Chapter 18
HEL
H el tossed Thane’s boots at his gut and stood over him. Thane shot up out of sleep, wild-eyed and ready to defend an attack. The sun was already up, and the birds were chirping. The fool should be awake already or at least sleep lighter.
Hel bent over and patted Thane’s rosy cheek. “Get up, princess. And how in Maker’s name do you sleep like the dead when a vast number of people want you dead? Late nights with a certain blonde goddess?”
With a groan, he rubbed his sleepy eyes and dropped his feet to the floor. “Can’t I just simply be tired?”
“Better cut that shit out right now. If I’d been an assassin, you’d be dead.” With his hands tucked behind him, Hel headed for the door. “We gave Rogue three days. It’s been three days.”
“ Shit , and not a word from Rogue?”
Hel paused in the doorway with a grin. Oh, to finally get some decent revenge. It would be sweet. It was time to take his gloves off. “Nope. Prepare to get those hands bloody.”
Hel adjusted the sleeves on his black suit and rolled his neck before stepping through the front doors of Rogue’s apartment building in the capital of Runevale, a city not ruled by any one god or goddess but the council in Dramalin.
It was a beautiful desert oasis with tropical flowers and distant rolling sand hills.
It didn’t take a genius to know he wouldn’t be at home in his own territory after he, Valeen, and Thane so easily slipped past his defenses.
By making him and Thane invisible, they bypassed the people on the busy streets, where large-brimmed hats and head scarves were standard to combat the hot sun.
The feline shifter guards at the entrance to the four-story building kept chatting about the drunk night they had before, unaware that two dangerous assassins walked right by.
Up the stairs they strutted, their feet quiet as a mouse.
He came upon Rogue’s door and touched it with his fingertips.
It hummed with magical wards. Other than the Drakonan’s treasury and Valeen’s magical wall around House of Night, it was rare he met a magic barrier he couldn’t get through in minutes if not faster. And Rogue was no Valeen.
A whisper of magic and the wards fell. They quickly slipped through the door and inside.
The apartment was open and airy with tall windows to let in the light and a view of the vast city of at least a million people from all over the realms. Hel lifted the invisibility magic off them both and listened.
It was silent, not a creak or patter of footsteps.
He wasn’t here.
“We’ll have to wait.” He plopped down on the soft blue sofa and propped his boots up on the glass table in front of him and crossed his ankles. On every wall Rogue had some sort of academic award or shelves of textbooks on the law. The decor was stiff, but he didn’t expect more from the prick.
Thane walked into the kitchen with wooden butcher blocks for countertops and red brick along the walls and picked up a glass bottle with a wine label from the goddess of the harvest. A moment later he set it down and moved over to a fruit bowl.
“It’s fresh. And the wine is unopened. They’ve been here recently. ”
“If I didn’t already know that I wouldn’t have brought us here. He came here thinking we wouldn’t know of this apartment.”
Leaning up against the honey-wood countertop, Thane crossed his arms. “Why isn’t Valeen with us?”
“She’s been through a lot recently, and why would I ask her to do what you and I can?”
“You mean, she might have a problem with your methods.”
Self-righteous bastard. He chuckled and took out a civar, watching the end light and smoke roll upward before he put it to his lips.
He hated and loved the habit. The smoke calmed his nerves and that darkness that often wanted to fight its way to the surface, but he was irritated he relied on it so much.
“If she had such a problem with me, I think she’d be in your bed, not mine.
” Thane’s jaw muscles twitched and his eyes hardened.
He opened his mouth to speak, and Hel lifted a finger.
“I’d rethink whatever it is you’re going to say.
She’s my mate, my wife, and if fate wasn’t a cruel bitch, she would have never been with you at all. ”
“Well, fate is cruel, and she was.”
He took a puff off his civar and slowly blew out the smoke. “Save the anger for Rogue. We’re on the same side now, cousin. Just like old times.”
“You’re actually going to kill the ogre girl?” Thane said, smartly changing the subject. It wasn’t an argument either of them would come out of unscathed.
Hel lifted a shoulder. “That’s what I said I would do. You know, one of the reasons I brought you rather than my wife was so I didn’t have to have this discussion.”
“She’s young, and it’s not her fault.”
“She’s a damn ogre.” Since when did everyone get so sentimental? “And we’re at war. What did you expect to happen? We’d all sing songs and dance together? Shit, Thane, you’re the god of war; you know full well how this works.”
He turned to stare out the windows. He knew the horrors of war just as much as Hel did, more even. It must be part of the reason he wanted to be called Thane and not War, he knew too well.
“I’m the god of war because no one can best me in combat and I have a mind for battle strategy not because I like war. Besides, I’m not the same person I was.”
“Really? I never would have guessed.” He flicked the ashes off his civar onto the seat cushion beside him. The little embers burnt tiny holes in the fabric. “You’re fucking soft.”
He shot him a glare. “Are there even any lines you won’t cross?”
“Can’t think of any,” Hel said, and laughed when Thane rolled his eyes.
“You know, you used to care about more than just revenge.”
“That was before I had everything taken from me.” He rested his arms on the back of the cushy couch and let his civar dangle between his lips. “Would I kill this half-ogre girl and not ever think about her again? Yes.”
Voices and footsteps outside silenced them.
Hel signaled Thane to move behind the door while he waited on the sofa with his hands behind his head.
A female’s laugh came through as it opened, then the tap tap tap of heels.
She didn’t even notice him sitting in her common room before she turned to the kitchen.
Rogue, however, stood frozen like he faced his own death.
He did.
Thane shoved the door closed behind Rogue, causing him to jump and twist. He wore a similar dark brown suit to the last time he’d seen him, only this time Hel spotted a shiny piece of chain mail peeking out from under the collar of his shirt.
He backed away from Thane and into a side table knocking over an oil lamp that shattered on the floor.
“Who are these people?” the lady asked from the kitchen, sliding behind the countertop as if it could save her. Her fear practically coated the room. At least she had survival instincts.
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?” Rogue demanded.
“Rogue,” Hel said with his best, charming smile. “The clock has run out. The timer is out of sand. Your three days are up. I hope that’s clear.”
“Get out of my house.”
“You thought we wouldn’t come. How unfortunate for you.”
Rogue’s throat bobbed. “I went to the archives and Pricilla followed me. She didn’t know why I was there so I made something up, but she was suspicious especially after the fire at my house. She moved the record book.”
Hel tsked and wagged his finger. “Don’t lie to me.”
“Rogue,” the lady whimpered. His wife if he assumed correctly. “Tell me what is going on.”
“Your husband has made some very bad, very unforgiving enemies.” Hel slid his boots to the floor and stood. “Rogue, I’ll give you one last chance to tell us the truth.”
Rogue looked downright ghostly for one who normally had chestnut skin.
“I’m telling you the truth. I could either wait for my turn to be a keeper of the knowledge or look for the records again in a few days, but I need time to not draw suspicion.
If she suspects you’re blackmailing me, I’ll be out, and I won’t be able to help you. ”
“If my life was on the line, I’d have gotten the record, Rogue.”
Rogue stopped breathing and clutched at the wall behind him. “I tried.”
Thane shook his head and something dark flashed across his eyes. Hel hummed, the god of war might come out to play. “You didn’t try hard enough,” Thane snapped.
“Please, give me another chance. Just one more day.”
“For an immortal you’re pathetic.” Thane’s hands were fisted at his sides.
“He always was,” Hel added.
“I never wanted Valeen to get hurt?—”
Heat flooded Hel’s body as he charged him, gripped his throat, and slammed his head into the wall, cracking the stone. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
The wife in the kitchen started blubbering and Hel shot her a glare. “Shut up!” Her chin wobbled and the tears silently flowed but not a sound came from her.
“They have spies,” he gasped. “They’ll know she’s there alone…”
Hel pulled the golden blade from inside his jacket.
It hummed with an otherworldly power, a power even immortal gods could not survive.
With one quick thrust he shoved it into Rogue’s chest, cracking through chainmail, bone, and cartilage.
Rogue wheezed out a breath, and gripped onto Hel’s shoulders, while fear filled his wide brown eyes.
“Maybe Serenity will be beautiful or maybe you’ll find the ugliness of the underrealm.”
“Hel, please.” Blood slid out of the corners of his mouth. “My wife.”
He leaned in close to his ear. “Don’t worry, she will follow you into the afterlife and you can be together.”
“No,” he groaned, then one more ragged breath was all he had left before he slumped forward. Hel jerked Soulender free and let him fall to the floor where a pool of red quickly stained the white floors.
The wife screamed and ran for the balcony.
Thane caught her around the waist before she made it outside.
She kicked and fought in his grasp, screaming and clawing at his hands.
There was a moment he waited for Thane to take care of the problem.
Her screaming like a banshee would draw attention, bring people up here.
But Thane hesitated. He always did when it came to the fairer sex.
It was up to Hel to do the dirty work, as usual.
He crossed the room and stood before the wife, taking in her tears and feeling nothing.
He knew he should have the same hesitation Thane did.
Somewhere in his black heart he thought it would be better to let her go, but then he thought of Valeen and what was done to his wife by these people.
She was innocent. She shed tears too and found only savagery.
“I didn’t do anything!” she wailed. “Please, have mercy.”
Hel took hold of her head with both hands. “Mercy is not something I possess anymore.” One quick jerk snapped her neck.
With a frown, Thane gently laid her body to the floor.
His fingers brushed over her eyelids, closing them for eternity.
She wasn’t an immortal, not even a demigoddess but an elf brought to this world of gods and monsters long ago.
Too bad she was caught in the crossfire of the worst monster of them all.
“We need to get back now,” Thane said as Hel hurried across the room and stopped beside Rogue.
“I know.” He quickly checked his pockets and inside his jacket and found a small, folded note. Hel opened it and read: Their immortality isn’t hidden; it’s been given. He set fire to it and tossed it onto the ground while the curling edges turned black.