31. Hook
My nerves were on edge after leaving Never on the island to deal with Anya on her own. It didn’t help that she’d shut me out before we’d even made the trip, which left me with no idea what she was feeling or what was happening with her.
I should have sent some of my men with her. Why had I let her talk me out of it?
Eyeing the crude cage dangling from a makeshift crane fashioned from spare rope and pulleys, I flashed inside for a final inspection. I ran my hands over the rough boards and checked the joints for any sign of weakness. All the while, my thoughts were bouncing between going back to Never and trying to forget the sensation of my blade slicing three deep cuts into Leo’s side.
I’d inflicted that damage moments before I’d loaded him into the skiff and pointed him toward the beach with blood pouring from his wounds.
Cutting him had been worse than the beating he’d insisted I give him, but not by much. For the ruse to be successful, it needed to look like he was too weak to heal himself. Which meant I couldn’t go easy on him, for his sake.
He’d gritted his teeth through the first two slices, but on the third his tiger had risen to the surface, feline eyes blazing, and the wild animal’s roar rolled from the man’s chest.
I’d never felt more like a monster.
And now, I waited, counting off seconds while I carried out my inspection. Half a minute passed, and it felt like I’d been in the cage for a lifetime.
Leo needed time to draw out the Lost. Never needed time to draw Anya to the opposite beach. That left me in a torturous limbo where the next thirty seconds seemed to last twice as long as the first.
I was supposed to give them a solid three minutes from the point that I left Never on the beach, but when I hit two, impatience won out. I pictured the spot I was looking for, closed my eyes, and flashed.
Petra’s camp was quiet compared to the bustle of activity I was expecting. Several of the demon’s minions were standing guard or carrying out tasks, but she was nowhere to be seen.
We’d all assumed that she would send the Lost to round up Leo. What if we were wrong?
Spine tingling, I flashed to the beach, far enough away from the place where Leo should have dragged the skiff ashore so as not to be seen. I needn’t have bothered.
A battle was in full swing; Leo—looking far better off than I’d left him—and my men against Petra’s Lost. Off to the side sat the demon, once again donning the glamour of the exotic island beauty.
I couldn’t waste time engaging in the fight. My mission was to get Petra to the ship and get the ship to the eddy. Making note of the men surrounding her and their positions in the sand, I flashed.
It should have been a simple matter of placing a hand on the creature and whisking it away, but when I arrived behind the demon, in the blink of an eye, she was facing me. Like she had been waiting for me.
Those evil black eyes narrowed. Before I could so much as lay a finger on her, she shoved me hard, throwing me off balance.
Not a great start, but at least having her attention on me would give my people a better chance.
Swords clanged all around us, creating a savage harmony with the grunts of effort and cries of pain that filled the warm, humid air. With those brutal sounds came the aromas of fresh blood being spilled and the sharp reek of sweat that hung heavy over the sweeter notes of the nearby jungle. Even the salty tang of the sea wasn’t enough to overpower the scent of men fighting on a day like today.
The creature’s feminine form smiled cruelly at me, revealing her inhuman teeth. Rather than rushing her, I waited. If I played this right, I would have her where I wanted her.
Hell, why not make it easy on her?
I sheathed my cutlass and held my arms out wide. “What say we settle this the old way?” I threw down the challenge, knowing full well the creature wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to take a swing at me.
It moved like lightning, shedding its glamour as it shot forward. The moment those elongated claws made contact, slicing deep and sending a shock of white-hot pain surging through me, I latched onto its monstrous arm and directed my energy to the cage.
In a fraction of a second, we were back out on the water. Pain filtered into my awareness, along with a gaping wound that slashed jagged lines through my flesh from my right shoulder to my left hip.
I hissed out a breath, a sound caught between a wince and a growl. No matter how many times I was injured, and no matter how quickly I healed, the initial anguish was always fresh and raw.
From the deck, my men yelled. Some were cheering me on, others were telling me to get out of the cage. Somewhere in the melee, I thought I glimpsed a being I hadn’t seen for thousands of years. I had just enough time to wonder if I was going mad before another wave of searing pain sliced across my face, blinding me in one eye.
Warmth poured from the gashes, spilling down my mangled cheek and neck.
The injury mattered little because I had the creature right where I wanted it.
Unsheathing my cutlass, I swung fast and wide, blocking another blow. It was swelling, making itself bigger and more dangerous, but if I was right about the reinforced wards—and I desperately needed to be right—the enchantment on the cage would be enough to hold that monster. At least until we hit the eddy.
Then it would all come down to craftmanship and speed.
I sliced with my blade again and again, spilling the thing’s disgusting blood without an ounce of mercy. It returned the favor every chance it got, carving and gouging faster than my body could heal itself.
There were no taunting words and witty quips. Pain burned and ached and screamed inside me, but this part of the fight was all about two things; violence and buying myself a few precious seconds to flash safely out of the enclosure.
If I didn’t time it just right, the demon would end up on the deck of the ship with me and my men. We would most assuredly lose it then. The creature would be yanked back to the island, and my odds of getting another shot at it anytime in the next decade would be slim-to-none.
Finally, as my boots slipped on the blood-soaked boards for the hundredth time, and every breath felt like shards of glass scraping down my windpipe, I saw the opening. One second, I was in the cage. The next, I was glaring at the thrashing creature from the deck, panting from exertion.
I’d known it was going to put up a hell of a fight, but holy hell.
A few of my men had moved too close to the edge, no doubt caught up in the brutality of the battle. Petra might not be able to kill them, but the creature wouldn’t hesitate to make them bleed for their recklessness.
“Everyone back!” I rasped, ignoring my own order as my blade clattered on the wooden boards. I had to brace myself on the railing just to stay upright.
They shuffled back at the order, but irritation still rolled through me. “Better yet, to your stations.” That was where they all should have been in the first place. “Get this ship moving.”
Could I blame them for wanting to watch? Not really. Violence and bloodshed had the power to captivate people in a way that little else did. Save, perhaps, for sex.
With that thought, I checked my connection with Never and was met with dead silence.
Was that good or bad?I couldn’t tell, and while I didn’t want to wait even a second longer to find out, I couldn’t leave just yet. Not until I was sure that warded cage would hold.
As my men scattered to the far corners of the ship, I watched the demon. It dragged those monstrous claws against the weathered wood. It kicked and pried at the boards. And when that didn’t work, it threw the full weight of its body back and forth against the inside of its new prison.
All it managed to do was shake the contraption. Even if it did have enough sense to set the cage to swinging enough to bash it against the hull of the ship, the wards shouldkeep both structures in one piece.
There were far too many shoulds and maybes in this plan for my liking.
I was fully healed when I flashed to the beach where I’d left Never a moment later, but that didn’t stop my heart rate from picking up when I couldn’t find her along that dark stretch of sand.
“Fuuuuuck!” The harsh expletive filtered out from the trees, and my blood curdled. That was Never. I was sure of it. Except, I still couldn’t feel a goddamned thing coming from her, and somehow, it sounded like her curse was coming from everywhere.
Another scream rent the air, and I was running before I thought to move my feet. My boots weighed a thousand pounds as they sank into the sand with every step. Branches clawed at me as I shoved my way into the shadows, but I barely noticed over the thrum of my heart beating like an angry bird trapped in my chest.
I charged through the darkness, pausing only when Anya’s cruel laugh tinkled through the claustrophobic greenery. Turning in an uncertain circle, my senses were trying to search everywhere at once.
Come on, Never. Let me in.Even just a crack would guide me to her. What the hell was I thinking teaching her to block me out?
Anya’s voice had come from the opposite direction I’d been running, but my gut, tangled as it was, told me to keep going.
Surging forward, the soles of my boots pounded the damp earth and soft fallen leaves, until they brought me to a scene that made my knees weak.
Never was fighting to get up off the ground. Her back was soaked in blood.
The vicious pixie hovered over the woman who owned my heart, those turquoise wings flitting excitedly. The look on her face, pure and wicked delight, sent the anger swirling beneath my skin through the roof.
She will pay for this.
Everything inside me clenched tight—my stomach, my lungs, my throat—and I started forward on stilted legs.
“That really all you got, glitter bitch?” Never laughed, though her voice was thready, and her head hung like she didn’t have the energy to hold it upright.
I moved closer as quickly and quietly as I could, only to draw myself up short when Never dragged herself to standing. A sick feeling swam inside me. The wound on her back ran all the way through her lovely chest, marring her top with a deep crimson stain that flowed down the front of her.
Blood dripped from the corner of her mouth, and when she flashed her teeth at Anya, refusing to back down even when she must have been in a world of pain, they were tinted red as well.
“Enough!” I yelled, my voice booming through the stillness.
Anya fluttered backward wearing a challenge on her face, but in the blink of an eye, that challenge turned to shock. Because Never was there, grabbing her by her fluttering dress before spinning and shoving her onto a blood-soaked limb extending out from an ancient Ikesava tree.
The pixie’s scream echoed through the trees, pitched so high it made my eyes water. Disbelief and pain pinched her features. There had been a time, long ago, when I’d thought her beautiful. But after she’d revealed her true nature, she’d become no better than the monster she served.
A thread of satisfaction worked its way through me when I saw her seafoam green blood mixing with the shock of red at the end of that pale branch. The injury wouldn’t be enough to kill her, but it was a start.
Never stood in front of her, back heaving with labored breaths. And Anya, for the first time in our sordid history, looked truly terrified.
“You’re not…” she sputtered, far more focused on Never than her own injury.
“Not what?” Never bit out.
She threw a glance over her shoulder, just for a second, and all at once I knew exactly what had the devilish pixie shaking.
I’d done a fair job of convincing myself that I’d imagined that amber glow in Never’s eyes earlier, but the evidence I’d tried to dismiss the first time was right there. If that weren’t enough, the fact that the wound on her back was already closing on its own sealed the deal.
“Never?” I called to her quietly, hoping the forced calm in my tone would draw her attention.
She turned to look at me, her eyes glowing bright, but she didn’t seem to understand what was happening. A world of emotions churned inside her. That much was easy enough to see even without our connection.
“If you want her dead, you need to remove her wings,” I offered. As much as I wanted to take my vengeance on the pixie, perhaps Never needed it more than I.
Fury flickered across her expression just as shock rocked Anya’s.
“No!” Anya screeched, and in a thick plume of pixie dust, she vanished, taking half the tree with her.
Using that kind of magic when she was seriously wounded would have cost the pixie dearly. Wherever she ended up, she would be as weak as a day-old kitten, with no way to pull herself off that bloody branch, save for pure grit.
That was one advantage Never had over her. The woman, for all her mortal weakness, seemed to be made of the stuff.
What was left of the tree began to list. Its rotten, hollow trunk cracked as the weight of the thing shifted. Never didn’t seem to notice. She glared down at the empty spot until I came up behind her, caught her around the waist, and hauled her backward.
She didn’t fight. It was eerie the way she let herself be dragged. Once she was out of harm’s way, I came around to her side. “Love,” I said softly. “Look at me.”
When she turned, a mixture of outrage and confusion simmered in her expression.
“May I?” I asked, motioning to her shirt with a hand that appeared far steadier than it felt.
She blinked at me, her brow pulling together, until understanding dawned. Her chin dipped to her chest and her own hand came up to prod at the ragged hole in the fabric. “How did you…” The question trailed off, and when she looked up again, the amber was fading fast.
I thought I knew what that glow meant, but it shouldn’t have been possible. Dragging her back from the jaws of death was one thing. I’d risked angering the other gods to bring her back.
But a god sharing power with a mortal? That was something else altogether.
I’d never heard a single tale of a demigod accomplishing such a feat.
Never rolled her shoulders back, blinking quickly. “I thought I was done.” Her words were little more than a whisper.
Despite the dangerous new questions swirling in my mind, I couldn’t bear the space between us any longer. Or to see her looking so damned vulnerable. So, I closed the distance, catching her beautiful face in my hands and kissing her lips hard. When I pulled away, the faint, metallic taste of her blood lingered on my lips, but I didn’t care. She was okay.
So much better than okay.
She backed away a step, swiping a hand across the corner of her mouth. Her eyes narrowed on the smear of blood for a beat. Then she threw herself into my arms, burying her face in the hollow of my shoulder. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Healing me again. I was sure I was dead.” She pulled her head back, and those stormy blue eyes of hers were like a punch to the gut.
“Love, I didn’t—”
Her expression changed in a heartbeat. “Petra? Did you get her?”
The demon.How quickly I’d forgotten the whole damned reason for this mess.
“In the cage,” I said numbly. “We should get back.”
She nodded, and without another word, I pulled her in close and flashed us to the ship.