Chapter 40
My stomach churned, anxiety burning through my chest like acid. I felt sick. I was so scared, not for me, but for my babies. For my bonded mates. For the innocent lives in the town.
Griff was wrapped entirely around me, his eyes on the door, his head cocked as he listened to the noise of fighting below. I could hear the screams in the darkness, none of them human-sounding at all. It was a terrifying, dark opus, and like the coward I was, I lifted my hands to my ears, blocking it out.
My heart felt like it was being shredded. Was this sensation in my chest the feel of the guys dying? Were they in pain?
And where was Demke?
A shrill cry had me jumping to my feet, moving toward the window just in time to see a huge batlike creature swooping through the sky. The Valkyries rode winged horses in what looked like hard leather armor, and two of them struck at the huge demon in the sky. It fell to the earth, where a writhing mass overtook it.
No, not a mass. An army of dogs. Holy shit. The numbers of them were huge, much larger than even yesterday. I watched them tear apart that bat thing, like ants dismembering a bird.
Griff got between me and the window, herding me back into a corner where he could protect me. “I can’t just sit here, Griff. Not when they could need help. Not when they could be dying for me.”
He chirped at me, and I felt like he was trying to tell me something. His features looked almost frustrated. I understood the feeling.
“Teron says if you bond with me, we can talk in our minds?”
Griff nodded, his face stroking over mine comfortingly.
“You should do it. We should bond. I’d be honored to be your mate.”
Making another anxious noise, he stood and paced around once more. He was chirping at himself, and I wondered if he was trying to talk himself into it or out of it. Finally, he came back and sat in front of me, his head dipping down until we were eye to eye. The intelligence there would have been terrifying in any other situation. Right now, though, there was something reassuring about the fact that he knew exactly what I was saying.
I lifted my hand to the side of his face. “I swear, this is the right thing to do. I’m not just saying that because I’m stressed and worried. I wish it was a different time, but life has other plans. Please, Griff.”
He clacked his beak again, then nudged my arm, lifting it up. I held it out to him, and he used a sharp claw to cut my wrist. I hissed in pain, while Griff’s tail whipped in a frenzy, a show of anxiousness he didn’t usually possess, based on the few times I’d met him. Using his beak, he picked up the dagger that Milo had pressed into my hand before he left. Gently, Griff placed the dagger into my lap.
“I have to cut you too?”
A nod. I winced, trying not to feel sick as I cut him along his strong lion shoulder.
“Do I have to mix our blood together?”
Another quick nod.
Lifting my cut wrist, I rubbed the blood into his wound, trying not to feel sick. This was a blood bond. I was vowing to love this creature, care for him, adore him for the rest of my days, and it felt so right that I knew it was written in the stars.
I felt his magic travel through the wound and up my arm, wrapping around my chest like a vice. It was hard to breathe, and I choked on nothing.
Breathe, little one.
I startled at the deep voice echoing around my head. Holy shit. “Griff?”
Yes. Mate. My mate. The wonder in his voice made emotions clog my throat. What I would have given to have this moment in a time of peace, with just me and Griff.
There was a soft laugh. And me. Always the third wheel. Teron’s voice was in my head too, and I squeaked with happiness.
“I can talk to you both?”
Yes. And if we are in Teron’s meat sack form, we can still talk. You have me always now, little one. You all do. I will protect our cubs with my very soul.
I was crying again, but it felt so overwhelming, these waves of love and adoration that poured from the connection between our hearts. How was I ever going to get used to this feeling, this blanket of security?
A scream from outside shook me from the moment. On my feet again, I watched something from a nightmare appear in the distance. It was huge, with wings and a snake body. Fire dripped from its mouth.
“What in the actual flying fuck is that?” I breathed, and I could feel Griff’s concern in my chest. I wasn’t sure how I knew the feeling was Griff’s and not Teron’s, but I did.
Typhon. What the hell did they promise the Father of Monsters to get him here? Griff asked, but I had a feeling he wasn’t talking to me.
I was proven right when it was Teron who answered. I don’t know, but if Typhon’s here, Ekhidna won’t be far behind.
I didn’t know who either of them were, but they weren’t monsters I wanted to mess with. The Valkyrie attacked in threes, but they had little to no effect on the huge monster, who batted them out of the air like they were horse flies, rather than feared warriors.
Pain and death were starting to scent the air. Where were the guys?
I tried to lean further out of the window to see, but Griff pulled me back. You are making yourself a target. Do not make all this for naught by dying like some kind of fool.
I flushed, properly chastised, as I moved back to the wall where he placed me. “I hate sitting here. You hate it too—I can tell.”
He shook his huge eagle head. No. While I want to be fighting, you are more important than any glory. You are the only thing that matters, Wren. Mate of my heart.
How the hell did anyone argue with that? “Smooth-talking fucking Gryphon.”
I don’t think anyone has complimented me quite so aggressively in a very long time, Griff answered, sounding amused.
Another cry from outside was like knives shredding my chest. Leaving me in the corner, Griff looked out the window, and I could feel his worry. We weren’t winning; I knew it in my chest. Outside, people were dying for me.
A loud sound I was beginning to recognise as the ward alarms clanged, and Griff whipped his head toward the door in a move that was definitely preternatural. They’ve breached the compound’s walls.
What did that mean for the guys?
“What do we do?” I whispered, and Griff tilted his head to the side, listening for intruders. His tail whipped furiously, the only tell that he was anxious. He backed me further against the wall, his huge body hiding me from the doorway.
Glass shattered, the sound mixing with my screams. A large hand reached into the room through the window. It was gnarled and crusty, and I couldn’t see the body attached to it.
Clearly, we’d found the intruder, or the intruder had found us.
Griff let out a blood-curdling screech and attacked the appendage. Claws and beak shredded the hand, magic swirling around it, until the pained shout of whatever the hell was out there shook the walls.
The hand was back now, angrier, flailing wildly. It had to be a giant—we were three stories up.
GO, WREN! To Milo’s room. Block the door! Teron’s shout in my head was punctuated by Griff’s snarls, and I didn’t second-guess him. I just ran. Out through the doors, I ran as fast as I could, holding my stomach and the railing as I took the stairs as safely as I could while not losing momentum.
A steady thump on the door was in time with the frantic pounding of my heart. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
We were fucked. I was fucked.
Still, I ran past Tryp’s room, then Teron’s. Demke’s door was wide open, and I could see straight through it to his private courtyard. I stopped dead, my feet rooted to the ground.
In the courtyard, completely motionless, was Demke.
No.
I felt around for the bond to him in my chest. They’d said I would’ve known if one of them was dead, but I couldn’t feel anything. Not if they were hurt or injured, nothing. Griff was going to be so mad, but I couldn’t leave Demke. What if he was hurt?
What if he was dead?
Turning, I sprinted through the room. “Demke!” Maybe he was just sleeping. I skidded to a stop in the soft moss beside him. “Demke, please wake up!” I shouted, shaking his cold, lifeless shoulders.
He was dead.
“No. No, no… Demke, please…” I brushed his hair from his face, searching him for injuries. He was a fucking God; he couldn’t be dead. I searched for a pulse, but there was nothing but icy skin beneath my fingertips. This wasn’t right. He couldn’t be dead.
“Please, don’t take him too,” I whispered to someone. Anyone. Who did you pray to when your Gods either abandoned you or wanted you dead?
Tears streamed down my cheeks and onto his chest. But this wasn’t a Disney movie; my tears wouldn’t bring him back to life. I pressed my forehead to his heart, feeling my soul break. Wailing softly, I let numbness enclose around me like the darkness.
“Vessel.” The sound of the voice sent shivers down my spine. I knew instinctively this creature meant me harm, but I couldn’t lift my head to look.
Instead, I buried my face deeper into Demke’s silent chest. “She’s not here. I’ll take a message.”
A grating noise, like two rough fabrics rubbing against each other, echoed through the courtyard. Some part of me recognized it as laughter. I looked up at the monster before me, far too large for me to defend myself against. She was beautiful, or at least, her top half was. Like a Greek statue of some goddess. Her bottom half was a dragon, with large wings and a long serpent tail.
“Ekhidna, I assume?”
The monster inclined her head regally. “I am.”
Straightening slightly, I didn’t bother to stand. Defeat made my limbs feel heavy. “Why? What did I, or my children, ever do to you?”
She looked down at me with pity. “I too birthed offspring destined to die. I understand your feeling of helplessness.”
“Then WHY?” I screamed. I screamed it not just to the monster before me, but into the universe too.
She sighed, and the sound was like an ancient yawn, filled with exhaustion and helplessness. “Because, like you, I do what is best for my family. The Fates have promised to free my mate, resurrect the last of my children. We could live and be happy once more in this modern world.” She looked wistfully at the sky, like one of her children was trapped there in the stars. “You won’t ever understand, because you’ll be dead, but when you look down at your young, you know you’ll do anything for them.”
I threw my hands in the air. “You’re working with the very same people who killed them in the first place! I might not be an expert on Mythic politics, but that seems pretty fucking stupid to me.”
Another scraping laugh. “I like you, little human. But I won’t let my children be written out of the weave. I won’t let them be forgotten in this turn of the Ouroboros. You must die. I will make it quick and painless.”
She really believed that she was giving me a compassionate ending, and I guess in comparison to the Lamia, that was true. Despite the exhaustion that weighed down every inch of my body, I wouldn’t let Demke die in vain.
Grabbing the dagger that winked at Demke’s hip, I jutted it out in front of me. “Then you’ll understand that I won’t just let my children’s story end before they’ve even taken their first breath.”
Ekhidna nodded, something that might have been respect glinting in her eye. “So be it.” Then she lunged. I scrambled backwards as her talons reached for me, slashing wildly at her hands, or claws or whatever. When it sliced through her toe, she glared down at me. “A God-blessed blade? So many surprises on this island of the weak.”
She lunged again, but then a dog was there, its bark echoing loudly through the hills.
“Cy, no!” I shouted. He was going to die, and it would be my fault. The dog didn’t even look at me as he stood between me and the monster. He grew bigger, until he was the same white dog, but the size of an elephant. “Holy shit. Big puppy.”
Giant Cy attacked the she-monster, who hissed. Cy howled again, the sound so fucking eerie that it sent shivers down my spine. Behind Ekhidna, a dark pit opened, its yawning maw hinting at glowing fire below.
Holy shit…Had Cy just opened a mouth to Hell? Dogs appeared from everywhere, biting and converging on Ekhidna, pushing her back toward the Hellmouth, nipping and biting, shredding what they could, even as she flung them away.
But there were too many. “No,” Ekhidna breathed, and I saw the moment she knew what was happening. That she was about to lose.
Some part of me wanted to tell them to stop, to give her mercy, but another part of me knew she was going to kill my babies and me. She wouldn’t have shown me mercy, and if she lived, she wouldn’t stop.
Instead, I gave her the same sympathetic look as she’d given me moments earlier, as she stumbled back into the pit, her screams whistling for far too long. Maybe it really was a pit that went to Hell.
Cy was still massive, and he turned to look at me. Shrinking back down, his tongue hanging out, he stopped when he was head height.
And then he turned into a man.
A naked, handsome man with a lopsided grin on his face. “Hey, Wren.”