by Jax Garren
Taking her warm hands, he returned her gaze. “We’re good.” He squeezed, then dropped one hand and turned toward the object of their investigation. If she was having a hard time going there, he’d step up. They hadn’t come all the way out here, and she hadn’t endured that terrible vision this morning, in order to stop at the border.
He grabbed a broken limb from the ground and used it to push aside smaller branches and create a gap in the overhang. The September heat didn’t dissipate as he stepped into the shade and turned back to make sure she got through the wall of thorns all right. “Careful. They’re mean.” Sleeping Beauty couldn’t have been better protected in her slumber than by a forest of these stupid trees.
Freyja ducked under the branch he held and stared at something in the center of the thicket. “Oh gods.”
More worried about her than whatever she was seeing, he ushered her forward a few steps so he could drop the thorny branches back into place without whacking her.
“It’s real,” she whispered.
He finally looked up. In the middle of the clearing, a metal grate rested over a hole in the ground. “What the...”
Whispers echoed around them, or maybe—hopefully—that was just the breeze rattling the pods. The nasty smells of piss and unwashed human wafted across to him, overpowering the sweetness of mesquite.
With stiff legs, Freyja marched over to the grate.
“Be careful!” he warned, striding to catch up with her.
The whispers coalesced into words: “I am the wall. I am the wall.”
“Oh, fuck,” he muttered, dread infusing him. Someone was down there.
Freyja knelt by the grate, peering into the darkness.
“Hush, hush, the wall, the wall, I am the wall.”
Somebody had been stuck down there in a pit, lodged with their own filth. What kind of person did that to another? The inhumanity of it made him want to retch, and suddenly he was the one too scared to continue. “Freyja...”
Freyja gasped, hand to her mouth and her whole body trembling. “Oh gods.”
He put a hand on her shoulder. “We should call the police. It sounds too deep to pull anyone from.”
But Freyja whipped her ax out, nearly decapitating him in the process, her focus so intent on what was before them. He took her arm, still too horrified to look down and see. “Sweetheart, we’re not prepared to deal with a crazy person. We don’t even know why he’s down there. There are laws against this. We call the police. We can stay until they come, and I’ll fly us out.”
A whack of her ax, and the chain holding down the grate was split. Freyja threw back the covering and leaned in, reaching an arm down into the fetid darkness. “I can’t reach her.” She sounded frantic and looked about ready to dive in.
Her. There was a woman down there. He took Freyja’s shoulder, trying to pull her away. “Freyja! Sweetheart, come on, let’s think.”
But Freyja struggled against him, slipping his grip and flopping forward, half into the hole. He grabbed her feet, just stopping her from sliding in completely as she yelled, “Mom!”
Chapter 29
FREYJA STRUGGLED AGAINST Rafael, out of control, as if determined to climb down into the oubliette. “Freyja!” he said loudly but calmly as he crawled to the hole, keeping a hold on her so she didn’t dive in. He understood now—they would get the woman out—but Freyja’s thoughtless plunge wasn’t the solution. “Freyja, darling, we’re going to get her out.”
“Mom?”
“I am the wall! I am the wall! I am the wall!” shrieked the woman inside, each cry more frantic than the last.
Finally he got to the edge and, disgusted and horrified, peered over. The gaze of a lunatic squinted up at him from a face covered in grime. The woman crouched in a ten-foot-deep hole, her arms spread along the cement surrounding her like a cornered animal.
“I see her, Freyja, I see her.”
Freyja pressed a hand to her tear-covered face, panting like she would hyperventilate. Finally she looked him in the eyes with something resembling clarity. “That’s my mother—Bryn. She’s not dead.”
He looked down the hole again at the emaciated and wild human below them. He’d seen a photo of Bryn Ryder after her death—supposed death?—and the only thing the photo had in common with the mess of a human below him was blue eyes. Eyes like Freyja’s. But if Freyja was this sure...
“We’re going to get her out. Right now,” he reassured her. Hair stuck to her tear-damp face, and he brushed it back. “But please don’t jump down there and make me get two people out of a hole, okay?”
She pressed a shaking hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry. That was stupid. Yeah. Yeah.”
The sound of helicopter blades not too far away caught his attention. It was probably nothing—they were next to a military base, after all. But it gave him a sense of urgency. “It’s okay. I get it.” He pulled them both up to sitting. “Didn’t you put the rope in your pouch?”
She nodded. “Rope. Yes. Should’ve thought of that.” She reached into the pouch and came out with the climbing gear he’d bought online on a superhero-toy spree.
“And you were making fun of me for shopping.”
She huffed, her calm returning in some measure as he hooked the gear around her as efficiently as he could. “I didn’t make fun of the climbing equipment or the tranquilizer gun, but you wanted X-ray glasses and exploding chewing gum.”
“Exploding chewing gum would be awesome.” The helicopter was getting closer. He glanced up, trying not to let his escalating tension show.
“Yeah, until you forget and stick it in your mouth.” She held the rope out to him. “Let’s do this.”
“Knock her out if you have to.” He flicked her lightly on the shoulder. “Use the tranq gun.” She looked hesitant. “You need to get her out safely and quickly. She may not want to come. Do what you have to; she’ll thank you later.”
Freyja nodded and stood on the edge, ready to jump back and rappel down.
A searchlight pounded onto them from above as wind from the helicopter blades blew the trees about and sent Freyja’s hair whipping in her face.
“Stop!” an amplified voice called from above.
Freyja shot him a glance of furious determination. Terrified she’d get stuck down there, too, he reached out and grabbed the harness, stopping her from dropping into the hole. “Wait until we know what’s happening.”
“Come down with me!” she yelled over the sound of the blades as ropes dropped into the clearing. “Change us all into flies or something, and we’ll escape!”
He thought about it for a moment but knew that was not going to work. “I can barely change the two of us. I won’t be able to hold three people. I’m sorry.”
The zip of carabiners hissed over the noise of the copter as ten men in black uniforms dropped around them, twirling machine guns to face them.
“Shit. Shit! What the fuck is going on?” he called out, pressing Freyja behind him. “I’m changing us. We’re getting out—you and I.”
“Not without my mom! They’ll move her.”
“Now that we know she’s alive, we’ll find her again!”
The helicopter lifted higher, making the noise less oppressive. He spun in a circle, Freyja at his back, her ax out—like that would be of any use against ten machine guns.
One of the figures stepped forward, her immaculate suit a startling white against the night. She took her earmuffs off, shaking reddish hair over her shoulders, and Rafael’s jaw dropped.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” she asked.
“Andromeda?” Rafael announced, incredulous, as Freyja whipped around.
A man in black stepped forward. “You know them?”
Andromeda shot them a withering glare. “That’s my daughter and her boyfriend.”
Freyja’s voice screamed out in rage. “Why do you have Bryn in a hole?”
Her evil foster mother looked at her like the woman had no idea what she was
talking about. “Who?”
“You’re telling me,” the black-clad man barked at Andromeda, “that you have two unauthorized conduits running around without—”
Andromeda put her hand over the man’s face, cutting him off, and Rafael grudgingly admitted he now had one thing he didn’t hate about her.
“Freyja, darling, come along nicely, and let’s get this straightened out.”
“What about Bryn? And Coyote? You can’t just call me to heel.”
Andromeda glanced around at the guns and shot them both a pointed look. But her gaze drifted from Freyja to him. “You claim to care about her. Examine the situation and prove my lack of faith in you wrong.” The sneer said she thought the worst of him but knew how stubborn Freyja could be. And as much as he hated to agree with the hag, their odds didn’t look good.
He muttered to Freyja. “I can get us out. We can try again later.”
She turned to him with a shocking amount of poise, though a new tear had started a trail down her left cheek. Her hand cupped his neck, and she pulled his face down as if to kiss him. “Get my mother out. Transform two, you and her. I’ll get myself out,” she pleaded in a whisper, her lips a hairsbreadth from his.
“No—”
She cut him off with a kiss. Her mouth crushed his, shocking and strong, and despite the guns and the smell and complete inappropriateness of the timing, it filled him with hope and wonder.
Then it was done. She backed away, breath fast, brow raised in question.
The pouch of godstones was in his hand, and he realized this was about more than just her mother. He gave her the smallest nod because what else could he do?
She grinned like somehow this clusterfuck was going to work out just fine. “All right, I’m coming,” she told Andromeda, turning away from him to face her old mentor.
“Shit,” he cursed under his breath, watching her walk stiffly away. The trauma victim shrieking from the bottom of a hole was the only family Freyja had ever had, and his partner was trusting him to save her while protecting a bag of godstones from the government.
Andromeda shot him a triumphant smirk, and he had no doubt things would be going badly for him soon if he stuck around. He narrowed his eyes as the ranks of men parted for Andromeda and her charge, then closed back around him. Did Freyja have a plan for getting out? Or was she trading herself for her mother?
No way. He’d come back for her. Meanwhile, what was he going to do with a woman screeching, “I am the wall,” on repeat? Who put her down there, and how did he keep her safe from them?
The leader—or at least the dude Andromeda had silenced with a hand to the face—made a gesture. “All right, men, let’s bag us a godstone.” Guns trained on him at the smug tone, and sweat dripped down Rafael’s neck as he realized they didn’t have to take him in alive. No one knew who he was under the mask—that he was famous, that he came from an old Texas family, that he could afford the kind of lawyers that made jail, at worst, easy.
Felon with a deadly weapon—this was the choice he’d made.
The first bullet cracked, and pain rioted from his thigh as blood splashed across the white of his skirt. He stumbled backward, fear pumping through him.
“Stop!” he heard Freyja yell. If she came back for his ass, they were all going down—with the bag of godstones.
He’d wanted to be a hero. Time to let go of any delusions of grandeur and get real. Another bullet popped and missed. Heart pumping with a hope and maybe even a prayer, he dropped into the pit’s darkness alone.
To Be Continued...
Author’s Note
DEAR READER,
I hope you enjoyed The Trickster’s Drum! Sorry about that ending... #sorrynotsorry Godsongs has five parts. Part 2, The Trickster’s Strings, is available for preorder on Amazon and will drop for purchase or your KU reading pleasure on August 22. I’m so excited to share Giselle and Rafael’s continuing adventures with you as secrets are revealed, family drama unfolds, and poor Rafael finds himself in an even smaller costume.
I’ve always loved ancient mythology and culture, and I’ve put a few of my research notes at the very end of the book. Want more? Check out my Instagram hashtag #RAAH—Real-Ass Ancient History—for more weird facts and tales I’ve learned during book research. I’d love to see you online anywhere, in fact! Find me on Insta as @JaxGarren, Twitter as @JCGarren, or on Facebook as Jax Garren. You can also sign up for my newsletter for upcoming release dates and other bits of fun at www.jaxgarren.com.
If you’re looking for a new series to pass the time until Godsongs 2, my Tales of the Underlight trilogy, starting with How Beauty Met the Beast, are still available for a limited time—more on that later. TotU is a beloved urban fantasy retelling of Beauty and the Beast with a burlesque-dancing heroine and a burn-scarred Army Ranger. If vampires are up your alley (I gotta admit, I will always love vampires), Immortal Longing, the first book in my Austin Immortals series about ancient vampires coping with modern life, is an M/M reunion story with rich world building and a happy ending (whew!), which will be rereleased in July (previously available as Stripped with the Vampire). Turn the page for the first chapter!
Finally, want more Freyote faster? I’m currently searching for a few good people for my ARC team—get a sneak peek at books, a private FB group, and more! Contact me at [email protected] for the deets.
Thanks for reading and see you next time!
Jax
First Chapter: Immortal Longing
A SECOND-CHANCE M/M romance with in-depth worldbuilding and a happy ending
Meet Vince Pagano, stripper for hire. He’s loud, proud, and loyal. In his spare time, he works with his true passion—the art of blacksmithing. He also has a secret. Vince knows vampires are real. In fact, he used to date one, a shy, brilliant woodworker, before that vampire broke his heart. Flash forward five years. Vince is in trouble—big trouble of the supernatural variety—and there’s only one person...one entity he can turn to.
“Tooth and Nail looks as ominous as it sounds.” Vince Pagano tried to keep his voice light as he eyed the deep purple door of the Victorian house turned goth club. Private parties were always a better haul than dancing at LongHorns with the other guys. But the ramshackle steps leading up to a porch full of ostentatious gingerbread and the sultry bass grinding through the night from inside the club gave him a prickly feeling on the back of his neck.
Rhiannon, his best friend, came around his Miata to take the driver’s seat. She was supposed to go back to the club to run the technical side of tonight’s show and was going to be late if she didn’t get moving. Instead of getting in the car, though, she leaned against the door next to him and contemplated the place. “You don’t have to go in.”
“They already paid.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t feel safe, Kurt won’t bitch about refunding them. You’ve done that, what, twice in six years? He trusts your judgment.” She pulled the rubber band from her hair, letting her freshly dyed apple-green hair fall around her shoulders before gathering it up again in a tighter ponytail. “I’ll be honest. Since Javi organized the gig, I didn’t even check into it. I just assumed...”
Vince snorted at the mention of her straitlaced older brother. “That it would be completely lame?”
Rhi’s hazel-brown eyes angled to him, then back to Tooth and Nail as half her mouth curled up. “I was going to say ‘safe.’ But... yeah, that too.”
The June night was warm, and a breeze blew the scents of cigarettes and fresh-cut grass. East Austin was a haphazard mix of genteel decay, Mexican culture, artists’ studios, hip nightlife, and DINK invaders sprucing it up. The energy was creative, intense, and a little dangerous. His kind of vibe. Vince shrugged his shoulders to loosen them. Tooth and Nail was just another club, and Javier was in it. It was perfectly safe. Vince leaned away from the car. “Who’s the party for, again? Ceci?”
“Tzitzi. Like the ‘tsie’ in Tootsie said twice.” Rhi leaned forward, too. “I’m
going in with you. Brother dear doesn’t call in two days, despite my nine million messages about Mom’s newest debacle, and then he finally does to ask for a stripper? I have words.”
“Your mom has a new debacle? Shock!” Rhiannon and Javier’s mom required saving from her own crap decisions often enough Vince couldn’t blame Javi for avoiding her latest mess—but it was out of character.
Rhi punched him on the shoulder.
Vince rubbed his arm, feigning pain as they headed past the wrought iron gate and down the cracked sidewalk, then got distracted by the fencing. It was old—real smithing, not factory pressed—and appeared in good repair. If somebody was interested enough in quality metalwork to keep it in this good of condition, maybe he could pitch them a job.
In his dream world, where he made a living from metal craft, they’d take him up on it. But this was reality, where people would rather pay a couple hundred dollars to see him mostly naked for half an hour than a hundred dollars for a piece that took weeks to create. He puffed his cheeks out, blew a hard breath, and caught up with Rhi.
She stopped at the top of the porch steps and completely switched subjects. “Tzitzimime are demons in Aztec mythology.”
Vince chuckled and patted her on the head. “Pagan Nerd Girl strikes again. One day we’ll find something about ancient culture that you don’t know.”
She didn’t drop the concern. “They’re ragingly freaky. They wear necklaces decorated with human hearts and shell skirts that rattle right before they kill you. They’re always pictured with blood from their victims pouring down the front of their mouths and bloodying their clothes. At the end of the world they’ll come down from the night sky and kill everybody. One reason Aztecs did so many human sacrifices was to stop them.”
“Uh-huh.” Rhi knew more mythology than anyone he’d ever met. Usually he found it interesting. Less so tonight, when it was about human-heart necklaces and he was already on edge.
On the other side of the door the music changed to a more pounding beat. A couple smoking cigarettes gave them a hard look and straightened up, threateningly.