by K. M. Scott
Now that the time had come, though, it didn’t do that anymore. All it did was keep them from moving on to the next part of their life together, a much happier part not filled with vicious Archons and a war that could take one of them away before they ever got to enjoy the peaceful life they’d been promised.
A knock on the door made Declan take his focus off Marc, and a second later, a guard charged through the doorway. Wild-eyed, he looked like he didn’t know where he was or what he had stumbled into, but it was too late for him. One swift stab of his stake to the male’s heart and Declan sent him on his way as dust slowly filtered down onto the carpet.
Rattled from their unexpected visitor, Solenne closed her eyes for a split second, but that’s all it took for Marc to pull free from the cords holding him to the chair. Her husband yelled something unintelligible, and she opened her eyes to see the Archon lunging at her, his blood-covered hands searching out her throat to strangle her.
Like when she killed that guard, her mind went blank but her body did just what she’d been trained to do. Lifting her arm, she clutched the stake tightly in her hand and swung at the first chance she got. Then, everything turned black and she heard nothing but the blood pounding in her ears.
She didn’t know how long that went on, but when it stopped, the last thing she saw was Marc’s eyes wide with surprise. Then he disappeared into a cloud of dust that seemed to hang in the air forever.
Stumbling back, she fell into a chair and began to sob, unable to stop herself. Solenne hated that she cried when she got angry. It made her look weak. She couldn’t hold back the tears, though. For so long, she’d lived with the fear that at any moment, Marc or one of his men would pluck her from her life with Declan and enslave her for their evil purposes. Maybe they’d want more of her blood or maybe they’d want to do more tests on her.
Or maybe Marc would just want her for his to rape whenever the mood hit him.
She never knew, so she lived in constant terror. Even her husband didn’t know how frightened she always felt. And now, the vampire who had nearly ruined her life was gone and from her hand.
Declan hurried across the room and crouched down beside her. She looked down and saw a strange look in his eyes she couldn’t place. Was it concern? It didn’t seem like that. It looked like pride.
“Are you okay? He didn’t touch you, did he?”
Solenne had no idea if Marc had been able to touch her before she staked him. Even now, just a few seconds after it all happened, the entire event had become a blur. She knew how it began and how it ended, but she couldn’t say anything about what happened between.
“I don’t know,” she answered, feeling like she was floating above herself.
“I thought maybe because you were crying that he hurt you before you got to him,” Declan said sweetly as ran the pad of his thumb across her cheeks to dry her tears.
“No, I’m fine. I don’t even know why I’m crying. It makes me seem so weak. God, I hate that.”
Declan cradled her face in his strong hands and kissed her long and deep. Pressing his forehead to hers, he smiled. “You just staked the hell out of your enemy. Weak my ass. You are one tough vampire, Solenne Collins, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”
Closing her eyes, she let the tears flow, needing to let out all the emotions Marc Verrater had created in her. He was finally gone. The one who had made her life a living hell was no more.
Finally, she wiped her tears away and kissed her husband. “Let’s go home. I don’t want to be in this place around everything that was his anymore. We’ve done our job, Declan. Now I want to find that house in France and never look back.”
He chuckled as he pulled her up to her feet. “It only took us a hundred years, plus a few. We never were the kind to rush into anything.”
As they walked out of Marc Verrater’s office and out of the Archon headquarters, neither one of them looked back. There was nothing there for them. They needed to focus on what lay ahead of them.
The life they’d wished for all those years ago when she was Teagan’s vampire and he was the man she secretly loved could finally be theirs. The wait had been long, but in the end, they’d get that life.
Together.
Chapter Twenty
Nyx held Theron’s hand as the two of them walked down the dark pathway into the Underworld and she quietly warned him over and over not to let what he would see frighten him. He smiled and assured her nothing the Underworld could throw at him would scare him.
In truth, he had no idea what to expect. She’d been vague when he asked what he’d find, simply telling him to not let what he’d see rattle him.
The dim light that had shown them the way at the beginning slowly faded to nothing, leaving them in the pitch black. Nyx didn’t slow her pace, practically pulling Theron along as they rounded a corner in the pathway.
“Maybe we should slow down since I can’t see a damn thing,” he mumbled as she tugged on his arm.
“I walk this every night at sunset and every morning at sunrise. Trust me. I know the way.”
He hadn’t thought of that. Knowing she likely wouldn’t walk off a cliff made him trust her more, so he stopped hesitating and caught up to her pace.
“You should trust me, Theron. I haven’t led you astray yet,” she said in a teasing voice.
“You should stop reading my thoughts,” he answered, hating how little he knew of her compared to everyone else in the world.
Nyx stopped suddenly and placed his hand over her heart. “You don’t need to read my mind to know what I feel for you, Theron. Trust your emotions. They will show you the way.”
He stood there next to her in the thick darkness and felt her heartbeat under his hand. “Is that advice only about you or what I’m about to do with Hades?”
“It’s good advice for everything you’re going through. Trust your emotions.”
Theron didn’t respond because he didn’t know what to say. His emotions had done little but lead him into trouble since he never could control them. Now Nyx wanted him to trust them?
He trusted nothing and no one since his parents were taken from his life. Not even the only woman who ever made him want more than a single night got that from him.
They began walking again, slower as Nyx seemed to want to take her time now. In the blackness, he focused on her, trying to sense even a single, passing thought she may have. Just one would make him feel better.
But he couldn’t penetrate the veil she kept around her mind.
“Again, you try to get into my head? Is it so important to you that you know what I’m thinking?” she asked in a sweet tone he hadn’t expected when she caught him trying to invade her thoughts.
He wouldn’t have reacted that way if someone tried to do the same to him.
For all the excuses he could give for his behavior, he simply answered with one word. “Yes.”
Nyx walked a few more feet and then stopped. He sensed her turning toward him and then he felt her hands on his shoulders moving him so he faced her. Taking his hands in hers, she placed them on her face.
“Then here you go.”
Suddenly, Theron’s brain flooded with a rush of images and thoughts, pieces of ideas and full memories from the length of her life since the moment she came into existence. Thousands upon thousands of years raced past as he tried to grasp onto even a single thought of hers. Finally, just before he believed he couldn’t handle not another second of her mind in his, he found a single thought so clear it took him by surprise.
It was what she thought of him. He hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t all good or all bad. Just real with worries and emotions about him and what they were to one another. She craved him when he wasn’t nearby. He scared her with how powerful he was without being a god. She wanted him to defeat Hades even more than he suspected. She was jealous, vengeful, and angry with most others in the world, but when she touched Theron, those traits in her faded away, replaced with a happiness
she’d never experienced before in all her existence.
He stepped back, tearing his hands away from her face as he tried to take in everything she’d let him see in her. “I had no idea,” he said as he tried to get his bearings once more.
“I am a goddess, Theron. I’ve been around since the beginning of time. You didn’t expect me to be some empty-headed girl, did you?”
Still reeling from all he’d learned, he shook his head. “No. I didn’t know what to expect. I guess I just expected something different.”
“Something like you?” she asked with kindness in her voice as she took his hand in hers. “I’ve seen your thoughts. You think about much more than you let on. I’m sort of like that, except mine are a reflection of all time, not just a couple years.”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I don’t know what I was hoping to find,” he said quietly. “I just didn’t like you being able to know my thoughts without me knowing yours.”
“Theron, you’re on the precipice of the next step in your life. From now on, you’ll have more to concern yourself with than what I think of you or anything else. That’s why your emotions are so important. Focus on them and they’ll show you what’s right and what you need to do. Your ascension to ruling the Underworld has been prophesied for thousands of years. Now it’s time for you to fulfill your destiny.”
She released his hand and kissed him. “But now it’s also time for me to go. What lies ahead is only for you, so I must leave you now.”
“When will I see you again?” he asked as fear settled into him.
“When you meet the ruler of this kingdom, I will be there for you. Until then, you must take these next steps on your own. Remember your emotions. They will guide you.”
A second later, he reached out for her but she was already gone.
The darkness surrounded him, making him feel small and alone, and no matter what direction he looked, he saw no light. With Nyx gone, he had no guide, so he put his hands out in front of him and slowly began walking in the same direction as before, hoping he didn’t walk off a fucking cliff.
Why had she left at this moment? Was it because she’d let him into her mind to see her thoughts? He couldn’t help regret his need to do that if the result had been losing the one soul who knew her way around this place. Regret quickly morphed into anger, mostly at himself for being so damn insistent about knowing what she thought.
“That’s what a fucking child worries about,” he said under his breath as he slowly made his way forward step-by-step.
Theron hated to think how young he seemed to a goddess who’d been alive since the dawn of time. He looked like an adult and had the thoughts and needs and desires of a grown man, but he’d only been alive for less than three years. No matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to experience all the world had to offer in that short time.
He knew as much as he could, yet still he felt like no matter what some damn prophecy said, he wasn’t ready for what would come all too soon.
The moment that popped into his head, suddenly the pathway he walked lit up, as if someone had lifted the cover off the world and let the light in. Theron stopped dead on the rocky path and looked around at faces poking out of the walls on each side of him. They looked tortured, like they’d been frozen in time as they screamed through some unbearable agony, their eyes wide and filled with terror.
Each one made him cringe at the pain they seemed to be suffering. He wondered if they were forced to remain in those spots for eternity. What had they done to be set in stone at the very moment they felt such misery?
The answer to that question came immediately when a voice said quietly in his head, “The god of the Underworld has the power to make one’s afterlife ecstasy or agony. They chose the latter. What will you choose, vampire?”
Theron didn’t have to ask who said that. He knew. He didn’t know how he knew. He just did. So Hades could get into his head. Great. Another god who knew all his thoughts but didn’t reciprocate the favor.
He waited for him to say something else, but after a few more steps, Theron heard nothing. All the better. He didn’t need the god of the damned Underworld giving color commentary as he walked to meet him. They’d get to chat soon enough.
Before long, the anguished faces of agony in the walls disappeared, and he found himself in a smaller passageway like a hallway. A door at the end of it stood open a crack, and Theron made his way there, trusting his feelings like Nyx had advised him to. He had no idea what he’d find on the other side of that door, but he had to admit if it was Hades, he’d be disappointed. The god of the Underworld seemed like he’d be important enough to have something bigger than a room with a regular door on it.
Theron smiled as he realized Hades knew his opinion on that already. He knew from experience that reading others’ thoughts did cut down on the time they had to spend talking. At least he and the god wouldn’t have to make small talk when the moment came for them to battle for control of the Underworld.
Pushing the door open, he tentatively stepped into the room, not sure what to expect. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside, which was disappointing. Theron had a feeling Hades liked to play games. The fate of every dead soul hung in the balance, and this asshole had him walking to empty rooms.
But the room had things in it. Just not another living being. Only furniture that reminded him of where he lived as a child. He took a closer look and noticed the couch exactly matched the one his parents had in Greece. What was this?
“I heard on my way here that nothing is real in this place. Did you get that little lecture too?”
Theron spun around to see his father standing there in front of him. Joy rushed through him at seeing Ramiel again and in one piece, unlike the last time he’d seen him in that Berlin Archon’s office.
“Dad! I’d hoped I’d get to see you and Mom while I’m here. Where is she?” he asked, craning his neck to look behind his father for her.
His mother appeared in the doorway, hesitating for some reason behind his father. Didn’t she want to see her own son?
“Mom, I’m here. I want to see you.”
She slowly walked out from behind Ramiel and stopped. Tears welled in her eyes, and she covered her face as she began to sob. “Oh, honey. I had hoped it would be much longer before I saw you here with us.”
“I didn’t die, Mom. I’m not dead. I’m here to overthrow Hades and fulfill the prophecy.”
She inched closer to him and reached up to touch his face. “Oh, Theron. You’re all grown up. My little boy is a man now.”
The sadness in her voice hit him square in the chest. She’d missed so much in the time since those Archons took her life and she ended up in the Underworld.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Theron said as she wrapped her arms around him and began to cry. “It’s okay now.”
“Nothing’s okay,” she said between sobs against his chest. “I realize that now. You had to grow up so fast, and now you have to fight Hades. It all happened so fast.”
“I’m going to be fine. I promise. I won’t let you down.”
His mother lifted her head to stare up at him, and he saw in her eyes something he’d never seen in them before. He couldn’t place the emotion, but she’d never shown him it before.
Then she spoke, and he recognized it immediately. Not worry or fear. Disappointment.
“Let me down? Theron, don’t ever say that.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”
She stepped back away from him and shook her head, that painful expression still in her eyes as she looked up at him. “I don’t want you to say that because you couldn’t let me down, honey. Whatever else you are to the rest of the world and to the Sons, you’re my child. I’ve loved you since the moment you first moved inside me. I will forever love you no matter what happens with Hades. Theron, I couldn’t be prouder of you. Everyone demanded so much of you, and
you’ve given them everything they required. The Archons are no more, and the vampire world is safe from everything they did to all of us. Whatever happens with Hades, you’ve done your part. You don’t owe anyone anything.”
He’d never let himself think any of that, but hearing his mother say those words nearly overwhelmed him. Nyx may have thought his emotions were helpful, but at that moment, all they did was threaten to ruin him.
“Your mother is right, Theron. Listen to her. She and I were so busy worrying that you weren’t ready to be a Son, but you did everything you had to for our world. Whichever way this battle goes for control of the Underworld, just remember we’re proud of you.”
“And we love you, honey,” his mother added. “We love you so much and we’re so proud of you.”
Until then, he’d simply assumed he’d defeat Hades because of the prophecy. He’d never thought about the possibility of failing. Strangely, now that he did, it didn’t bother him as much as it probably should have.
The two most important souls in his world had shown him this battle truly didn’t matter to them.
“We don’t have much time, honey. I want you to listen to me carefully, okay?”
All the sweetness left his mother’s voice now, replaced by that familiar tone of worry he’d so often heard from her in his life. She took his hand and held it like if she let go, something bad might happen.
“No matter what you see during your fight with him, promise me you won’t believe it. He uses tricks to fool you. Don’t let him. I know you’ll want to lash out, but stay calm.”
“So don’t let my emotions guide me?” Theron asked, confused at how different his mother’s advice on how to handle the battle was from Nyx’s.
She thought about what he asked for a moment and then frowned. “Don’t ignore your emotions, but don’t let them take you over. Trust your instincts and never forget we love you, Theron. We always have.”