Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
STASIE
My muscles tightened and I held on to the steering wheel even tighter.
The wall drew closer, and I knew we were going to crash.
The wall flashed, glowing a bright blue, and the car continued forward into the wall.
My eyes widened as we glided through the wall and into a swirling blue tunnel.
The car twisted and turned in different directions, rattling as it moved and sending vibrations over my entire body.
My stomach rolled and I pressed my hand over my mouth as Thanatos sagged into the seat with a deep sigh.
He took his foot off the gas and yet the car still lurched forward.
“What’s happening?”
“Hold on.” He placed his hand over mine. There was nothing before us and nothing behind. Just swirling blue surrounded us on all sides. The car jerked from one side to the other and a bright white light rushed toward the car. He shoved his arm across my body.
“Are you mom-arming me?”
“What?” His arm tightened across me as the car shot out of the end of the blue tunnel.
It soared through the air, arching over a tall stone wall.
The front of the car tipped downward, and the earth rushed up toward us and a .
. . fountain? The front of the car shot right down toward the huge thing.
Water shot from the top, and as we got closer, I could see the details.
It was four-tiered with carvings on each of the tiers.
We crashed into it and the front of the car dented inward.
The windshield smashed and water shot up into the car.
Thanatos held me there, stopping my chest from smacking into the steering wheel.
“Are you alright?” He ran his hand over his face, trying to swipe water from his eyes.
“I think so.” The car lurched to the side, the metal groaning. I braced for it to crash off the top of the fountain and to the side, but it floated straight up as if someone picked it up off the top of the fountain.
The car floated to the side, and we were placed gently on the ground beside the ruined fountain.
I let go of a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
Thanatos kicked his door open and hurried to my side.
He yanked the door wide and then he was there, his arms wrapping around me and pulling me out of the car.
We were standing in some kind of courtyard of a medieval castle.
The grass around the broken-down fountain was a bright, pristine green.
When I looked out beyond the castle walls, all I could see were even taller modern buildings.
None of this made sense. We were just in Florida. “Are we in New York?”
“Are you okay?” he asked, ignoring my question while he ran his hands over my head, my arms, and down my sides. “Any injuries, any internal bleeding?”
I swatted his hands away. “I think I’m fine. But seriously, we were just in Florida. How is this possible?”
“You were supposed to catch the car before it hit the fountain! Before it hits!”
“You try catching a car! It’s not the easiest thing to do.”
I whirled around to face two young women standing next to each other and motioning to the car and the fountain. The one with wild dark hair and sharp blue eyes gave a heavy sigh. “You’ve gotta fix this before he sees.”
I turned to Thanatos. “Is she wearing a crown? Like a real crown?”
“It helps magnify her power.” Thanatos smiled at the two women and gave them a wave. “Zinnia, thank you.”
The one wearing the crown gave him a warm smile. “Thank Maze.”
“Who’s Maze?” This was all so unfamiliar, yet at the same time something tickled at the back of my mind.
“Freaky psychic who plays with the future more than the fates do,” Thanatos sighed. “I’ll have to thank him this time.”
“Astrid, please hurry.” Zinnia turned to the redheaded one. “Before we get our asses handed to us . . . again.”
“I’m working on it.” Astrid held her hands out to her sides and lines of golden sparkles flowed from her.
My jaw dropped and my heart raced. “What the actual fuck?”
Thanatos grabbed my hand and pulled me closer to his side. “I told you. Magic is real.”
Golden streams of power wrapped around the car. One minute it was normal-sized, and in the next it shrank down before my eyes to the size of a toy car. Astrid walked over to it and plucked it off the grass. “I’m gonna give this to Soto. I think she’ll like it.”
“Good idea.” Zinnia pointed toward the cracked fountain that she seemed so obsessed with. “Now for the fountain.”
“I’m on it. I’m on it.” Astrid held her hands out and more of those golden sparkles shot across the courtyard.
It swirled around the fountain and the cracks slowly sealed up tight.
The broken pieces floated up off the ground and landed back on the top of the fountain.
It was like putting puzzle pieces back together.
The water stopped shooting in all different directions and started to flow peacefully from one tier to the next.
“Yep, I’m definitely dead.” I nodded to myself.
Thanatos chuckled. “Trust me, I would know if you were dead.”
Panic flowed through my body. I nearly died in a cave-in, I was nearly shot, I was in a high-speed chase, and I crashed into a wall that wasn’t a wall at all. My breaths came in hard puffs and I hunched over. Thanatos bent down beside me. “What’s happening? Are you hurt?”
But I couldn’t breathe. It was too much, too fast. I shook my head, trying to find a calm that wouldn’t come.
Astrid held her hand out and a circle of shimmering light opened next to her. She turned toward it. “We need a little help here.”
A man with chin-length blond hair and a thick five-o’clock shadow stepped through the shimmering air.
My eyes went round, and I took a step back from him.
There was something dark and dangerous about him.
He wore a beat-up sweater with holes in the sleeves and near the neck. His jeans were equally as beat-up.
Astrid motioned to me. “Can you help her?”
“Little panic attack?” He scoffed. “Yeah, I got this.”
He stepped in closer to me and lowered his voice. “Calm.”
My body instantly reacted, my breaths and heart slowing at the one word, a command that my body and mind simply obeyed. I straightened and drew in a breath that filled my lungs and calmed my nerves. I met his dark gaze. “Um, thanks.”
“If only everything else was that easy.” He looked me up and down, then turned away from me to face Astrid. “I want to go back to my room now.”
“Thanks for the assist, Logan.” She opened her hand and the air shimmered in front of him once more.
He stepped into it and gave her a small nod. “No problem.”
When the opening closed behind him, Astrid sighed. “He’d a good guy, really.”
“Dude has got some darkness in him, but I’m glad he helped.”
“He’s been through a lot.” Astrid’s gaze dropped to the ground. “Some things can’t be healed by magic.”
What the hell does that mean?
Thanatos wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Of course. We’re just grateful for your help. It was getting difficult there for a minute.”
“What was difficult?” a deep voice rumbled from the other side of the courtyard, and Thanatos whirled around with me in tow.
“Holy fuck.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Now I know I’m dead.”
“Not dead,” Thanatos muttered beneath his breath. To the towering man across from us, he raised his voice. “Matteaus, good to see you.”
Matteaus was a freaking angel . . . with wings .
. . Hulking black wings that peeked over his shoulder and shed dark feathers as he marched over to us.
His hair was an array of the darkest browns and the lightest blonds.
His sapphire eyes were sharp and calculating.
Daggers of all shapes and sizes were strapped to his chest and down his legs.
The muscle in his jaw ticked when he looked at Zinnia. “My fountain.”
“It’s fixed, I swear.” She motioned to it.
“You’re lucky it is.”
“Yes, Matteaus.” She lowered her eyes as if bowing to a king.
“Leave,” he barked the one word. Astrid and Zinnia turned on their heels and hurried down a hallway at the back of the courtyard.
I stood there just staring up at the angel.
What did one say to an angel? He wasn’t aethereal or glowing with inner light.
I thought an angel would have that serene feel flowing off of him.
I thought they’d be peaceful and calm. There was nothing peaceful or calm about Matteaus. Agitation rolled off him in waves.
He crossed his arms over his chest when he faced Thanatos. “What are you doing here?”
He was only slightly taller than Thanatos, but he was more muscular and looked like he lived his life in a war zone, whereas Thanatos had an inner stillness. Thanatos gave him a smile. “The queens brought us here.”
Matteaus looked him up and down, then gave me a quick glance. “Why would they interfere with the affairs of humans?”
The smile dropped from Thanatos’s face. “We have a history.”
“Humans are not their territory,” Matteaus growled, “They are mine.”
“I’m grateful for their help.” He turned an motioned toward me. “This is Anastasia.”
“I know who she is.” Matteaus barely looked in my direction. “You have interfered with her too much.”
Thanatos froze. “Please try to understand.”
“No,” he said firmly.
“No?” Thanatos’s face fell as if Matteaus had struck him.
“No.”
“Matteaus, I served. Faithfully.” He sighed. “Please, I just couldn’t live like that anymore.”
“You’ve made your choices. Now you have to live by them.” He motioned to the door. “Human problems mean human solutions. You can’t be one foot in the world of Evermore and one foot out.”
“I understand.” Thanatos turned for the door, guiding me to the archway at the front of the building.
“You know what must happen.” Matteaus lowered his voice. “You can only fight fate for so long.”
“But I will fight it,” Thanatos’s grip tightened around me, and I leaned into him, “for as long as I can.”
This was all so confusing. It felt unreal, as if I were walking through a dream.
Angels, witches, and gods all existed, living unseen to humans, and I was in the middle of them all.
It was either that or my mind was cracked, and this was the mental breakdown from hell.
The thick wooden door flew open of its own accord and Thanatos paused just inside of it.
“I know I’ve disappointed you.” He glanced over his shoulder at Matteaus. “I hope we can be friends once more.”
“We are friends,” Matteaus muttered. “But to be human is to walk this world without us.”
We stepped out of the front door, and it swung shut behind us with a loud bang of finality. I gazed up at him. “You really are death, aren’t you?”
“I was.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine.
It was unbelievable and yet now I believed every word of it. “If you could live forever, why would you choose such a short life?”
“For you I would give up anything.” He said it like it was so simple to give up eternity for someone like me.
Who was I? No one compared to the affairs of gods.
My heart leapt in my chest, and I held him closer, winding my fingers in the fabric of his shirt.
I wanted to be this close to him . . . always.
Pain exploded across the side of my body, and I soared back from Thanatos.
My body smacked into a thick brick wall.
Something cracked in my side, down my arm, and into my leg.
My breath left me in a rush, and I could hardly catch it as I lay on the ground in a heap.
A high-pitched beeping sound filled my ears, and my vision was blurred.
I blinked against the darkness, but there was just . . . nothing.