Chapter 6 Discord
DISCORD
“Cinder!” I pounded the sides of my fists against the wall as the temple crumbled around me. The magic flashed, wavering beneath what little strength I had left, yet the wall held. I pounded it again, slamming my shoulder against it three times, using more force with each succession.
What was left of Hecate’s statue split vertically behind me. One side crashed toward the temple entrance, stones shattering on the portico and rolling down the steps, the thunderous sound deafening. The other half remained upright, teetering on its pedestal.
I slammed my shoulder against the wall once more, but still it would not yield.
“Cinder, step away from the doorway.” I hoped to Hades she heard my command.
Dodging falling stones, I raced to the statue and braced my hands against the side, pushing with all my might.
Sweat beaded on my forehead as I strained against its weight.
I pressed my back against it, using my legs as leverage.
It rocked. I pushed harder. More stone cracked.
The statue fell, crashing into the wall and shredding the magical fibers I had created.
The ceiling buckled. A slab of stone the size of a tar pit plunged to the ground. I leaped over it and sprinted into the next room. Moonlight streamed in through the massive holes in the ceiling, and the walls groaned with the temple’s shifting weight.
Cinder stood near the center of the long, narrow room, oblivious to the destruction around her. She stared into a mirror, her eyes glazed as if she were in a trance, her jaw slack, her lips parted.
“Cinder, we must leave.” I paced toward her.
She didn’t respond, didn’t acknowledge my presence. A new fury boiled inside me. If Tumult had done something to her mind, I would… Damn it, I had already killed him, decimated his soul, so there wasn’t much else I could do.
I should have let him live so I could kill him with newfound fury.
“Cinder.” I stood behind her, clutching her shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. When she didn’t react, I scooped her into my arms and powered through the ruins toward the exit, my leg muscles burning with the exertion.
Cinder gasped, jerking her head up. “Wait! I wasn’t done.”
“The temple is done with us.” I leaped over a crumbled column, rolling my ankle as I hit the floor, my foot slicing open on a shard of obsidian.
Pain shot up my leg, making me bite my tongue, but still I plowed ahead. I made it to the portico and barreled down the steps as the columns supporting the pediment fell toward each other with a thunderous boom.
I ran halfway up the walk before lowering Cinder’s feet to the ground and turning to witness the rest of the destruction. What was left of the temple collapsed inward on itself, stone crumbling and obsidian shattering until only a pile of rubble remained.
Cinder raised her fingers to her lips. “Oh, my goddess, Discord. What did you do?”
I cared not for the accusation in her tone. “I saved your life and mine.”
“By destroying Hecate’s temple?” Her mouth hung agape.
“Had I not, we would both be dead.” I lowered onto a large stone and rested my ankle on my knee to examine the shard of obsidian embedded in the arch of my foot. I yanked out the offending object, and blood spurted from the wound.
Cinder snapped her mouth shut, finally coming to her full senses. “Ouch. Looks like you hit an artery.”
“Whatever makes you say that?” I squeezed the sides of the wound, holding them together to speed my healing. When I let go, more blood spouted, as if I’d created a fountain of my foot.
“Wait… Why are you naked?” She furrowed her brow and kneeled in front of me, opening her backpack and retrieving a strip of fabric before wrapping it tightly around my arch.
“Is that your underwear?” I asked.
“You never know when you’ll need to change your skivvies, so I bought extra.” She tied the ends in a knot and rose, wiping her hands on her pants and wincing.
“You expect me to wear your panties on my foot?”
“Well, they’re definitely too small to hold your junk. And speaking of your junk…” She glanced at the clotted blood on her palm before arching a brow at me. “Why are you naked?”
“My demon form is much larger than this one. When I transformed, it shredded my clothes.” I adjusted the fabric, tightening the knot.
Her face pinched in an adorably confused way. “I thought you couldn’t shapeshift anymore.”
“It appears that our bond…my feelings for you…allowed me to push through Lucifer’s bind to save your life. Tumult is no more.”
Her lips parted again, surprise lifting her brows. “You… To save…? You have all your powers back?”
“Unfortunately, no.” I rose and tested my weight on my injured foot. “If that were the case, I would have healed by now and we’d be well on our way to our next destination. Did you locate Hecate?”
“I was about to, but you yanked me out of the trance.” Her gaze bounced to my dick three times before she looked into my eyes.
“Would you prefer that I had not?” I gestured to the rubble and willed my soldier to remain at ease, which was no easy feat. A bead of sweat dripped down her forehead, giving me the sudden urge to lick her from head to toe.
Yes, the timing was inappropriate, yet the urge remained.
“I suppose not.” She bit her bottom lip, her gaze dancing around my face as if she, too, were fighting the attraction. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, shifting my weight to the uninjured foot. “How is your hand?”
“It’s just a little cut, I’ll be fine.” Sympathy softened her eyes. “Can you walk?”
“Of course.” The excruciating pain shooting up my leg begged to differ, but I would not show weakness in front of this woman.
“Come on then.” She jerked her head toward the end of the path. “Hecate has a safehouse, kinda like your secret hideout. We can go there to regroup and hopefully find you some clothes.”
“You communicated with the goddess?” Surprise lifted my brows, and I walked next to her, the stabbing pain in my foot slowly easing to a steady burn.
“Sorta.” She turned left at the end of the path and started toward the back of the temple. “She’s incapacitated, but she managed to send me a little information.”
“Incapacitated how?”
She frowned and shook her head. “I need a minute to sort it all out. It was confusing.”
My foot landed on a jagged rock, and I fought a groan. “Where is the safehouse located?”
“I’m not sure.” She turned her head slightly, as if to look at me, but jerked her gaze forward again.
“Then why are we walking in this direction?”
She lifted her hands and dropped them at her sides. “I’m just following the pull.”
We continued on, she following the pull, I following her, until we reached the cave at the end of the valley.
My foot was healing, albeit much more slowly than I liked, but the intense fatigue weighing my body down was nearly unbearable.
I needed to press her, to insist she explain in great detail everything she saw while in the trance, so we could devise a plan.
But at the moment, I was too tired to care.
Cinder paused and turned to me. “Have you been inside there before?”
“I have not.” I rested a hand against the mouth of the cave, using the rock to support my weight. “I never knew it was here until today.”
She raised an arm toward me. The fine hairs stood on end along her goosebumped skin. “There’s a lot of magic inside. If I had a spell kit, I could figure out what kind. Do you sense anything negative?”
My elbow buckled, and my shoulder slammed against the wall. Nausea churned in my gut, and an intense, dull pain formed in my right temple. “I sense myself blacking out soon if I don’t find a place to lie down.”
Concern creased her brow, and she clutched my arm with both hands, pulling me to her side. “Inside we go then. Come on.”
I stumbled forward. Cinder steadied me with a hand on my chest before placing my arm across her shoulders and sidling next to me, absorbing my weight.
Heat crept up my neck, a hollow pit forming in my stomach. What had become of the first Prince of Hell?
I wore a woman’s panties on my injured foot.
Using magic I was born with had fatigued me beyond measure, and now my soulbride, strong as she was, struggled beneath my weight.
I should have been the one carrying her.
Never in my existence had I felt this weak…
this defeated. I tried to pull from her grasp, but she held me tightly.
“Let me help you,” she said softly.
My face flushed, heat spreading across my cheeks and making my ears burn, my embarrassment refusing to allow her coddling. “I don’t need help. I am a Prince of Hell. I…”
“You are an injured demon.” She wrapped her arms around me. “And we are a team. Don’t make me scoop you up and cradle you like a baby.”
She stepped forward, pulling me with her.
I wanted to protest more, but buzzing energy engulfed us the moment we entered the cave.
A flash of soothing blue light filled the space, making stars dance in my vision, and a coolness washed over me, the scents of lilac and cinnamon replacing the sulfurous stench of the valley.
Cinder gasped, a sense of wonder filling her voice as she uttered, “Holy Hecate. Are you seeing this?”
“I…” The blue light tunneled. Searing pain seized my muscles. I saw nothing.