by Laura Kaye
Chrys took out another and another, but there seemed an unending supply of the evil spirits.
Boreas and Zeph flew up. “We’re going after Eurus. All of us. At once.”
Chrys followed, determination flaring. They truly were strongest together. With the lesser Anemoi drawing away the Harpies and Keres, the three brothers launched themselves toward Eurus and all at once unleashed the combined power of their winds.
The blast knocked Eurus back, allowing Aeolus to get in an unblocked hit with a lash of lightning. Eurus screamed in thunderous rage, then unleashed a wild wall of wind that pounded into the Anemoi and scattered them uncontrollably.
Chrys slammed to the ground and rolled to the right just in time to avoid a swooping Harpy, talons out and ready to grab. Groaning from the impact, he saw the best news of the whole night. The flash of Eurus’s lightning was dimmer, less frequent. Almighty Zeus, please let that mean Father’s strike hit something vital.
“Chrys! Chrys!” Owen yelled from somewhere in the melee.
He shot to his feet and turned. “Holy fuck,” he murmured. Owen’s house was on fire. Every time rain smothered a section of flames, the winds breathed new life into it.
Laney. Oh, gods, no.
Owen raced up to him. “I can’t get in. The fire’s too hot. Megan, the baby—” He broke off, too choked up to continue.
He nodded. Chrys might not be powerful enough to defeat Eurus, as three solid months had more than proven, but he’d damn well use every bit of his power to save these humans, for whom he cared so deeply. “I’ve got it. Where are they?”
“Basement office. There’s an exterior door around back.”
Chrys whipped around to the rear of the house in an instant. He crashed through the door, sending glass and wood flying. “Laney? Megan?”
“We’re here!”
Chrys rounded a corner and stopped. He could just make them out through the smoke, congregated outside of Owen’s office door. Fire was roaring down the staircase along the wall that separated him from them. It had burned through the wall and ceiling above, which was sagging badly. The heat it gave off was enormous.
Come to Papa, he thought.
“I’m going to push back the fire and the heat,” he shouted. “When I do, you run to the back door and stay there.”
“Okay!”
Chrys shifted into his elemental form, moved to the center of the hall under the worst of the fire, called the heat into himself, and blew out the excess energy in a great gust that smothered the fire as long as he kept it going. Run, run, run, he thought. Because once he withdrew the current, the fire would come roaring back.
Relief flowed through him as the three women, Tabitha carrying Teddy, bolted beneath him and around the corner. Chrys retreated to the corner of the hall and watched as the fire tore back through the space. A section of ceiling collapsed, sending out a plume of heat and sparks. He stepped toward the conflagration and absorbed as much of the heat as he could. Deep satisfaction roared through him. As regretful as he was about the destruction of Owen’s house, the fire’s great heat replenished his energy and strengthened his body.
He materialized into corporeality as he rounded the corner, shaking with the force of the thrumming energy he now carried within. “Everyone okay?” he asked, looking to Laney. Thank the gods, she was unharmed. Rattled, but holding it together, and more beautiful than ever despite the smudge of soot on her brow.
“We’re okay,” Tabitha said. “But Megan’s having contractions.”
He nodded. “Okay if I take everyone to your house?”
“Of course.”
“Everyone wrap an arm around one of mine. You have to be touching me, including Teddy.”
Megan took his right. Tabitha took his left and wrapped the baby’s arm around, too.
Laney came up behind him. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this.” She pressed her front to his back and wrapped her arms around his stomach. She kissed his back, once, twice, and her love poured into him, warming and bolstering him, and making him realize he’d never given a second thought to the other women’s touches. He pressed his hand over one of hers, and shifted them into the elements.
Chrys eased out the door and drifted to the corner of the house. Carrying this many beings into the elements drew on his reserves, but the fire had given him energy to spare. He moved slowly, carefully. The Harpies and the Keres could perceive divine energy, so being elemental didn’t guarantee he wouldn’t capture anything’s notice. And if that happened with all these mortals, with Laney…
No. Focus, damnit.
He peered around the corner. Coast clear.
Pouring on the extra energy he’d imbibed from the fire, he shot across the long stretch of open space separating the houses. Half way across, a flash of light caught his attention.
Eurus had Owen pinned against the front of the house. With the fire at his back and Eurus and his lightning lance at his front, he was trapped. Sonofabitch. As a demigod, Owen had the least chance of any of them to weather an attack by Eurus.
Where the hell was Aeolus? Boreas? Zeph?
Chrys continued to the back corner of Tabitha’s house and manifested. “Go inside,” he said. He hated not seeing them in safely himself, but Eurus was raising the weapon for a death blow. Odd that Eurus was using his weaker hand to wield the lightning—Chrys didn’t have time to think on it. He took off across the space, materialized the infernal dagger, and threw it with all his might.
A blast of divine energy blew in front of Owen, shielding him and throwing him off balance. He fell to the ground.
The lance of lightning struck right through the center of the energy signature, which flashed and flickered between its corporeal and elemental forms, just as the dagger stuck deep into Eurus’s shoulder.
Two screams of agony rocked the nighttime world.
Eurus wrenched the dagger free and whipped it back toward Chrys who, with a massive guest of wind, blew it off course. Eurus staggered and weaved, and triumph roared through Chrys when he noted the gray mottled skin on the hand he’d slashed the previous day with the dagger. Hell yes, it worked! And now he’d struck him again.
Eurus shot off into the sky. The remaining Harpies and Keres retreated en masse.
Chrys reached the front corner of the house, and every bit of that triumph drained away. “No!” He skidded to his knees in the wet grass.
Boreas lay on his back in his human form, a great savage hole through his chest.
Owen crawled to him. “Gods, no. Boreas.” Calling on his powers as a snow god, Owen cupped his hands over the gaping wound. White light slipped through the cracks of his fingers. His hands turned white and icy with frost, the cold energy a soothing balm for a god of the North.
“Keep going, Owen. I’ll move us. We have to get him away from the heat of this fire.”
Sweat streamed down Owen’s face. He nodded.
Chrys grabbed Boreas’s hand and reached for Owen’s shoulder. He willed them into the elements and away a safe distance from the fire’s heat. He manifested them in the soft, cool grass in front of Tabitha’s house.
“B, you’re going to be okay, man. Eurus is gone. It’s over for tonight.”
Zephyros and Aeolus burst into corporeality behind Chrys and knelt beside him. Footsteps squished in the wet grass and Megan, leaning on Tabitha and Laney, joined the circle of Boreas’s family. She eased down next to Owen, tears streaking her face as she stroked her hand over Boreas’s short hair.
“Oh, gods,” Zeph said before he reined in his reaction. “We’re here, Boreas. We’ll fix this.” He cupped his hands around Owen’s. A golden, healing light spread over Boreas’s chest. Of all of them, Zephyros’s energy was the strongest and had the most powerful ability to heal.
Hope flared in Chrys’s chest as the visible strain left Boreas’s face. Chrys turned and sought out Livos, standing behind him on the street. He waved him over. Livos took a knee. “We need cover. All of you, draw in a fog.
Thick as you can. And track down my dagger. We can’t lose it.” Livos nodded and left, and Chrys turned back to Boreas.
“We have to stop meeting this way,” Zeph quipped.
“Yes.” A great wracking cough seized Boreas. Blood spilled over his lips. “O-wen, son?” He scanned his gaze over the group, his normally silver eyes dulled to a flat gray.
“I’m here, Boreas. Right here,” Owen grunted, his arms shaking as he poured the cold energy into his father.
Fog began to roll in around their position, dense and obscuring.
Boreas’s head lolled toward Owen. “You…are great…father.” He coughed again. More blood trickled from the side of his mouth. “I’m so…proud…you.”
“Don’t,” Owen bit out. “Don’t you even think of saying good-bye.”
Boreas dragged his hand up, as if in slow motion, and placed it atop Owen’s. “Have to. My…time’s over,” he slurred.
Megan pressed a kiss to Boreas’s forehead. “Your time is just beginning. Do you hear? We love you,” she said in a tear-strained voice.
Boreas managed a small smile. “You’re best…thing ever…happened to him, Meg…”
Chrys saw what was happening. He’d seen the size of the hole, Boreas’s blood loss, and now his struggle to speak and breathe. The cold energy Owen poured into him, the healing energy Zephyros spread over him—they were mere Band-Aids. Analytically, intellectually, he knew this. But his heart…his heart could not begin to accept the tragedy unfurling before him.
His beloved brother was dying.
Chrys whirled on Aeolus, kneeling at Boreas’s feet, pale-faced and eyes filled with horror. “Do something!”
Aeolus dragged his gaze from Boreas and gave a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He might as well have shouted, “There is nothing to be done.” Their father turned back to Boreas and rested a hand on his shin. “I grant my permission, and my blessings, to transfer your godhood.”
“Thank you,” Boreas rasped. At the same time, Chrys, Zeph, Megan, Owen—all of them—issued a collective protest. Owen turned to look at Megan, regret and devastation on his face. Boreas’s gasping coughs quieted the group. “Zeph, please keep your healing going long enough…”
To keep me alive, Chrys finished in his mind. And the words cut deep into his soul, unleashing a physical pain that raced through his veins until he could hardly stand it. “B, fight it.”
But Boreas didn’t respond, and Chrys didn’t hold it against him, because it was an impossible request. Great waves of grief slamming his heart into his ribcage, Chrys found Laney’s sad, horrified gaze across the small circle. He wanted to go to her, hold her, shield her from everything painful and unjust and tragic in the world. He wanted her heat and her compassion and her touch to bolster him when he felt he could stand no longer.
“Owen.” Boreas patted his hands. “Release me.”
“No.”
“Owen.”
“No, Boreas, no.” Tears spilled from his mismatched eyes. “No.”
With an unseen reserve of power, Boreas pushed Owen’s hands away from the wound. “Closer,” he said. “Lean…over.”
Owen braced his arms on either side of Boreas’s head and looked down onto his father’s face. The younger god’s back trembled with restrained grief.
Arms shaking, Boreas pressed one palm to Owen’s heart, and one to his head. He spoke in low, rasping, stuttering words in the ancient language.
“As m-master of the North…Wind, as guardian of Winter”—he coughed for a long moment, more blood flowing forth—“I command…the great, cl-cleansing winds of the…North t-to bow to the…n-new master now”—he gasped, his breaths making a whistling sound—“now before them. It is not the…vessel of the g-god, but…the wind that m-must be…honored and…protected.” He sucked in a deep rasping breath. “I command the North Wind, with…all of its powers, p-privileges, and…duties, into Owen, son of Boreas,…s-son of Aeolus, and c-commend him as…the next…Supreme God of the North Wind and Guardian of Winter. I have looked into his…heart…and his mind, and he is worthy.”
Owen’s big shoulders shook. Megan’s sobs rang though the pre-dawn gray, and Laney wrapped her arms around the other woman’s shoulders.
The North Wind, called by the incantation, swirled in a light breeze, round and round. All about them, snow fell. The wind whipped it into a fragile cocoon around the whole mourning group. Inside, the breeze still circulated, as if waiting.
Chrys shivered mercilessly, more from the inconsolable grief overflowing his chest than the ravaging cold. It was nearly done.
“Repeat,” Boreas gasped. He lifted his eyebrows in silent questioning. Owen nodded. Boreas haltingly stated three more lines.
Owen repeated them in the ancient language, his voice a raw scrape. “I accept the power, the privileges, and the duties of the North Wind. I will be a fair and faithful master and a true and conscientious guardian. From this moment until I am no more.” A single sob escaped him. “I love you, Father.”
Boreas had just enough time to offer a small, knowing smile. Silvery-white light lifted from Boreas’s body, pushing Owen into an upright position on his knees. The light congregated in a blindingly beautiful orb and shot into Owen’s chest. The North Wind inside the cocoon whipped into ever-tighter circles around the whole length of Owen’s body. All at once, it seized him. Owen’s body went rigid, and then seemed to absorb the swirling wind.
He collapsed to his side. Zeph just managed to catch him. The thin, snowy walls of the cocoon drifted to the ground.
“Owen!” Megan wailed, scrabbling around the group to him.
His eyelids eased open and he slowly pushed himself into a kneeling position. He grasped Boreas’s still hand in his and tugged Megan in tight against his chest.
Boreas was gone.
Chrys’s heart railed against the reality, his mind spun and scrambled for a different interpretation, for anything else in the world to be true.
Hot tears spilling down his cheeks, Chrys laid a hand on Owen’s bent back. Zephyros’s hand joined him, as did Aeolus.
Movement in his peripheral vision caught Chrys’s attention. All the surviving lesser Anemoi surrounded them, kneeling, heads bowed.
Chrys dragged his focus back to the group, and his gaze found Laney’s, her face a mask of grief. Hand over her mouth, tears streamed from puffy eyes. That she felt so deeply for his family made him love her even more. How that was possible, since he loved her beyond all reason already, he didn’t know.
But that only added to the burden of his grief. Because Boreas’s death reinforced every one of his misgivings where Laney was concerned. The danger of pulling a human into his life, his world was too great. The risks were too massive. And Chrys could make room for nothing more in his life right now than the vengeance he needed to exact.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way, encircled not as gods, but grieving together as a family.
Aeolus’s head wrenched up. His gaze flashed to the side. Chrys tracked the movement and then heard what had captured his father’s attention. A man’s voice. Shouting. Calling. Calling Laney’s name. The voice bounced off the thick fog, seemingly coming from multiple directions.
Chrys shoved to his feet. Aeolus followed.
Laney appeared next to him, her expression totally bewildered. “Seth,” she rasped. “It’s Seth.”
“What?” Chrys bit out.
“Last night, with everything, I forgot to tell you,” she whispered. “He threatened to call the police, so I told him…” She stepped forward, clearly searching for the other man in the fog.
His dark form suddenly appeared, maneuvering through the debris and devastation.
As he called her name again, Laney stepped further forward. It was clear the minute Seth saw her. He took off at a run toward her. Glaring at Chrys, he pulled her into his arms.
Laney gasped and stood rigid, as if caught off guard, but after a moment, she returned the embrace.
The hatred pouring off the human was nearly a physical thing, but Chrys was too numb with grief to feel it. And now, seeing the woman he loved in another man’s arms—it was nearly more than Chrys could take.
“Jesus, it’s like a war zone. There was this whirling cloud and lightning like I’ve never seen. The police have everything cordoned off for blocks and blocks. But I found a way in. I thought—” Seth shook his head. “What the hell is going on?”
Right there. Right there was a man who would take care of Laney Summerlyn. If Chrys walked like he should—like he’d said he would—Laney wouldn’t be without someone. Cold desolation filling him up until he could hardly breathe, Chrys turned away.
Dawn approached. Light enough existed to show the devastation of the neighborhood. Damaged houses, including the still-smoldering ruins of Owen’s, downed trees, smashed cars, the corpses of otherworldly creatures, including some of the inter-ordinal Anemoi, who would turn to dust when sunlight laid upon them.
“We must go,” Aeolus said in a low voice, as if he didn’t want to disturb the solemnity that still hung over Boreas’s body.
Slowly, the others all rose. Owen lifted Boreas’s body into his arms. Zeph stepped forward to support Megan, weak with exhaustion and grief.
Chrys let his gaze drift back to Laney, now standing beside Seth. The man’s expression was part lethal, part bewildered. “Father, the humans must seek shelter with us until we can figure this out,” Chrys said. They had to get their dead back to the Hall of the Winds before sunrise, but no way he was leaving Laney here unprotected. Not with Eurus and Devlin still out there.
Owen’s gaze cut to Aeolus. His eyes. Still brown and blue, but now the light that flared from them was brighter, lighter, infused with flecks of silver.
Aeolus looked from Megan to Laney and Seth to Tabitha. “So be it.” He turned to the lesser Anemoi. “Gather the dead. Leave no one behind.”