Page 99 of Spellbound
“I chased her here. I wrecked your motor, hoping it would prevent you from coming after us, but it didn’t stop you. What are you doing out in the forest anyway? You saw what happened to my sister, and she was a goddess. Lucius will come back. Aziel is convinced he won’t return, that he can’t, but he’s capable. I know it. He’s going to keep coming back, and I can’t protect you from him.”
I lightly touched his arm; he didn’t flinch. “Raiden.” I ran my fingers down to his and pulled him closer. “I’m not going to abandon you. We can fight Lucius. Maddox and Naomi are here.”
“Two keepers and an apprentice aren’t going to help me take down two of the most powerful forces known to this world.”
“You’ll have more of a chance with us than without us.”
“I can handle Freya.”
“You just said she’s too well protected.”
He pulled his hand from mine. “Stop trying to help. You’ve already done enough.”
There it was: the real reason he was angry at me. “You blame me for Thalia.”
“No.” He looked down, shaking his head. “I blame myself. I told her to protect you, and because of me, she was weakened by the bite when helping you, and she couldn’t fight Lucius off when he came for her in the final blow.”
“I’m sorry.” A tear trickled out. I wiped it with the back of my sleeve. “I’m sorry she’s gone, but this is Lucius’s and Freya’s fault, not yours.”
He looked down. “I don’t regret it, Elle. Protecting you. Despite everything. If she didn’t, you’d be dead too.”
My lips parted. I didn’t know what to say. “Why did you?”
He hesitated, then turned, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped the blood from his hands. “We’re done here. If you have any sense at all, you’ll get out of here and go home.”
“No!” I shouted after him as he crossed the room. “Please don’t run from me.”
“Do yourself a favor and forget you met me. You’ll live longer.”
“I can’t.” I exhaled shakily. “I don’t want to.”
He paused mid-walk and turned to say something but instead turned back and fled the room.
Nothing shook the fragility of mortality like being surrounded by the dead. The absence of beating hearts and chatter in a room filled with people was too eerie. Altars of sacrifice, symbols like those found on Freya’s victims, were indeed stained upon many of the dead. Most had had their throats slit. The ones Raiden had killed were easily identifiable, mostly because there wasn’t much left of them.
He tore people apart as easily as I would paper. I shuddered as a shiver snaked down my spine, a reminder of the sheer damage he could cause in a moment of temper. At his fingertips, he had more power than I could wish for in a lifetime, and now he was gone, out there hunting vengeance. I was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t find it, but I was even more terrified to see what would happen when he did. Without Freya, without a focus, someone to hate, he would fall apart, and I had no idea how to help a broken god.
