Page 16 of Left Hand of the Divine
Dammit. Just when he was about to say something interesting. I narrowed my eyes at him and jabbed my finger into his chest—his ridiculously firm chest. “Hold that thought. We’re going to talk about this later.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgement, and then I was being wrapped up in Atticus’ arms and almost crushed to death. Which would be impressive since I was pretty sure I couldn’t die again.
“Are you alright?” Atticus asked as his hands grabbed my face and twisted me into all sorts of angles to check me over.
I gripped his wrists to halt his movements and force him to look into my eyes. “I’m fine, honestly.”
His eyebrows were pinched, and his hair was looking more dishevelled than usual. “Good. That’s good. You gave us all a bit of a fright disappearing like that.”
I drew my eyebrows together. I didn’t remember what had happened after I’d touched the Lycaon. Just fragments of pain and then darkness. So much darkness that I was suspended in a void of nothingness, just empty space as far as I could see.
An uncomfortable hollowness churned in my chest, and that feeling of missing something grew. An emptiness that felt like I was missing a puzzle piece. I glanced over my shoulder at my new acquaintance and found him watching me like a hawk. No, his gaze felt more predatory than that. It was like he wanted to pull me apart to find what he was looking for. Could I really trust a man who saw me as someone else? And what would he do when he realised that I wasn’t the person he was looking for?
“Who’s the gothic vampire wannabe?” Magnus asked as he came to stand next to me, a curious smile reaching his eyes. It had been a long time since I’d seen him smile like that. Like he was carefree. Being with the twins was good for him.
Thane walked past me, and I felt the deadly call of his magic swirling around him. The God of Death felt threatened by this man. That was interesting.
“Hello, Erebus,” Thane said, his voice low and steady.Dangerous.
I hitched a breath at the name, something sparking and sputtering to life inside me.How could I not have known it was him?
“Thanatos,” he replied, his voice clipped and full of danger. “Fancy meeting you all the way down here. To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”
Thane cocked his head to one side and tucked his hands into the pockets of his black slacks. I knew him well enough to know that he was trying to hide his unease. “Just trying to unravel a mystery, old friend.”
Erebus’ left eye twitched, and he scoffed at the lesser God, for that’s what Thane was. Erebus was Primordial. One of the first Gods and more powerful than I could probably comprehend. Thane was right to be cautious.
“Friend?” Erebus barked a mocking laugh. “You’re a fool if you think that my time down here in this forsaken place has mellowed the hatred I feel for you or the other Gods over what you’ve done.”
Thane flinched and lowered his head. “Erebus, I—“
“There isnothingyou could say to make this right, Thanatos.” Erebus stepped closer and dropped his voice to a whisper I couldn’t hear, but judging by the way that Thane took a step backwards, it couldn’t have been anything good.
Magnus placed his hand on the small of my back and lowered his lips to my ear. “We should get out of here. Thane found the key, and we have the answers we need.”
“He’s right,” Rafe said softly as he and his twin joined us. “We can do the reunion elsewhere.”
I nodded and walked towards the two men facing each other in a standoff. “Look, let’s talk about this later. We need to get out of here.”
Erebus gave me a look laced with warning. “Remember what I said. No good will come of releasing me.”
I stepped closer to him and took his hand in mine. “I know, but I can’t leave you here.” I turned to face Thane and found him watching me with a careful expression. “He knows something about my past. About why I was here before. I can’t leave him behind.”
I wasn’t going to mention the whole feeling connected to him thing. That could be unravelled by us all later. For now, I just needed to get him out of here.
Thane looked at the others, and I could tell they weren’t convinced. They all looked back at me with questions in their eyes.
“Look, I know this is crazy, but I need you to trust me. Something in my gut is telling me that this is the right thing to do.” I turned to Erebus, his red eyes bright with curiosity. “Can you promise to behave if we take you with us?”
His red lips pulled into a salacious smirk. “Define ‘behave’?”
“Don’t kill anyone, don’t lie to us, and don’t give us a reason to put you back in a cage,” Magnus said cheerfully, counting the reasons off his fingers.
“I might kill him,” Erebus muttered under his breath.
I slapped his chest playfully. “Absolutely not. If anyone is going to kill that douchebag, it’ll be me.”
The vampire laughed. “I didn’t know you cared so much, Red.”
