Reluctant Gods (The Awakening Book 2)

by Keri Armstrong

  I did trust him, but this….

  Around she spun, her hair and gown floating about her as if underwater. I could feel Caleb’s heart pounding against my back, and my own keeping tempo with the rapid beat. Questions battered my brain. Would she survive? Would she be immortal? Was this part of Ammon’s ritual, still?

  I tried to look for Izzara’s body, but the flames in front of us were so bright they blocked out everything around them and hurt my eye.

  After only a few moments, they started to recede, slowly moving downward. When they’d gone down to a few flickers, Sara was left standing. Completely whole, and most importantly awake.

  Caleb let go of me then, rushing forward as Sara attempted to climb over the ledge to get to us. He grabbed her into a fierce embrace and, seconds later, so did I.

  But we were still weren’t out of the woods. Or caves, as the case may be.

  “Nathan! We have to help him,” I cried out, twisting back to point to where he lay.

  The three of us ran over to his silent body.

  Sara burst into tears. “Oh, Phoebe, I am so sorry.”

  “Me too,” I cried back, “But please, help me to put Nathan into the pit. He is really hurt.”

  He had a lot of wounds upon his flesh, but the gash around his neck looked the worst. I cupped the wound with my hand, and though it looked as if the blood might be clotting, it still seeped from the cuts.

  “You’re bleeding too!” Sara tore a piece of her dress and tried to put it around my arm but I shrugged her off.

  “Caleb, help me, lift him.” I said, angry that he was just standing there watching us.

  “It’s probably too late,” he said. When Sara sobbed louder, he bent to help me pick Nathan up.

  Sara helped us, adding two extra hands. My arms were shaking and my hand was slippery as we made our way to the edge of the pit. We’d nearly made it there when the ground began to rumble beneath our feet. As we started to place him over the rim of the pit, the earth pitched beneath my feet, throwing me off balance. I went down with a cry, and Sara and Caleb lost their grip on Nathan. He hit the ground with a thud, as the rumbling of the earth grew louder. I tried to stand as Caleb helped Sara rise. They held onto each other, weaving as they came toward me, trying stay upright as the earth flowed beneath us in waves.

  I hooked my arms under Nathan’s, trying to drag him toward the flames, my feet slipping and scrambling for purchase. Caleb grabbed my arms and pulled backwards, trying to make me leave.

  “We have to get out of here, Phoebe. It’s too late.”

  “No!” I refused to accept that. Only a few feet more. We could make it.

  “Phoebe,” he shouted at me. “The flames have gone out. We have to leave.”

  I looked at the pit then. It was silent. Nothing but dark stones.

  “No,” I cried again. I needed to heal him. I needed the flames.

  “Sara, move!” Caleb leaped to grab her as one of the pillars that had held the nightmarish torches, tumbled to the ground. I threw myself across Nathan’s body to shield him.

  I looked up to see Caleb holding Sara close to his body. “We have to go, now,” he repeated.

  I knew he was right, but…. “We can’t just leave him,” I protested. “We can’t.”

  Nathan had been wounded trying to protect all of us. I didn’t know how was it possible, but he was the animal who’d been following us, and he’d saved us countless of times. I owed him my life and I wouldn’t just abandon him when he needed me.

  Caleb’s face hardened for a moment and I thought he was going to argue. But he gritted his teeth grabbed hold of Nathan’s limp body.

  “Follow me,” he ordered, and we started back toward the nearest cave opening, trying to stay upright, and dodge fallen bodies along the way. I winced when one of my feet landed on what was probably a piece of charred bone. My too-large sandals were long gone, lost in the battle. My throat and eye burned, and my chest was in a vise-like grip, but my only focus was to get us all to safety.

  The world was crumbling around us and I feared we wouldn’t make it out of there alive.

  Sara pulled me by the hand as the deafening noise roared around us. We ran as fast as we could but, at each turn, the ground shook and rock fell, making us change paths again and again.

  “No use. Let’s go this way,” Caleb shouted, turning back.

  He did his best but, I realized with sudden conviction, that this was the end for me. For us. We were all going a share the same fate as our parents: Die within these cursed caves, never to be seen again.

  “We can’t outrun this,” I screamed as we reached another dead end.

  “You’re right,” Caleb said, gasping for air. “But I might still be able to get us all out of here.”

  Something in his tone alerted me. “How?”

  His expression was grim. “You’ll have to trust me. But the thing is, I can only take one at a time.”

  I didn’t even think. “Take Sara,” I said, pushing her to him.

  “No, you. Or maybe Nathan should go first, since he’s hurt,” she protested.

  I wasn’t in the mood for a discussion. Besides, I hated to admit that Caleb was right about Nathan. I was probably too late. But if Sara still had a chance…

  I grabbed her by the shoulder. “Listen. I watched Ammon stab you in the chest, Sara. You almost died in front of me, and I’ll be dammed if I go through that again.”

  She tried to argue but I spoke over her. “I’ll watch over Nathan,” I said as Caleb placed him gently on the ground. “Now go, Caleb, and take her,” I demanded.

  Luckily Caleb and I were on the same page even though she protested. “I’ll try to get back as fast as I can,” he promised. With that, he grabbed Sara and just disappeared into thin air.

  I blinked, open-mouthed, my mind blank for moment. Then…Wait, he can do that? So, why the hell were we running around like this?

  A low moan brought me out of my thoughts.

  “Nathan?” I bent over his chest, placing my ear against his lips to see if I heard it right.

  He did it again. It was one of the most beautiful sounds I’d heard all night. Oh, Nathan,” I sobbed. “Please hold on.”

  The last words were drowned out when the roof of the cave in front of us collapsed.

  Nineteen

  I wrapped my arms around Nathan’s head, climbing over his body to shield him as much as possible. Rocks crumbled around us, blocking our exit and kicking up dust and rubble that flew into my side. I cried out as a few of the larger rocks connected with my arms and side, sharp pain making its presence known.

  “Hang on, just hang on,” I breathed into his hair. He smelled of sweat and coppery blood, and I suddenly became aware that there was nothing between our bodies but a few bits of torn silk. I clung to his lean, muscular frame, wondering if this was our last. If we were going to die here together before Caleb could get back.

  I had expected him to return to us instantaneously. But moments had passed, and now I was afraid that something else had happened to him or Sara. I hoped and prayed he hadn’t gotten caught in the rock fall on his way back.

  “Stay with me, please,” I whispered to Nathan. “You can’t go yet. I have so much to ask you. So much to thank you for.” I squeezed my eye tightly shut, wishing with all my might that I could just disappear with him, the way Caleb had done with Sara.

  A swift arrow of rage shot through me. If he could do all that, why hadn’t he ever taught us? Sara and I apparently had some power; that became clear on this trip. The anger built in me until I suddenly realized the noise had stopped.

  A light breeze blew over us. I opened my eye to discover we were no longer in that collapsing cave. We were back in the courtyard. My mouth opened in shock and I coughed as a bit of stray dust in my throat went down my windpipe.

  What the hell? Had I somehow gotten us out of there only to return here? In just the short time since we had left, the scene looked even more chaotic. Blood, death,
and ruins were all that remained.

  The pit for Caleb still glowed with a few embers, but the other, the Pillar of Life, was extinguished.

  I rolled off Nathan, careful to not jar him the process. “Hang in there a little longer. I’ll get you better and get us out of here,” I promised, with no way of knowing how I would accomplish it.

  I stood, the ground blessedly quiet now and made my way to the Pillar of Life.

  I walked all around it, trying to figure out how it worked when I noticed that neither Izzara’s nor Ammon’s bodies were anywhere to be seen. I filed that knowledge away with a shiver of unease, but didn’t have time to look into the mystery. Nathan took precedence.

  I went back over to check on him and, to my complete shock, saw that the neck wound had started to close. The flesh was knitting itself, closing in front of my eye. Creepy though it was, it gave me a rush of hope.

  “Nathan?” I put my head on his chest, praying that I would hear something that wouldn’t be just a figment of my imagination. A faint, yet present heartbeat made itself known and breath rushed from my lungs. “Oh, thank God.”

  His breathing was becoming audible, though ragged and shallow. Yet he was alive. That was all that mattered.

  He moaned again.

  Remembering the spell Caleb and I did over Sara, I closed my eye, placed my hands over his heart, and concentrated.

  Nothing happened. I focused harder. And still, nothing. There was no warmth within me. No flicker of power. Only emptiness and creeping exhaustion.

  I shouted in frustration.

  I could only guess that I was tapped out. I didn’t even know if that was how the magic worked. I thought I was supposed to be able to channel it from sources, be a conduit. But I guessed magic came with a price. The laws of physics state that you can’t create something out of nothing. That energy had to come from somewhere.

  It was a really bad time to be drained.

  I stood once more on wobbly feet and went back over to where the blue flames had burned. I knelt on the ground and banged on what was left of the stone rim, hurting my hand in the process. “Where are you when I need you?”

  A rustling sound to my right had me spinning around. I nearly fell over, and searched frantically for a weapon as Ammon approached.

  I grabbed the nearest rock. “Stop right there,” I yelled.

  He stopped in his tracks. He was close enough for me to see that his eyes were strange looking, out of focus and frightened. He looked lost.

  I tightened my grip on the rock. I kept my eye on him the whole time. I didn’t dare glance at Nathan and possibly draw Ammon’s attention to him.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  I rose slowly and took a couple of steps back.

  Ammon just looked at me, seeming confused.

  That made two of us.

  I kept slowly moving away from Nathan, keeping my gaze fixed on Ammon. I wasn’t sure what he would do to me for ruining his plans. My arm throbbed with the reminder of him coming at me with a blade. I looked him over quickly and he appeared unarmed.

  That could change very fast.

  I made the mistake of glancing over at Nathan and Ammon followed my gaze.

  He pointed, frowning. “Is that your friend? He looks hurt.” He actually sounded concerned.

  Things were getting more bizarre by the minute.

  He scratched his head for a second, looking around. When he pulled his hand away, he looked startled to see it was bloody. “Am I hurt, too? Are you here to help us?”

  Nausea clenched my gut. Unless he was faking it—and I didn’t think he was—that electric bolt to his chip must have wiped his memory. Not that I regretted it.

  Put in that situation again, I would do it over, without a doubt.

  He suddenly sat on the ground. “Do you know who I am?”

  I tried to breath around my fear. What was I supposed to do with him now?

  Or with all of us? How the hell we were supposed to get out of here?

  Ammon wrapped his arms around his knees, rocking back and forth. I looked away. It was too disturbing. One, his shendyt had fallen loose and he was showing way more than I wanted to see, and two, I didn’t know how to deal with him looking so lost and confused.

  My mind raced. Even if Caleb tried to come back for us, we weren’t where he’d left us, and who knew if he could even get there, given the recent cave-in. Now that I was tapped out, I was going to have to find a way out without magic. But I wouldn’t be able to carry Nathan alone, and I wasn’t sure where to start.

  My head throbbed, and my ears rang from panic. I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the pain before I caused myself an aneurysm. The ringing grew higher in pitch until I suddenly realized it wasn’t me.

  There was a subtle change in the air, like an electrical current flew all around us.

  Ammon put his hands over his ears and moaned as the sound grew louder.

  I looked at Nathan but he was still out of it. I didn’t know if I should be happy or alarmed that he wasn’t aware of this new threat.

  Ammon screamed and pressed his head to the ground a blood trickled from his ears. I shook my own head as the sensation of hundreds of bees thrummed inside it. Moving, stinging, caged. I had an urge to bash my head against the nearest wall to relieve the pressure.

  I fell next to Nathan, my head lolling on the ground, and he started to spasm.

  A horrible sound rent the air as ground next to us split into a gaping chasm that continued to grow wider.

  And something was coming out of it.

  My insides turned to water. Whatever was coming, I knew it was bad.

  I desperately tried to pull myself and Nathan back from the edge of the hole, even knowing there was no way I’d make in time. The sound from within grew louder, the vibration rattling my teeth and bones.

  All the while, Ammon continued to scream.

  A platform appeared just over the rim of the earth and I whimpered. It continued to rise and I suddenly wished for death. For Nathan, for Ammon, for Me.

  Because when it was finally above ground, I could see clearly what, or who, had come for us.

  Awakened giants.

  They stood on a platform within a clear, round container the size of the hole in the ground. And they did not look happy.

  I hated myself in that moment for having looked. Why hadn’t I just played dead? Then maybe they would have just taken Ammon and gone. On the off chance that they hadn’t noticed me, I decided to give it a try. I closed my eye, fear rendering my body numb and ice cold. As I heard them leave their platform, I remembered their ‘special diet.’ Did they like their food fresh, or like vultures, did they not mind dead flesh?

  My stomach heaved, forcing bile into my chest that burned up through my nose, choking me. A cursed survival instinct made me turn my head, gagging.

  The ground shook as the Awakened stomped over to us and still I dry heaved, unable to escape. Two strong hands pulled me off the ground. Though my eye was streaming, I could see them now. Three men and two women. All had to be well over 7 feet tall, with perfect features and rock solid bodies. Totally fierce and totally beautiful.

  And to my surprise, they were dressed in modern clothing. Not a toga in the bunch. They were in matching black pants, boots, and jackets that seemed to be some type of military uniform, which was even more frightening. I blinked rapidly, trying clear my vision.

  Of the two women, the one who’d pulled me off the ground appeared East Asian, the other, perhaps Indian. The men, who now hovered by Ammon and Nathan, were all different, but all had long manes of hair. One was red-haired with a ruddy complexion, one a pale blond with skin so fair it seemed translucent, and his narrow eyes were a brilliant yellow-gold beneath monolids. I could see their strange color even from several feet away. The last male was dark complected, with black hair and eyes, similar to Ammon.

  That one, the dark one, crouched next to Ammon and started to speak harshly. Ammon’s screams subsided to a
low moan, and his head shook back and forth.

  I didn’t understand a word that had been said. Not just because it was in that language I didn’t recognize, but also because that awful sensation of being smothered by bees was back.

  The other two men inspected Nathan and I tried to run to him but it was futile. The woman who held me had a grip I couldn’t break, and I was afraid to make her angry.

  I wondered suddenly if they could help Nathan, cure him. That is, if they didn’t kill us before that. I predicted we had about 50-50 chance of them killing us now, as opposed to later.

  Those odds lowered when the one who’d spoken to Ammon grabbed him by the throat, lifted him off the ground, and shook him like a sack of grains. Ammon struggled helplessly, feet dangling in the air.

  I would have been amazed by the giant’s strength if I hadn’t been scared spitless.

  The other woman walked over and put her hand on his free arm. She spoke softly to him and he stopped shaking Ammon. She said something else and he looked annoyed but nodded. He let go of Ammon, catching him by the arms before he hit the ground. The woman then approached Ammon from behind and looked at his neck.

  To the place where he used to have a chip.

  New fear washed through me. What would they do once they knew I was the one who’d fried it?

  She tried to pry the skin open. Ammon screamed, a high-pitched sound of incredible pain. Surprise lit her face, and she glanced around the courtyard before her speculative gaze landed on me.

  I lowered my head and tried to appear as small and weak as possible. It wasn’t hard to do in the face of these guys.

  More words passed among them as that woman and the two other men went to survey the carnage that transpired. There was genuine pain in those sharp eyes when they saw the fallen pillars.

  But now, one by one they started to walk toward me. Without a word, the blond guy grabbed me from the woman who’d been holding me.

  I screamed. I couldn’t help it. He was freakishly strong; more so even than the woman who’d held me. He had no problem subduing me.

  That woman now advanced on Nathan and I started kicking and screaming again.