Page 98 of Spellbound
A scream sounded in the distance. It was faint, and if it weren’t for the dead silence of the night, I would have missed it. I sat upright, then heard another scream.
Maddox turned onto his side, snorted, and continued to snore. Naomi slept peacefully on her stomach. I looked around, my fingers gripped into the mud around the blanket I slept on.
The next sound set every fiber of my being on fire: a loud growl, one I recognized. I’d heard it when Freya had broken into the mansion and Raiden had fought her, the same one I’d heard when Thalia died and he took off Lucius’s head.
I closed my eyes. If it was him, Maddox and Naomi would without a doubt report him, and they’d be right to. They were doing all this so the gods wouldn’t be hunted, but if Raiden was killing, they wouldn’t care. If he was murdering people, then he was a monster, but I couldn’t bring myself to wake them.
Maddox was right. I must’ve had a death wish. I was definitely an idiot.
I stepped outside of the protection of our small camp and into the night, then took off in the direction of the house we’d seen earlier, the only source of people anywhere close. It had to be where the screams had come from.
Branches whipped my arms and hands, grappling through the dark like fingers. In the distance, a wolf howled from somewhere in the mountains. Glancing up at the bright crescent moon, I paused to catch my breath. “Please don’t be Raiden,” I whispered to the sky as another scream sounded. I unsheathed my dagger and grabbed my pistol from my belt before taking off again.
I tiptoed around the side of the building, keeping my back against the wall. The door had been ripped off. As I walked, glass crunched under my boots. To my right was a broken window. Carefully, holding my breath, I edged my way through the door. Splattered blood dotted the beige walls and grand staircase. A man, whose heart was no longer in his chest, was propped against a doorway. Hesitantly, I stepped forward through the doorway and into a large ballroom. My mouth dropped.
Bodies were everywhere. Some were intact, many in shreds. A party must have gone horribly wrong. At least they were all adults. I placed my hand against my chest, feeling my racing heart, and then I found him. Raiden’s tortured gaze found mine from across the bloodied room.
“Don’t come closer.”
“What did you do?” I looked over the dead bodies and the blood. Gods, there was so much blood. I blinked twice. This couldn’t be. Aziel. I’d sworn it was him. Not Raiden. “Why?”
Fury spilled into his chiseled features. “I said leave.” His anger guided each venom-laced word. “Why don’t you ever listen? I said get out.”
A tear threatened to break through my façade. His glossed eyes averted mine. My lips parted slightly. Everything screamed at me to run. Between us, a pool of blood glistened under the reflected diamonds on the chandelier above, a reminder of what he was capable of: how he could easily tear my heart from my chest and I wouldn’t stand a chance. But he hadn’t. He never had laid a finger on me. I’d always enjoyed gambling, but now I was betting my life by not leaving. In my darkest hour, he’d come for me. He was in this mess because he’d come to save me from Freya and instead fallen into a trap. I couldn’t leave him after that.
“Raiden.” I closed the distance between us. Tears filled my eyes. Had he really broken, snapped because of Thalia? “This isn’t you.” I reached out to touch him, but he flinched back.
“I said don’t.”
Tears hazed my vision. “They’re going to hunt you for this.” I swallowed thickly. “You should hear what people have been saying. That you’re mad.” I couldn’t look at the bodies for a second longer. “The local people. They’ve seen you. One said he thinks these killings are the work of a god.” Bile bit up my throat. “I know there’s a reason for this. I get why Alexander died. He was with Freya, protecting her, but what about the others?”
He turned his back toward me. “Because I’m a monster.”
“Bullshit.” I shook my head. “You didn’t hurt us when you could have. You protected me against Freya. You said yourself you wouldn’t hurt innocents to get what you want.” My stomach twisted as I shook away the image of the dead in my peripheral vision. “You came for me when I needed you. So I’m not leaving you.”
He punched the wall, and I jumped back. “I said get out.” He turned to face me. “Like the rumors said, I’m mad.” His eyes widened. “Insane. Dangerous. Heed the warning, and get the fuck out of here.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “From where I’m standing, you look like only your normal crazy to me.”
He clenched his fists against the wall, his knuckles whitening under specks of blood. Under his breath, an unmistakable sob escaped. His breath hitched, but he caught himself before he broke.
I touched his back, and his shoulders tensed. “Raiden,” I said tentatively. “Help me help you. I know you’re not a monster.”
“They were the Vordel family,” he said after a minute of painful silence. “They owned black magic clubs.”
I remembered that man talking about invite-only clubs. “What are they?”
“This family worshipped Freya.” His mouth twisted in disgust. “They were in her inner circle. She showed them how to stay young, to get more power, and gain more money through sacrifices using rituals taken from the underworld. Half the bodies you see were already here by the time I arrived. They were having their monthly blood party using people they’d kidnapped from the lower classes, people you wouldn’t miss if they went missing. They thought they could do what they wanted.”
“And the other half?”
He gritted his teeth. “I lost my temper.”
The house was almost falling apart. “If they were sacrificing people, then...”They deserved it, I wanted to say.
“I never wanted this.” He turned and slammed his fist into the same hole he’d made before, cursing loudly. “Freya’s hiding behind people. She knows I’m hunting her and then I found out you are, which was fucking stupid.” He picked a piece of stone from his knuckle. “She had her people watching your coven. She’s got hundreds of people protecting her. Powerful people. She’s got eyes everywhere. Fuck, if I didn’t kill Alexander when they came for you, she’d have killed you all in your beds.”
“Oh.”
