Nate smirked. “I left them alive as a show of goodwill.”
“Or a stroke of cruelty,” Zeus suggested, not sounding upset in the slightest about it. Nate shrugged and held out the box. After a few tense moments, Zeus finally nodded. “Bring it over.”
“No. I’ll give it to Aphrodite,” Nate said, firmly. “You now know you can trust her, and I know she would never hurt a little girl. It’s fair. I’ve learned to always trust the boobs of the operation.”
Which was one of Nate’s most glaring flaws. Gunnar and Alucard nodded, absently, unaware of their idiocy.
Zeus glanced at Aphrodite with a threatening glare and finally nodded. Nate sidestepped around the two whimpering Olympian brothers and approached Aphrodite.
“Is this a good idea, Nate?” Alucard asked.
Nate glanced our way. “I would do anything to protect a child, Alucard. Anything. Even if it hurt my friends and those I care about. Even if it hurt me.” The double meaning was heavy, even though Zeus remained oblivious, focused solely on the box in Nate’s hands.
Alucard stared back, looking as if he’d been slapped—no doubt thinking of Yahn. He finally nodded back. Gunnar and I both shot him a reassuring look before turning back to the action.
Aphrodite looked extremely uneasy, licking her lips and practically quaking in her sandals as Nate handed her the box. Nate calmly backed away, staring her in the eyes the entire time. Zeus gave Alice a dismissive shove, and she used it as a boost to sprint to freedom. Nate knelt down on the ground, holding his arms out, and Alice hit him like a flying octopus, wrapping her arms and legs around him and burying her head into his neck. Nate rose to his feet, his eyes a little wild around the edges as he held her tightly and backed away from the Olympians and towards us. “It’s okay, Alice. Dad’s got you,” he whispered, trembling slightly.
My heart was racing. This was no fucking place for a child, especially not after Nate had so easily handed over the keys to the kingdom. Something terribly clever was about to happen.
Alice murmured something into his ear and then I heard her let out a soft, relieved giggle. Nate missed a step, and then played it off like nothing had happened, whispering back to her. The raging storm made it impossible to overhear their secret conversation.
Aphrodite stared down at the box in her hands with a dreamy smile that made me feel particularly squeamish. She didn’t notice that Zeus was frowning at her impatiently, his fingers twitching at his side, desperate to get his hands on the box.
Nate set Alice down in front of me, and then turned back towards Zeus, advancing a step as if to shield us from the Olympians. I felt a rush of air race past my face as something smacked Nate’s ass with a sharp slap, causing him to flinch. I looked down to see that Alice was suddenly gone. I sucked in a breath but Nate glanced back at us with a firm shake of his head and an amused grin. What the hell? Nate had an invisible, ass-slapping, altruistic kidnapper on call?
I sniffed at the air, briefly catching a familiar scent, but the constantly shifting wind from the surrounding storm dispersed all traces before I could define it.
“Hand it over, daughter,” Zeus warned, drawing my attention. “Or have you forgotten who has Hephaestus?”
She slowly looked up at him, cocking her head with an amused frown. “And will that matter when I open this box and watch your flesh peeled from your bones?”
For the millionth time, I expected for us to throw down. Zeus pursed his lips and I swear his eyes flared brighter.
“You see, Father,” Aphrodite continued, “I think I’ve reached that age in a young woman’s life where she needs to spread her wings. You know what I mean. That special day when you wake up and just know that today is the day your father dies,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Because you just love him too much to let him keep on living,” she said deadpan.
Although she’d just proven to be a psychopath, I felt relieved to have her back on our side. Or at least not on his side.
“Be very, very careful, daughter. My patience has limits,” Zeus warned.
“You are destroying our legacy,” she seethed. “You are a monster. And I will not stand for it. I care more about my own family. My loving husband and his daughter, Pandora. Our daughter. Your warmongering is over.” She stared down at the box wistfully. “I can feel her inside. The power,” she breathed, her eyes dilating.
And…I suddenly felt like an idiot for doubting her. I’d completely forgotten about her desire to save Pandora from Zeus’ reach as a boon to her husband, Hephaestus. To remove her father’s ability to blackmail the blacksmith god.
So, once again, this was about loving or hating one’s children. Zeus claiming father of the year as he did absolutely nothing for the still bleeding and crying Ares and Apollo while he threatened his daughter, Aphrodite.
On the other hand, Aphrodite being willing to risk pissing off the head honcho—her dad—of all Olympians in order to protect her husband’s child, totally obliterating the evil step-mother cliche. Nate, of course, being willing to throw down with absolutely anyone for Alice, and risk permanently losing his best friends’ trust in order to save their loved ones from Zeus’ clutches…
In a way, Aphrodite and Nate were doing the exact same thing—fighting for a child who wasn’t even theirs at the expense of losing something they held most dear. It was the very definition of self-sacrifice.
Zeus spun to glare at Alice, searching for any kind of leverage at hand. I watched his face go still for at least two seconds to see her missing, and then it contorted into a mask of rage that threatened to bring the whole mountain crashing down on top of all of us—even himself.
In that moment, Zeus lost the war. All that was left was for the archers to pick off the stragglers.
For the cavalry—the Dread Four—to ride over all resistance. Gunnar and Alucard smiled hungrily, licking their lips.
Nate shocked the hell out of us by bursting out with laughter. Zeus’ eyes were actually crackling with electricity as he spun towards Nate. “I didn’t even plan this one,” Nate cackled. “You did this to yourself, you sick bastard.”
The ruby-red lightning and distant peals of thunder raced closer between one moment and the next, and the maelstrom of wind began whipping my hair back and forth. “What is the meaning of this, Temple?” Zeus demanded, patting the book in his hands with the same level of violence as if he was cocking a pistol. “I thought we had an understanding.”
“I’m not very good at understanding,” Nate shouted back, fighting to be heard over the growling storm threatening to swallow us whole. “Oh, and before I forget, Alice wanted me to tell you something before she left. Page three is her favorite,” he shouted, pointing at the Catalyst book with a triumphant grin.
I shared a meaningful look with Gunnar but he shrugged, absently adjusting his eyepatch as he focused back on Zeus. The Father of the Olympians frantically flipped open the old book and a bookmark slipped out, floating to the ground even as it was pushed and pulled by the inconsistent wind.
I gasped in disbelief, recognizing the long, black feather with a red orb at the tip. It belonged to Nate’s unicorn, Grimm. I turned to look at Nate only to find him grinning like a madman. Like he’d just received the signal he’d been waiting for all this time.
“Grimm,” Nate hissed. “Come to me.”
I stepped up beside Nate, as did Gunnar and Alucard, and we stared up at the skies, mirroring Nate’s excited smile. Within seconds, the familiar black unicorn appeared in the skies, his shadow wings spread wide, silhouetted against the ruby glow flashing behind the ominous black clouds. It was breathtaking and instantly made me envious that I hadn’t brought Phix, but I’d needed to keep her on Nephilim duty. If I’d told her to come, everyone and their mother would have wanted to know what I was doing in St. Louis tonight that might be more important than taking on the Seven Sins, rogue Nephilim, or the mysteriously absent Archangels.
“Hidey Ho, motherfuckers!” Grimm’s voice boomed throu
gh the skies, louder than the rolling thunder. “Check this out. I can shoot freaking rainbows from my freaking head!”
I stared in horror as a nimbus of dark energy blossomed around his horn, accompanied by the breathless sound of a soul-shredding scream that only grew more desperate as the black sphere grew larger. Within that orb of destruction was a lone white light, shining as bright as a star.
“TASTE THE PAIN-BOW!” Grimm screamed.
And a colorless, achromatic rainbow erupted out of his horn, slamming down to the pavilion in a smeared beam of grays and blacks that reminded me of a smudged charcoal sketch. The smell of burning ozone filled the air as it struck the polished marble where Zeus had been standing moments before. Unfortunately, Zeus had jumped clear, so the concentrated blast missed him by no more than a foot.
A spider’s web of crimson lightning exploded across the sky, illuminating Grimm from behind, and I saw Nate’s hand instinctively reach for his Horseman’s Mask as he murmured something under his breath with a hopeful look in his eyes.
One of the bolts of lightning abruptly lashed out like a striking snake, latching onto Grimm’s horn and exploding into a supernova of red light that made me squint for fear of getting blinded. I heard Zeus’ cruel laughter, and I opened my eyes to see him seated on the ground, pointing a finger up at where Grimm had been flying. The unicorn was nowhere to be seen.
Barely a second later, Grimm slammed down onto the pavilion, his fiery hooves crushing either Apollo or Ares’ outstretched hand, eliciting a desperate scream. Grimm did not apologize for this. In fact, his tail flipped up and…
I stared in disbelief. Grimm took a steaming crap on Ares and Apollo’s broken, bleeding bodies. Literally. He scraped his back hooves like a dog finishing his business and then shook his coat of long black feathers while emitting a motor boating sound. “That loosed my bowels a little, thunder-snatch,” he said, staring directly into Zeus’ eyes.
But something else caught my eye. Underneath his feathers, Grimm’s flesh looked to be made of black-diamond armor, just like when Nate fully drew on his Horseman’s Mask. I grunted, impressed, realizing why Nate had grabbed at his Mask. He’d used it to armor Grimm for Zeus’ impending lightning strike. Talk about quick thinking.
Otherwise Grimm would have been nothing more than unicorn dust raining down from the sky.
Peter, the poor bastard, was now standing up with a panicked, terrified look in his eyes, pointing his stumps at his reddening face. He was definitely trying to scream or shout or beg for help, but he couldn’t move and he couldn’t open his lips. I’d completely forgotten about him. Handless Pete—kind of like Shoeless Joe—had accidentally pissed his pants at the near miss from Grimm’s painbow blast. I dismissed him as I saw Aphrodite on all fours, clumsily crawling towards Pandora’s Box, which she’d lost during Grimm’s attack.
Zeus lunged for it, snatching it for himself with a triumphant shout. He held it close to his heart and shot Nate an evil grin, panting heavily. “We’ve both played our games, Temple, and you played better than I anticipated, but we both knew it would come down to this,” the god said, benevolently accepting his victory as he tapped the box with a finger.
Nate laughed dismissively. “Unless it’s empty,” he said, turning his back on Zeus to face us. He made the universal let’s wrap it up and go gesture to us with one finger high above his head. “I’m starving. Anyone want pizza?”
“I was holding out for a gyro,” a woman’s disembodied voice purred right in front of my face, scaring the living shit out of me and causing Alucard to stumble back into Gunnar’s broad chest with a cry of alarm. “But I’ll settle for you, Pharos,” the voice continued, still invisible but right in front of me. Why did it sound familiar—
“Kára?” I hissed, finally recognizing it from our brief encounter earlier in the day. She smelled of citrus and flower petals, and I recognized it as the same scent I’d picked up when Alice had disappeared and someone had slapped Nate’s ass. Which, now that I thought about it, made perfect sense. So…who was watching over Ryuu and the others? Kára had obviously taken Alice to safety, so they were likely all together.
“What do you mean?” Zeus shouted, furious that we were ignoring him. Grimm was pawing at one of the bloody gods, chuckling darkly at each new whimper of pain he discovered, like a child playing a keyboard for the first time.
“Alice is safe,” Kára said. “But I have something to do before we leave.”
Gunnar and Alucard had recovered, puffing their chests out to prove that they were not afraid of the invisible Valkyrie, and they looked as if they had as many questions for Nate and Kára as I did. Nate grinned. “Don’t look at me. The girl does what she wants. I’m just along for the ride.”
“You wouldn’t dare bring me an empty box!” Zeus shouted. Nate rolled his eyes and turned back around with an annoyed look on his face. “I can feel her power within,” Zeus continued. Was Pandora hiding around here somewhere? How else would Zeus feel her power if the box was empty “It’s undeniable,” he continued, adamant about the fact that he could sense her. “Aphrodite, get your husband out here. I put him in Temple’s old cell. He will verify that his daughter is inside the box or he will die sobbing at your feet.”
Aphrodite flinched, hesitated for half-a-second, and then meekly caved to her father’s command. She obviously loved her husband more than she hated her father, because she stumbled to her feet and all but ran down the stairs in a drunken, weaving pattern. There were prison cells here? And then it hit me. This must be where Nate had been in jail for a week, tortured daily by Ares and Apollo? That was why Nate hadn’t been surprised by the surroundings. Holy shit—
A forceful grunt snapped my attention back to see Peter was now sporting three sizable holes in his gut, as if impaled by…Kára’s trident? No fucking way! Peter choked, silently, his nostrils flaring as tears poured down his cheeks and he slapped at the holes in his stomach with his stumps.
Then he was flying across the ground at a dizzying speed, obviously propelled by the invisible Valkyrie, but it looked more like he’d learned how to levitate and didn’t know how to control it. Like an adult trying to use one of those self-propelled skateboard contraptions sold at every mall in America.
He slammed face-first into a marble column with a disgusting, entirely fatal, splat and Kára finally shimmered into full view, tugging a Greek era helmet from her head that made me think of Leonidas’ legendary Spartan helm.
Her golden armor, although dented and scratched in places, gleamed in the crimson glow of the storm as fingers of ruby lightning exploded in the distance. She smiled down at the limp body of Peter with a satisfied grin. I glanced over at Nate to find him all but drooling as he stared at the Valkyrie. The way he looked at her told me everything I needed to know about how he had finally broken free of his Titan Thorns. I had questions on the particulars, but there was no denying how he felt about Kára.
Love was an understatement. Despite him being suspicious of her being under an illusion, he still loved her, unconditionally. I smiled, admitting that this was not the place for love. Then again, maybe it was.
Grimm had taken time away from his Olympian keyboard lessons to let out a loud neighing sound. “She’s so badass. Never argue with her. Ever,” he warned. Gunnar and Alucard murmured their agreement, and then seemed embarrassed about it.
Kára let out a huff. “That was empowering.” She set her boot on Peter’s lower back and yanked her trident free. Then she glanced from Zeus to us, brushing a few loose strands of hair back with a gauntleted hand. There was simply no damned fear in her eyes. At all. It was almost frightening. Alucard made an approving sound and Nate elbowed him in the gut in a reflexive motion, knocking the wind out of the vampire. Gunnar smirked, squeezing Mjolnir’s handle as if desperately needing to use it before he imploded.
“ENOUGH!” Zeus roared, shifting his attention down to the box in his hands, obviously unwilling to wait for Aphrodite’s return. I watched hi
m hesitate as a whisper of fear drifted across his face. Pandora’s Box was no freaking joke. I didn’t blame him at all.
“All right. Pay attention, everyone,” Nate said, snapping me out of my thoughts. We huddled around him, leaving room for Grimm and Kára, who was already jogging back to us. “You’re about to see a man look into the abyss,” he told us in a severe tone, his eyes flicking towards Zeus to gauge how long we had.
“What do you mean?” I demanded, frustrated. “Why would you give him the box?”
Nate rode right over my question, still staring at Zeus. “And the abyss is about to fight back,” he growled, licking his lips. “I can practically taste the fear in the air already.”
“I’m here,” Kára said, skidding to a halt beside Nate. She blindly squeezed his hand, but her eyes were also locked on Zeus rather than our huddle. “Did you do it?” she asked Nate.
“Yup.”
“He’s going to shit,” she replied, smirking.
“Wait. How do you know what I did?” he asked, frowning at her.
She shrugged. “Alice is a talker. Apparently, she’s been learning quite a bit from Freya,” she said with a proud smile.
What the hell were they talking about?
“Anyone else about done with the cryptic lovers?” Alucard grumbled, as if reading my mind. “Because I want to hit something. Now.” Gunnar pounded Mjolnir into his palm and clenched his jaw, nodding.
“Good,” Nate said as he blindly pointed at Ares and Apollo with all the concern he might show a vaguely unique tree on a three-day hike through a forest. “Because they’re faking it. Empty bottles of Ambrosia in their hands. Heals them right back up. Any minute now.”
I snarled, shifting my feet so that I faced the new threat.
Trinity: Feathers and Fire Book 9 Page 28