by A. K. Koonce
A tightness wraps his jaw, the muscle there ticking hard.
“Sometimes we leave our realms thinking others might have it better.” His head shakes hard as he holds me even harder. “And sometimes your newfound torment is nothing compared to your last.”
I can’t seem to swallow the pain rising in the back of my throat.
“You had it worse where you were before you came to Hell?” I ask softly, looking up at him as he focuses intently on the darkness ahead of us.
“No. It was terrible when I came to Hell. The worst experience of my life. I just didn’t know it could be even worse bringing someone I cared about here.”
His throat bobs hard, and I can’t look away from him. His gaze drops. The intensity of those eyes meets mine with a quake rising up in my chest.
Too many thoughts and emotions fight for control.
I arch into him just as he swiftly leans into me. My lashes flutter even as he shoves me aside and sparks electric through his fist. He lifts his powerful magic into the darkness, and I watch him with stunned confusion.
“Don’t touch her hair again!” he warns the night.
Eerie nerves crawl down my spine as I shake my hair out. I flinch and look around at everything and nothing all at once.
. . . Something touched my hair?
Torben huffs and storms back to me before I ever find the thing I suddenly don’t want to see. My warrior god tucks me in beneath the weight of his arm and ushers me along like I’m an offended girlfriend instead of a woman who nearly got possessed by a shadow man.
When I release the terrified breath in my lungs, I try my best to act unimpressed.
Or at least like I’m not about to piss myself. Only the passing of the time eases my nerves as we walk on. At some point during the hours of being followed by shadow men and silence, a light halos in the sky in the distance.
“Is—is that the City?” I ask on a cutting whisper.
Torben nods, his gaze shifting to the left and then the right.
“Stay close.”
He’s no longer guiding me, but I check the half a foot of space that now rests between me and him . . .
“If I were any closer, you’d be carrying me.”
“Don’t tempt me,” he whispers in a sensual but warning tone.
My arm brushes his when I attempt to walk even closer at his side. His attention lingers to the right of us. He’s no longer looking at the new lights that are coming into view just up ahead.
In fact, he’s full-on glaring to the side now.
“What—” I turn to see what he sees. But it’s a mistake. One I was warned of vaguely. It should have been a more serious warning. More fitting. More ominous.
Never acknowledge the shadows.
Don’t give them your attention.
For they will bask in your fear.
The darkness reaches out with a wisping, clawing hand. Long legs like tendrils of smoke rush out of the blackness and into the light. The face of the creature is nothing more than a smudging feature, a gaping mouth like the sky opening up to swallow me whole.
Without a second’s hesitation, I grip Torben’s hand, and it’s me dragging him along now. My legs move faster than I have in all my life. The shifter inside of me startles awake, and a pleased growl rumbles through my chest, despite how hard she’s locked away inside. Her power rattles through my limbs, my sight heightens, and with her aid, I see it.
“The City,” I exhale, my body trembling with speed and power.
The lights flick on one at a time as my vision slowly takes in the towering buildings in the distance. Each one clears within the darkness of the heavy night like a beacon stepping out to be seen. Somehow, I urge myself into an even more rapid, frantic pace.
Mud sloshes against my bare calves. The dampness of my boots slashes against my flesh with every thunderous step I take. In the next second, I feel the mud slouching into my boots, but I ignore the sudden discomfort of it and keep moving.
“Rhys. Rhys!” My body jerks backward, my neck flinging hard from the sudden opposing push and pull of our bodies.
Ultimately, my determination seems stronger than his as I overpower him and carry on with his hand tightly in mine. I keep going, but the warrior of a man behind me drags on my speed until I’m forced to jeopardize my life to the shadow man. I acknowledge Torben with a small glance over my shoulder as I try to continue on toward the growing towers ahead.
“He’s gone! He’s gone! Stop trying to break my fucking arm!”
With my drilling heart and my pounding blood telling me to keep moving, my body believes every word this man says. It’s strange how easily trust can be changed. So quickly taken away and so carefully given back.
My boots sink into the ground as I finally look out into the blackness of the night. It’s no longer hidden in shadows. Just a pure night sky that no longer crawls with the sensation of being watched.
“Where did it go?” I ask on a trembling breath.
Torben’s green eyes are big and watchful, looking me up and down as he takes his hand from mine and rotates his arm this way and that.
“It fucking got scared off.” He scowls at me a minute longer while massaging his shoulder.
“Scared off by what?” I blink at his anger. I literally just saved his life. But I guess thank yous are like swear words in the Realms of Hell.
“By what? By you! What the hell was that?” His wild eyes search my features as if something is hidden beneath my confusion.
“What was what?”
His big arms lift at his sides to fully display himself as if he needs to remind me of his godly status. The lines of his biceps alone draw my attention from the simple gesture. I get it. You’re a perfectly made man. I have noticed. I have appreciated. Please don’t distract me during this important moment.
“Are you . . . you just blew through a hundred miles of Hell in under ten seconds, Princess. I’m pretty sure my molars got lost somewhere along the way.” He rakes his palm down his unkempt beard as though his beautiful facial hair is the real concern in this situation.
“A hundred miles?” I ask slowly.
“Your damn boots are shot,” he says weirdly.
I lift my right foot, slopping it from the mud just to find that the material at the sole of it is torn away at the front, barely holding together in the middle and at the heel. Beneath the thick mud, my toes of my left foot curl slowly, but the wetness within the shoe tells me it isn’t in any better shape.
“Where has all that been? Where was all of that when Hela was pressing down on you for the last few days?”
My mouth opens, but I don’t know what to say. I know I’ve physically be getting stronger without my wolf to lean on but it’s never been like this. My wolf warms me inside and out. She’s accepted her prison within me, but she isn’t the type to give up. She never has been. I’m just unsure if this was a fight-or-flight reaction. A one off that may never come up again.
What . . . what if it really does never happen again?
My stomach sinks, and I hate the thought so much that I push it all from my mind. All of it. Is it worse to live your life not knowing what you’re capable of, or is it worse to know you’re capable but unwilling?
Guilt for myself, my mother, and my friends sits heavily within me. Even as I pretend to ignore it.
“I don’t know,” I say rather lamely. “Let’s keep going.” I use his line that he loves so much. I shove the let’s keep going right in the warrior’s face, and he clearly is not a fan of unresolved emotions.
Yeah, welcome to the club, asshole.
I take his brooding silence as a response, and the two of us eventually wander past the first broken-down building that signals we’ve entered the City. Broken glass cuts into my toes, and large bricks litter the mud here and there. The road, or the slop of space that separates one building from the other, is isolated. A hanging light held together with just wires swings above us. It’s the only one around as far a
s I can see. Not a single sound accompanies us. The creepy feeling of the shadow man is long gone, but in its place is a new unsettling eeriness.
“Torben,” I say slowly, and he shifts his attention toward me just as slow. “Are we being watched?”
His long hair flicks around his shoulders as he shakes his head no.
“Only by the City.” His rumbling whisper crawls over my skin as that response fully sinks in.
A rumbling shakes around us, and he grips my wrist quickly, rushing me against his chest as he spins us toward the right. Bricks tumble down, and the weight of his body bears down on me as he shields me.
Just as a building erupts from the mud, cutting off the road we entered through.
I blink at the newly created but rambling shack of a towering, three-story building.
“What . . .”
“The City likes to play games.”
“What does that even mean!” I shriek. “The City likes this, the City does that. What the fuck is this city, and why does it have more of a personality than you do!?”
His insulted, narrowed eyes hold on me for several seconds. “It’s a living maze. Filled with creatures and the worst men in all the realms. If you can bear my personality, I’d suggest you stay close.”
I’m still gaping at him when he turns away from me, and with stiff posture, he leads the way further into the City.
An hour passes in the quiet. More animals start scurrying out when it seems we’re in the heart of the land. A terrible rodent or possibly a bug infestation is disturbing in this part of the land. Another large, black creature crawls out on six furry legs, squeaking at us as we pass. A dozen black, beady eyes look up at me, and I almost trip to avoid stepping on its long, bushy tail.
“Rat roaches,” Torben huffs with a curl of his upper lip. “They’re harmless in small groups.” A bit of relief settles in at that comment. “It’s the herds of them you have to watch out for.”
My brow scrunches hard. I barely hold back my gag out of pure respectful fear of the weird little monster disappearing through a large crack in the building next to us. Probably off to find his notorious rat roach herd.
“The deeper into the realm we go, the more dangerous it’ll become,” Torben warns.
I nod at that and try to keep closer to him as another squeaking sound like a rioting herd scrambles out of nowhere. If I lean into him any more, I’ll just be crawling him like a tree which, I’ll admit, at one time seemed like a sexy scenario, but this exact rat-roaching setting was not what I had in mind.
The City and its games continue as we go. Lights fall from the sky, blinking in with florescent bulbs that aren’t at all reliable but do help to illuminate our shady setting. One swings from an old wire just above my head in faded neon colors.
Op-n. It reads, sparking with some sort of mysterious electrical problem that doesn’t quite make sense. It’s as if the heavens of Hell have a short fuse somewhere, and at any minute, this entire creepy world might burst into electrical sparking flames.
The blinking swaying to the left of it is less damaged. Girls, Girls, Girls. It flashes, and what I can only assume is a sexy, fluorescently made woman shakes her curvy hips with every flicker of the sign. She’s captivatingly realistic. Watchful eyes and a sinful smile shine out at us.
“Torben,” I say on a whisper.
A grunt is his only charming reply.
“Torben,” I hiss a bit louder when the woman’s eyes follow us further, and unsurprisingly, he just grunts a bit louder until I’m glaring at the back of his messy, blonde hair.
“Okay, she just fucking winked at me! It wasn’t a blink, it was a wink, I swear!”
He arches a brow at the curvy woman on the hanging bar sign.
“Betsey’s harmless,” Torben finally tells me. “She just needs to be complimented, or she gets a short fuse sometimes.” He looks at the bar sign. “Brightest lights I’ve seen all night, Bets,” he tells her with a smile. A real smile. Like . . . when the hell did this asshole even learn to compliment someone, let alone smile about it?
“Thanks, handsome,” the woman purrs as her fluorescent pink lips pull up in a saucy smirk.
Then she looks at me.
I look her drawn figure up and down and try to think of something polite to say to a stripper sign.
“Prettiest bulbs in the whole realm,” I say, and I can’t help but feel the lameness seep right into me.
Her lips purse together, her hips still swaying, but clearly, she’s lost a bit of pep in her step.
“Next time, learn some better manners from the Dragon like your friend here.” Her blue-lit eyes roll, and I’ve never racked my brain so hard for a compliment in my entire life.
“Come on.” Torben nudges his elbow into mine, but I’m still mentally trying to think of what I’ll say to please the stripper sign when we leave this place.
“What happens if what I say next time isn’t good enough?” I ask once we’re far enough out of sight from Betsey. “And what does she mean, you learned your manners from the Dragon. She’s talking about Aric, right?”
“What?” Torben barely looks my way.
Another building slams to the ground in front of us, splattering mud across my legs and barely missing my toes. Torben wipes his face harshly, and with annoyance, he leads me around to the right of the building.
“I said—”
A slithering slides through the night air, and I shut up instantly. I sense it before I see it. A chill that claws into my bones bites into my flesh. Because the largest snake I’ve ever seen extends itself up, arching above us until it shadows over our forms like ants at the base of an old oak tree.
But most horrifying of all, it isn’t a snake’s face that looks down on us from the lengthy, scaley body. It’s the pale face of a terrifying man. A man I know.
“Serpan,” Torben says on a steady breath, his hand lifting out to keep me back, shielding me behind his big body as he stares unflinchingly up at the man’s face smiling down at us.
“Rhyssss,” the monster hisses, his pink tongue slithering familiarly over my name in a way that makes my skin crawl. “What a surprissssse to see you here.”
“Rhys,” Torben says on a careful, but quiet tone.
My fingers brush against the strong veins of his arm, wanting to touch him in some way, wanting to feel safe just from the feel of his skin against mine.
But it isn’t enough. Especially when he speaks again in a rushing bark of a voice.
“Run!”
Torben shoves me away, his chest colliding into mine as he takes my hand and leads me back the way we came.
And then I’m moving. I’m flinging my feet one after the other as fast as my legs will allow. The energy inside me builds like it’s been dying to get out since the moment we stepped foot into this depressing, oppressing realm.
Buildings sky-fall around me. One scrapes down my shoulder, and I barely avoid the crushing of its bricks as I skid around its corner. A string of lights flings down, breaking across my head in a spray of glass. I can’t see the changes fast enough. I’m moving too rapidly for my vision to keep up.
A wall comes down. I see the bricks, but my mind doesn’t process it quick enough. Torben flings himself ahead of me, his shoulder blasting through the building like a red ribbon at the end of a finish line. My body slams into his, my teeth rattling as we crash through the mess. We land in a heap of dust clouding around us.
Sparking electrical wires singe across an old beam. It’s just feet away, and I smell the faint smoke of the flame that ignites against the broken piece of lumber.
It’s just close enough to be a concern but far enough away not to matter when I realize I landed on my tormentor. My protector.
The warmth of his big hand is cradled around my hip, his arm wrapping sweetly around me as I lie against his solid chest. The haze of the room is thick, but I see the light in his eyes as he looks up at me. It’s an intense look, like he’s stunned to be alive.
And why do I constantly find myself leaning into him, when for days I’ve just wanted to get away?
I do just that, my head dipping low. His thick lashes turn hooded as his hand on my back lowers before tense fingers find the curve of my ass. Then he, too, leans into me as if he’s been leaning on me just as much as I’ve been leaning on him all this time.
“Rhys,” he growls my name on a rumbling tone of torment against my parted lips.
But he doesn’t stop. Not even a pause. Because he presses a gentle kiss softly against my mouth.
For a fleeting moment, I taste every ounce of his passion and pain. It’s just a second. A beautiful, fiery second among the ashes of Hell.
I should have known it couldn’t last . . .
Tight, constricting muscles wind around our feet. That sensation slithers over us little by little. I jerk against Torben, and his body instantly shoves me aside to protect me.
Always my protector.
Always.
Strong hands grapple with the thick body of the snake. Its fluid twists and turns are unbothered by the warrior’s strength though.
“You’re weakkkkk,” Serpan says, his face slowly lifting from the dusty shadows of the room.
The snake’s body is too large. Too connivingly resistant.
But Serpan’s face . . .
That’s all boney edges, isn’t it?
Hot lumber stings against my palm, but I keep going. With too much pent-up power, I swing the broken beam up hard and fast. The crunch of bone and a wailing scream is all I hear as I swing once more, catching the jagged edge of the building and bringing it all down with the force of my might.
With a heap of dust, rubble crumbles down around me. It coats my skin . . .
It buries me.
My fingers thread through Torben’s in the heavy darkness. And with a wolfish growl, I heave through the destruction. It scatters around me as I shove out of the sharp bricks. The smell of fire is stronger now in the broken room of the building. I can’t see anything, but I can feel the heat of the flames.