Chapter 36 I Love You’s
Chapter Thirty-Six
I Love You’s
KAIROS
Well, coming to the Underworld without a clear plan was a disaster we should have seen coming.
If you’d have asked me days ago when Nyx and her hellhounds first captured Hekate and I if I thought we’d be alive four days later, I would have said fuck no.
Yet here we are. Alive. Bound and kept near the flaming black pit, the heat of it scorching my neck and making my skin uncomfortably slick as shit, but we’re alive.
There were too many of them to fight our way out.
I can’t afford to die when I haven’t saved Mera yet.
I’m getting her the fuck out of here even if doing so gets me killed.
I just have to stay alive long enough to get the chance to. I will not fail her this time.
The demons’ growls fill the silence any time one of us moves or speaks, but it’s usually only me doing the talking.
Hekate has kept mostly silent and dazed since we stopped at the River Mnemosyne before we were captured.
She stared at the sign for a moment, mumbled something about the water looking familiar, and she drank from it as I sharpened my blades.
She has been strange ever since. Now she’s just silently staring up at the queen on the throne like she’s someone she knows.
But she does not know that thing sitting there smiling down at us.
With the thick, curved horns, the leathery wings, and the glowing red eyes that make the light within me ache with the need to kill her, she’s as evil and demonic as it gets.
Not to mention her little pets, the black serpents with beady glowing eyes like hers that she wears like jewelry around her neck.
I was right. Hekate was wrong. There is no light left within her.
My knees burn from kneeling on them for so long, the dry, hot, scorched earth forming new blisters on my skin each time I heal the old ones.
We tried to be civil with Nyx, or at least Hekate did.
I threatened to rip out her heart with my bare hands while Hekate begged her to let Mera come home, for her to come home as well.
Talking to her was useless, and Hekate has lost her godsdamned mind if she thinks she’s going to convince her to come back or that it’d be safe to do so.
She doesn’t belong out there in the semi civilized world. This is where she belongs.
Nyx stands and sways her hips as she makes her way across the throne platform, the crumbling stone pillars on its four sides leaning dangerously like they might fall at any second.
Her black horns cast eerie shadows across the ground as she gracefully descends the steps and makes her way over to us.
Using her sharp, demon-like claws, she slices through the thick rope tied tightly around our wrists and ankles, setting us both free. “It is time.” Her lips curl up into a beautiful but deadly smile, and the serpents around her shoulders hiss as they track my every move, heads weaving side to side.
I glare up at her, rubbing at the raw skin around my wrists and healing the bloody, torn flesh there.
Nyx reaches into a hidden pocket on the front of her black, flowy dress, pulls out Mera’s amulet, and then dangles it in my face just to taunt me.
My future is in there. My heart is in there.
Everything I’ve ever wanted exists within that amulet and she fucking knows it.
She lets it sway back and forth, hypnotizing me and reminding me of all that I’ve lost, of all I might never experience again if she controls Mera’s entire life.
Taking a slow, cautious step forward, she bends and slips the chain around my neck, the amulet and the magic holding Mera’s memories within it humming against my chest like it’s home at last. It is.
Mera is my home, and I am hers, and these memories belong to both of us.
“I think you should be the one to return Mera’s memories, Kairos.
After pining over her so pathetically for a century, there is nothing I would love more.
” Leaning in close, she grips my chin between her fingers, smiling down at me as she whispers, “You deserve this.” Turning her back and sauntering away, the demons who were hiding within caves carved into the mountains slowly creep out, eyes locked on Hekate and I, low snarls rumbling from their chests.
Fuck, there are so many of them. Too many.
More than I could have ever imagined existed here, and much more than the number I’ve slaughtered in my time, which is in the thousands.
The stench of their venom in the air alone might be lethal.
Even biding my time, waiting for whatever fucked up plan Nyx has in store to end, how the hell we’re going to make it out of here alive is beyond me. Gods fucking save us all.
Groaning from the pain of my blistered knees, I push myself to my feet and pull Hekate close, a flash of white flickering as I heal both our wounds. She could heal herself if she weren’t so lost in gazing after the queen who stares at us with a devilish glint in her eyes.
“For what it is worth, Hekate, I think I did love you once. But the darkness you abandoned me to, it consumed me. Until you were nothing and my realm was nothing, until all I could think about was how badly I wanted to watch it all burn.” She shakes her head, meeting my eyes before dragging them back to Hekate.
“You could have stopped this. You could have saved me. Now I wonder if the woman I once was exists within me at all. Maybe she tired of screaming for you to save her. Maybe the pain of knowing you would not come made her simply…fade away into oblivion. It has been quite a while since I have heard her in here at all.” She taps her temple, her red lips curving up into a smile that makes my skin crawl and my blood run cold.
“So, if you are wondering if the woman you love still exists, dear Hekate, the answer is no. She does not. That poor, sad woman you abandoned died long ago.”
Hekate pushes away from me and charges toward her, palms out and blue lights flaring in her palms and all around her so bright I have to cover my eyes with my arm as I chase after her.
Shit. It was her job to stay calm and rational, to keep the peace and talk me down from using thoughtless violence, especially before having Mera in my arms. I want nothing more than to rip Nyx’s head from her body and toss it into the pit, but not yet.
Not until I know the woman I love is safe.
I wrap my arms around Hekate and hold her back.
Nyx crosses her arms over her chest, tilting her head and still smiling, glowing red eyes begging me to tear them from her skull.
“Hekate, she is taunting you. Ignore it.” My muscles flex as I hold on to her tighter, her grunting and fighting against me. I lean in, whispering only to her, “We came here for Mera. Let’s focus on that. After we know she’s safe, if you want Nyx dead, I will happily kill her myself.”
She relaxes against me, tilting her head back and meeting my gaze. “That is not Nyx, Kairos. It is not her,” she breathes, slumping back against my chest as if all hope or life has been drained away. “I am not who you think I am, either.”
All I can do is stare back at her and say nothing, because what the hell am I supposed to say to that?
She’s seeing what she wants to. Hearing only the words she chooses to.
But I’ve never seen or felt her this way.
She’s not making sense or even thinking clearly, from what it seems. What the hell does she mean she isn’t who I think she is?
Maybe there was something off about that water she drank earlier.
Her energy shines brighter than anyone else’s now that she has shown us the queen she is, but as I look at her now, it’s barely palpable at all.
The bright glimmer of her soul is just a faint whisper of what it was before, and gods does it kill me to see her so dim and hopeless.
I help steady her and wrap an arm around her waist to keep her upright. “It’s okay, Hekate. Everything will be alright. Fate is on our side, remember?” I smile down at her, and though she doesn’t return it with one of her own, she nods once, pushing her shoulders back and holding her head up high.
That’s good enough for now. Ignoring Nyx, I let my eyes drift across the realm, the hairs on the back of my neck and my arms standing on end.
The celestial light in my soul rages with the desire to destroy everything that exists here, but it also curls away as if searching for safety from the ancient, foreign evil that exists here that it’s never felt before.
This kind of darkness, the kind that has corrupted her soul, it’s not the same as the darkness her or Mera were born with in their blood.
This kind should be extinguished from our world.
Nyx clears her throat and drops her hands to her sides, and my attention immediately snaps back to her.
“King Erebus, I thought you might never arrive. We have all been impatiently waiting for you. I nearly died of boredom with these two.” Her words are flat as she clasps her hands behind her back, pacing before the throne platform, snarling, winged demons flanking her sides.