Page 2 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

HOOK

It was easy to overlook some of the benefits of having godly powers when you’d had them your whole life. However, the ability to heal quickly after the woman who stole your heart kneed you in the family jewels? That was certainly something for which a cursed soul like me could be grateful.

The pain lasted barely a second. It was the fact that she’d done it, the shock of it, that knocked me off balance. We’d been working on her skills daily. Flashing, fighting, and at least one other ‘F’ word came to mind. That was something I would never tire of with Never Darling.

The rest, however, was a constant reminder that just because she had new powers, it didn’t mean she was out of danger.

It was true that she was safer in some ways.

She was much more durable, for one. From what I had gleaned from Nerebis’s warning, and the limited research I’d been able to do since that day, I’d surmised it was still possible for her to die.

If and when that happened would be entirely up to her, unless by some twisted miracle the council of gods deigned to intervene.

The deities that made up the council were the most powerful in history. Their combined power could reverse the spin of a galaxy. If they deemed a god a big enough threat, they could destroy them.

It was an unlikely scenario, but if their attention were to turn to Never in a threatening way, they would have to go through me to take her.

Never might be stubborn to her own detriment, and have a mouth on her that made half the men on my ship blush, but she was also mine. And I adored every rough edge of her.

Pulling in a calming breath, I gave her a short head start. A little reward for besting me. She was getting better at this game, and though I should have been making it more challenging in light of her newfound ruthlessness, I simply couldn’t bring myself to punish her today.

When several seconds had passed, I focused my mind and magic on her. The beach was utterly empty, but that wasn’t what sent a prickle of warning racing up my spine. Another damned storm was coming.

They weren’t uncommon in the Nassa. The realm had always been subject to natural weather patterns, just like every other realm. Lately, though, those storms had become erratic and more than a little troubling.

Sometimes they manifested out of nowhere. Other times they grew slowly but became so violent I was convinced the only thing holding my sturdy ship together was the magical wards protecting it.

This one looked more ominous than most. The towering wall of clouds closing in on the island was almost black along the bottom, and the electricity in the air, even from miles away, tugged every hair on my forearms to attention.

Out of the blue, a jolt of panic trapped my heart in a vice.

Never had been hiding from me, physically and mentally, but with the fear pouring through our connection, our little game of hide and seek was officially over.

I latched onto the feeling, her emotions, and used them as a beacon to guide me.

The flash that brought me to her was jarring, and my heart made a flying leap into my throat when I saw her scrambling on the edge of a precipice leading into what would inevitably be a very painful, albeit temporary, demise.

I reached out and snatched her by the back of her jacket, dragging her away from the edge as her hands and feet scraped the ground frantically searching for traction.

“Hold on!” I yelled, hoping she could hear me over her own horror.

The ground around us shook and cracked. Across the yawning crater—one that had been as cold and dead as my father’s petrified heart since the day I’d been cast into this realm—an enormous slab of solid ground broke free and slid into the fiery pit.

It sank in slow motion, but the glowing wave climbing through the sea of lava moved much quicker.

Never’s fear spiked, which sent my own wildly beating heart into overdrive. I hauled her into my arms and flashed us back to the light side of the island just as the ground beneath us gave out.

The ship likely would have been safer, but the last thing Never would want was every soul on my ship witnessing her fear on full display.

We crashed to the ground. Only, instead of landing in soft, ivory sand, an explosion of icy powder detonated around us. It crept down my neck and melted in my hair.

Snow again? That couldn’t be right. I hadn’t missed the mark on a flash in eons.

I held Never to my chest and twisted my head to make sure I hadn’t miscalculated. Sure enough, we were on the beach. The sun was shining on this side, and yet, somehow, snow was falling from the blue sky .

“Are you okay?” I asked.

She peeled away from me and settled to her knees in the snow dusted sand. “Honestly?” She breathed. Her chest was still rising and falling with the remnants of her fear. “I don’t know.”

“How about physically?”

She looked down at her body, running shaky hands over the soft denim clinging to her thighs. “Yeah, I think so.”

That was good enough for me. If she’d been injured, she would know it. Of course, every injury she’d sustained thus far had healed quickly, but that didn’t mean the pain, even for the short while it lasted, wasn’t still very real.

“I believe the game is over for today,” I said, tamping down the pang of disappointment that struck me.

She nodded, looking more worried than anything. “What the hell is happening?”

“Damned if I know,” I lied.

Nerebis, the nosey fate who had dropped in uninvited shortly after we’d dispatched Petra to the bottom of the eddy, had warned us that Never’s existence outside of the Alius would cause the fabric of the human realm to slowly unravel.

If my suspicions proved true, what we were experiencing in the Nassa—the storms and unexplained anomalies—were also linked to her.

That was one of the many reasons I’d been putting so much energy into training her and protecting her.

Her eyes narrowed and she pulled herself to her feet, dusting off her knees as she went. “You are a terrible liar for a pirate.”

I couldn’t tell if she was reading the look on my face, or if she was just getting that good at interpreting what I was feeling through our connection.

“I would like to do more research before I share my thoughts on the subject,” I hedged. “While I do that, however, I could use your help with another task. ”

She perked up a little. “Like what?”

“I think it would be helpful to confer with Leo.” He might have his own insights into the recent changes in our realm, but he’d returned to live on his family’s island where I was not welcome.

Never chewed on her bottom lip. “Is that a good idea? For me to go get him after what just happened?”

She had been improving at wielding her magic.

She’d also expended a fair amount of energy with our game, so I could understand her hesitation.

Fatigue could lead to mistakes, but I had a feeling she was hiding behind that excuse.

Unintentionally flashing herself to the edge of a volcano had shaken her confidence in her abilities.

“I believe you are perfectly capable of flashing to Nidus and returning with Leo, but if you’re not up for it...” I started.

She glared at me. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing.”

Challenging her in order to kick-start that defiant streak of hers? That was precisely what I was doing. “Is it working?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Yes.”

“Good.”

“And what will you be doing while I’m fetching Adonis?”

A growl rumbled out of me at the nickname, and she shot me a smirk. She’d said it just to rile me.

Fair was fair, I supposed. “I want to talk to Rue, and I think it will be safer if I go alone.”

I half expected her to argue. She’d asked me dozens of questions about the outcast demigorgon when I’d first told her the story, but now she just nodded. A sure sign that the newly active volcano—one that had lain dormant for the whole of my time in the Nassa—really had given her a scare.

“I’ll bring him back here, but I don’t think I’m ready to try flashing him to the ship yet,” she admitted .

“Here will be fine, love.” I offered her a warm smile. “I will return shortly and take us all to the ship.”

She held out a hand, letting the fine flakes of snow fall into her palm. More of the tiny crystals clung to her hair and dusted her shoulders. “This is so weird,” she whispered. “I feel like I should be freezing right now.”

I closed the distance between us, slid my hand around the back of her neck, and ducked my head, capturing her feisty mouth in a heated kiss.

There were a great many things that had the potential to make a man really feel like a man, but none so satisfying as to have a woman like Never melt into my touch.

“There are some perks to sharing my abilities,” I whispered against her lips.

She reached out and tangled her fingers in my hair playfully, tugging just a touch before pulling back to look at me. “Did I win or did you lose?”

The hunting game. “Technically, I caught you, again. Meaning I am the victor.”

“I think the game should be forfeit based on the whole ocean of lava thing,” she grumped.

That made me chuckle. It was one thing to be terrified by something, but it was another to let it consume you. This was her way of actively pulling herself away from the fear and putting distance between herself and the moment.

“Very well. What do you say we call this one a draw?”

She arched a manicured eyebrow as she raked her nails lightly down my neck, over my collarbones, and to my chest. “And what do I get for a draw?”

A primal hunger swirled low in my center. “You are insatiable.” How she could elicit such a visceral response from me after all my years—millennia—was still a mystery to me. She bit her bottom lip, tempting me to put my mission on hold.

“Let’s deal with the task at hand first,” I suggested, grudgingly. My mind was already whirling with the things I wanted to do to her, but there were bigger issues at play.

“Fine.” Her pout was adorable as she patted my chest twice and took a step back. “I’ll see you in a bit.” Then she was gone.

I stood there for a moment, licking her taste from my lips and trying to get my riotous body under control. It would not do to have such lecherous thoughts swimming in my head when I visited Rue. Not with her ability to pull them out.

After a few deep breaths, I envisioned the caves and made the short trip. The cavern was as it always was, dank and prone to echoes. Darkness swallowed most of the light spilling in through the cracks in the ceiling.

“Rue?” I called. After a minute, when the only other sound in the cavern was the muffled crash of waves beating against the rocks at the entrance hidden around the corner, I tried again. Louder this time. “Eylarue!”

A few startled bats fluttered in the high shadows, but the cursed demigorgon was nowhere to be seen.

With my hand on the butt of my sword, I picked my way through the stones littering the path to the back of her cave.

The possibility that she might be resting, or avoiding me, or otherwise engaged in any manner of things that were none of my business did cross my mind, but instinct drove me forward.

Rue had never been the type to keep me waiting.

It seemed unlikely she would start now, so soon after I’d repaid my debt to her.

Did I find it strange that she’d requested the chain from the pendant—that gruesome piece of me—that had once dangled from Never’s slender neck? Without question. It had also taken quite a bit of searching to find it in what remained of Petra’s camp.

The oddest bit, however, was what she’d done with the chain when I’d presented it to her. Instead of fastening it around her neck or looping it around her wrist, she’d let the dozens of small snakes atop her head claim it.

Which was why, when I slipped through the wide crack in the far wall leading to her living quarters and spotted it glittering on the ground, I paused long enough to unsheathe my sword.

I left the chain where it was for the time being because it wasn’t the only thing amiss in Rue’s home.

There weren’t any obvious signs of a struggle, but there was a plate of food that looked like it had barely been touched molding on the table.

I picked up a half-full goblet of red wine and sniffed the contents, wrinkling my nose at the sharp, acidic scent.

Vinegar. It usually took at least a couple of weeks for that kind of oxidation to occur, which meant Rue had vanished within days of the last time I’d seen her. Maybe hours.

A quick search didn’t reveal anything helpful, and given the circumstances, I was eager to return to Never. I paused over the fallen chain on my way out, weighing the pros and cons of taking it with me. I almost left it where it rested.

Almost.

If Rue hadn’t shown such an interest, I would have let it gather dust on the cave floor. But she must have had a reason for demanding that delicate chain as payment.

I kneeled, intent on plucking it from the stone with my index finger and thumb.

Except the moment my fingertip brushed the cool metal, I was hit with a powerful vision.

Of Never. She was caught up in a brutal fight with a demon, but she was like I’d never seen her before.

Wild. Vicious. Deadly. It was like a feral animal had taken over her body.

The experience stole the air from my lungs, but not because of what she was doing. I could feel what she was feeling in that vision. She was barely holding on, fighting for her life while clinging desperately to what remained of her humanity.