threw her arms around his neck and buried her face in his fur. “I’m so glad you’re alright,” she said, her voice muffled.
The hellhound pulled back to lick her face and when I heard her indignant shrieks, it finally started to feel like things were back to normal. At least, our version of normal.
But there was still so much left undone.
“The realm is collapsing,” I said, standing. Dionysus helped Kore to her feet and Fenrir stayed at her side, his long tail wrapping around her protectively. He was as tall as she was at the shoulder, even standing up. “My father has already taken too much. It can’t sustain itself.”
“We can’t stay here,” Loki said, eyeing the stone archways above us nervously. “Definitely not inhere.”
He wasn’t wrong. I led them all outside and found a sky even darker than the one I’d left.
The darkness is closing in fast,Fenrir warned.It’s already eaten away at the edges of the realm.
“We have to leave,” Dionysus insisted.
“If we do, what happens to the dead?” Kore asked, looking straight at me. “What happens to the ones who are left? To your mother?”
My throat tightened and I found myself unable to give her an answer I didn’t want to accept. My silence seemed to speak enough, judging from the look of horror on her face.
“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “No. There has to be something we can do. Some way to make it right.”
“The River Styx is the lifeblood of this place, and it’s all but depleted,” I said, gesturing to the barren riverbed on the horizon.
Kore stared into the distance, and I could tell she was already forming one of her harebrained schemes. To be fair, they worked a hell of a lot more often than they should have, but that didn’t ease my nerves.
“Wait!” I cried as she took off running down the hill. Fenrir shot after her and the rest of us joined the pursuit. He was faster, but I soon realized he had no intention of stopping her. Just following her like a loyal puppy.
