Chapter Sixteen #2
A smile forces its way across his face. “Now,” he exhales, “can we eat, please? Because I’d really like to go to bed with a rawball champion tonight, and you can’t give me that if you pass out from hunger.
Plus, if you do pass out from hunger, I’ll have to handle your parents after the game alone. Don’t do that to me.”
I huff. “I’d never subject you to that, I promise. But you’ve already been going to bed with a rawball champion.”
It’s really never felt that way, though. Winning this game would be so much more impactful than winning for the Chimeras ever was.
Bel hums, lips pursing. “Nah, that doesn’t count,” he says, a close enough echo of my own thoughts that my smile gets truer. “This one counts, with a team that matters.”
He wriggles out of my arms and sashays to the other side of the table.
“Bring me that win,” Bel adds, “or I’ll have to find someone on the Dragons to go to bed with.”
I bark a laugh.
“Oh gods,” Seb groans. “Stop making bedroom eyes at each other or I’m going to start eating without you.”
Thio leans over to whisper to Seb, “I think this is what is commonly known as payback, dearest.”
“You bet your ass it is,” I say and dive forward.
Bel squeals, sprinting around the table, but I catch him in two strides and haul him into my arms, attacking his neck with bites and kisses.
Some are teasing. Some are claiming.
Each one is a promise.
The energy in Bwararax Stadium is off.
Every-fucking-one, from the rawball team to the managers, coaches, cheerleaders—hell, probably even the people selling concessions up on the main levels—we’re all strung taut.
When the Chimeras made the championship last season, the energy before it had been boisterous and confident. My teammates had gone in with their heads high and spirits cranked to the max; I’d been swept along yet separated, trying to soak up their certainty.
But here?
It’s like everyone’s holding their breath in that clenched-up bracing of uncertainty I’ve been living with since finding out about Bel and these damn cultists. I hate that it feels like this negative energy is emanating out of me. Am I infecting everyone?
As we ready our uniforms after warm-up, the locker room is pin-drop silent. Usually Darian’s humming or someone’s murmuring spells over their enchanted items or general talk rings around. But it’s quiet.
I sit on the bench near my locker, holding my Hellhounds uniform, doing what I’ve done before every game all season: staring at the Urzoth badge stitched on my jersey’s shoulder.
Then promptly ignoring the Urzoth badge.
If we pull off this faux ritual, I’ll be able to renounce Urzoth, for real this time. Bel and I both can go into next season free.
I layer on my pads and am tugging on my jersey when the main door flies open.
Roesia and the rest of the team management enter.
I stand along with everyone else. The toxic silence hangs as team management stops in the middle of the room.
Roesia sighs loudly.
“My gods,” she says, fists on her hips. “Did we lose already and no one told me?”
“No, ma’am,” Aaron speaks up next to me. “I apologize. This isn’t the attitude we should be going into the game with.”
Agreement ripples through the team.
I rub at my chest. The hell is wrong with us? We’ve earned our spot here. This is our stadium. What’s with this dread? It’s heavier than normal. It’s—
An alarm rips through my head.
“Bel.”
Aaron hums. “I don’t hear a bell.”
“No, I—”
I think Roesia might be talking. Trying to convince us of our worthiness, our victory. But all I hear is the echo of that alarm in my head, the brief screaming ring that Seb said would trigger in both my head and his when Bel broke one of the pearls on his necklace. When he was in trouble.
Oh my gods.
I fly at my locker, grab my phone, but Seb’s already calling me.
We’re not supposed to even look at our phones this close to the game, much less when team management is talking, but I answer.
“On my way,” Seb says in lieu of greeting. “He’s in the cheerleader locker room?”
“Yeah. I think so. I don’t—fuck, Seb—”
“Breathe, babe. Thio and I just got to the stadium, so we’ll head there. You got us security passes for this reason. And Ilbryen’s on him right now?”
Shit, Ilbryen. “Yeah, I’ll call her next. I—”
“I’ll call when we’re there.” He hangs up.
Numb, nearly dropping my phone, I try to call Bel first.
It goes to voicemail.
His phone’s put away like mine should be. That’s all.
Shaking, fighting not to spiral, I call Ilbryen. She’s in the locker room with him, undercover as a media rep. Maybe he crushed a pearl by accident during his warm-up; Ilbryen will answer snappishly, assure me he’s okay, and hang up.
The call rings.
And rings.
Voicemail.
My gut plummets, staggering me into the side of the locker.
No. No, no, no.
I pocket my phone and whirl—
—to find the entire Hellhounds team and management looking at me.
The championship game starts in an hour. I can’t leave.
Only I have to leave.
“Bel—I mean, Alexo, something’s happened to him. I don’t know what, but I need to check on him. Now.”
It’s weak. I hear how weak it sounds. I don’t have proof to back it up, don’t have anything but this dread and the alarm that no one else here heard.
Roesia has every right to berate me. This is crazy unprofessional—this is—
She looks back at one of her assistants. “Contact the cheerleading squad. Locate Mr. Warden.”
I blow out a noisy breath. What? Just like that?
My phone vibrates in my hand. Seb.
I’m shaking so much I’m shocked I can hold the phone to my ear. “Yeah?”
“Cheerleaders are still in the locker room,” he tells me, sounding out of breath. “So says security. We’re almost there. Hang on—baby, go, use those long legs—shit, Thio can run when he’s motivated. O? You still there?”
“Yeah, I—”
Roesia’s talking with her assistant, who’s on the phone, too. I’m split in half; I split again when I notice the whole team’s still watching me, wound with a new energy: defensiveness. Everyone leaning slightly toward me, waiting for the word, waiting to spring forward.
Seb and Roesia speak in an overlap.
“I don’t see him,” Seb pants. “Neither does Thio.”
“Mr. Warden is unaccounted for,” Roesia says, her jaw set.
The room shifts. I’m vaguely aware of hanging up on Seb, dialing Bel’s phone again—it rings, rings, voicemail.
I’m barreling toward the door before I’m aware of a hand grabbing my bicep, hauling me to a stop.
I swing around, mouth open to shout when Roesia’s determined face stops me.
“He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” she asks calmly, into the once again dead silence of the locker room.
Hollow, I nod.
He’s gone. Someone took him.
My knee buckles, but I catch myself and tense everything, locking down, inertia and focus and I will not break. He needs me.
And then the manager of this whole team that’s supposed to play the biggest game of our careers in less than sixty minutes nods decisively, and says, “All right. Let’s go find him.”
My chest caves. I can’t think beyond the panic clawing at the edges of my brain, setting snares for every rational thought beyond go, go, get to Bel, GO.
“What?” I ask. “Ma’am, I—”
“What’s going on?” It’s Darian.
Followed by Aaron. “Your guy’s missing? The fuck?”
Soon, the whole team is talking. Engaged for the first time all morning, an overlap of explanations and questions and concern.
I shake my head at Roesia. “I have to go. I’m sorry, but I can’t—”
“I know,” she says. “I told you, let’s go find him.”
She swishes past me, out the door into the hall, and I’m left in a daze.
What?
I—
What?
She should argue. She should tell me to keep my ass here and that Bel will show back up on his own, because maybe he’s in the bathroom, or maybe he stepped out for air, or—
Marlow pats my cheek, getting my attention. “You heard her,” she signs. “Let’s go.”
Then she leaves, too. And Aaron, with a shouted “We’ll be back; fix the energy while we’re gone.”
Darian grabs my wrist. “Come on,” he says, and drags me out of the room.
I go, stumbling at first, finding my footing when Darian gives me a supportive smile.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” he offers.
He’s fine.
He has to be.
Gods, he has to be.
The parade of the Hellhounds’ team manager, rookie rogue, a bard with a guitar on his back, and two defensive tanks in full uniform sans helmets, all barreling through the private hallways of the stadium, gets us more than a few startled looks.
But we rip through the place, Roesia in the lead, and by the time we get to the cheerleader locker room, I sprint ahead to gain on her.
Seb’s crouched on the ground outside the door with Thio, doing some kind of spell that involves a chalked evocation circle and several components.
He whips his head up at our approach and launches to his feet. “Can’t track him,” he snaps and kicks one of the components, a jar of mirror dust that clatters across the tiled floor. “Can’t fucking track him. And I should gods-damn be able to track him—I set it into his necklace.”
My throat swells, closes. I choke out the words “What does that mean?”
Seb’s face goes gray, eyes flickering from furious to sorrowful. “It means whoever took him knew to ward him against tracking spells.”
I wheeze.
Someone really took him.
No. No.
I rip my hand up, grabbing at my hair, pacing, breathing too fast. “What do we—what the fuck do we—”
Thio stands and puts a hand on my arm, asking Seb, “What about Ilbryen? Can you track her? Maybe whoever it was took them both.”
“I can try. I bet anything Ilbryen’s got her own wards against tracking, though. I can—” He finally notes everyone crowding the hall around me.
“Bring the cavalry?” he asks, only half joking.
Roesia nudges Seb’s spell work with her toe. “No need to do another tracking spell. I can locate Mr. Warden.”
I whirl on her. “What? How?”
Roesia’s orange eyes rise to mine. She holds my gaze for what feels like a lifetime.
“I smelled the demonic ancestry on him the moment he stepped into my office,” she says.
Every ounce of blood in my body goes to ice, my thoughts screeching to a halt.
No, Bel’s illusion magic covers him. It’s—that apple smell. He’s protected.
Isn’t he?
The apples cover the smell of the magic. Not necessarily the smell of him.
Spots speckle my vision. It’s only through sheer force of will, of knowing Bel needs me, revelations be damned, that I don’t ask Roesia a thousand questions.
“Please,” I beg her, eyes burning, a jarring contrast to how cold I still am. “Please, find him.”
Behind us, Darian, Marlow, and Aaron are quiet. They heard. This probably makes no sense to them. But they watch, still here.
Roesia closes her eyes. Her nostrils flare, her head tips in a move so reminiscent of a hunting dog that I flinch.
After a beat, her eyes pop open, pupils blown. “This way,” she says, and she’s off like a shot.
I hurry after her, trailed by Seb and Thio, and Marlow, Darian, and Aaron.
Roesia gets to an intersection. Left would take us outside; she whirls right, and a fraction of me eases.
He’s still in the stadium.
Why?
Who took him? Why would they keep him here?
We get to a hall blocked by security guards.
Beyond is access to the lower levels; the stadium stretches several stories belowground to accommodate for field configurations.
Whatever the Dragons planned should already be locked in by their artificers, to be activated once the game starts.
But right now, moments before the game? It’s strictly off-limits to anyone from the opposing team.
Security tries to stop Roesia. She glares at them, every bit of her werewolf ancestry blazing out when she growls, “I am one of the owners of this stadium. Step. Aside.”
They eye each other. And obey.
We fly past them, and I hear one send out a call to the head of security.
Good. Let the whole force of the security team come tumbling after us.
We descend, leaping down staircases and barreling through empty halls.
A hundred nightmares overlap. A hundred moments with Seb from the camp. Him bloodied and bruised. Him gone.
I reach behind me, and his hand finds mine, locks in with a reassuring grip.
Four stories belowground, Roesia stops in front of metal double doors and throws her fist up. “Here. The scent is strongest. And beyond this door, I hear—” She cocks her head again. “Six heartbeats. One unconscious. Four calm. One—” Her eyes lock on mine. “One scared.”
I drop Seb’s hand and march to the doors as someone hisses, “Should we plan first or—”
Fuck any plan.
They took him from me.
I punch the doors open so hard they rebound off the walls with rattling blasts, clouds of dust bursting out of the concrete.
The square room is one of many for hosting spells to adjust the field. Runes glow arcane blue on the floor and walls.
That should be it. No one should be down here; it’s incredibly dangerous once the rooms start moving to accommodate whatever field the artificers planned.
But four people are centered in the room, standing in a circle, wearing black cultist robes with the hoods up.
In the corner, unconscious on the floor, is Ilbryen, her hands and legs bound.
And in the middle of the cultist circle, wearing his cheerleading tank top and shorts, his wrists chained above his head so he dangles from an I beam, is Bel in his demon form.
Tears track mascara down his cheeks. His necklace is visible, too, one of the pearls missing.
He sees me and thrashes on the chain, bare toes scraping the floor.
Orok! he mouths, but no sound comes. He says it again, Orok, Orok—
They put a silencing spell on him.
My shoulders arch. My hands clench into fists.
And I see. Fucking. Red.
One of the cultists throws his hood back. Recognizing him feels preordained.
“I won’t let you ruin this again,” Tem snarls. “You’re too late. Galaxrien will be free!”
He’s sneering, trying to be intimidating; he doesn’t realize how epically he’s messed up.
All that red, all that rising vehemence, has a focus.
He put the love of my life in chains.
He took Bel from me.
It’s been years since I truly worshipped the god of strength. I renounced him, turned my back on him.
But in this moment, I don’t need prayers or offerings to earn back his favor.
Because I fucking am the god of strength.