Page 23 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

NEVER

Hook dragged his hands down his face. “I don’t like any of this.”

After giving us a little more information on the terms of Lapalme’s exile, Emerson had taken off to investigate his possible involvement in our stormy little shit show, but the three of us hung back.

“Should we tell Matt?” I asked. I was torn. Part of me wanted to be brutally honest with him about what was happening, but the big sister in me still wanted to protect him.

Lily shook her head. “Not yet. There’s nothing he or his crew can do anyway.”

“We could at least give him a heads up,” I argued, but one look at Hook told me I was the odd woman out. “Fine, but when we have a better idea of what’s happening, I’m going to tell him. He needs to know, if only to keep his people safe.” Not to mention his daughter.

Lily had taken up a spot on the bench, sitting with her elbows resting on her knees as she scanned the mostly empty park. “Is there any reason you can’t summon Criton here?”

“This is as good a place as any, I suppose,” Hook replied.

“Will having us here make him skittish?” I asked .

“Likely, but I’d like to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Her gaze bounced between us, and her eyes picking up the late afternoon light, reflecting it with an iridescent green tint that hinted at the fact that she wasn’t human. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

He pulled me to him and planted a hard kiss on me. “Just in case,” he whispered against my lips. He’d shut me out earlier and hadn’t let me back in, but I didn’t need our connection to know he was worried.

I held up my wrist. “Does this need to come off?”

“No.” His eyes searched mine. “Leave it on. I’ll just lower my wards.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but it wasn’t worth arguing about it. At least he wasn’t trying to get me to go hide somewhere. “How long does it usually take?”

“It depends on where he is.” The look on his face said the rest of what he was thinking.

“And how high he is?” I asked.

He shot me a grim expression that did nothing to improve my mood.

Lily looked equally unimpressed. “Is it a good idea to rely on information from a junkie demigod?”

“If you have a better idea, I’m open to suggestions,” Hook replied.

She glared at him for a beat before rolling her eyes. “I’m with you, I don’t like any of this.”

“We’re getting answers. Isn’t that what we want?” I asked.

“At the risk of revealing ourselves,” he said.

He wasn’t just talking about Thrain or Lapalme discovering us. “Are you worried?—”

I didn’t get a chance to finish the question thanks to a weird shimmer in the grass that stole my attention.

It took a couple of seconds for the shape to solidify, and when it did, it took a couple more for my brain to process what I was seeing: a girl, unconscious and sprawled on the ground like she’d taken a fall.

She was fifteen, maybe sixteen years old—about the same age as Angie—and dressed in a dark hoodie, black pants that looked hand-stitched, and leather boots that had definitely seen better days. A tangle of dark curls covered half her face, with a few random locks of bright orange mixed in.

“This isn’t…” I started, but I already knew the girl wasn’t Criton. “Did you summon the wrong god?” It was the only explanation that made sense to my brain.

Hook shook his head. “I’ve never seen her before.”

I crouched beside her. Scents of smoke and sulfur hit me, along with just a hint of singed hair. I reached out to check her pulse, but when my fingers were just an inch away, she vanished.

“What the fuck?” I looked up at Hook and Lily.

They both looked as perplexed as I felt.

I stood, brushing at my clothes even though I knew there was no ash clinging to them. “It smelled like she’d been in an explosion of some kind.” I scanned the ground around us, but there was no sign of her. “That was weird as shit, right?”

“Yeah,” Lily admitted.

“Where the hell did she even come from?” And if she had been in an explosion, was that what tossed her into this world for a few seconds? Could something like that happen to anyone? Anytime?

That wasn’t a reassuring thought.

Hook’s warm hand gripped mine. “Remember what Emerson said, the barriers between worlds are thinning.”

“So, what, she just popped in from another realm?” I asked.

“Likely. Some magical beings have the ability to shimmer, or hide in the places between worlds. If she was in danger, her magic, coupled with fear and adrenaline, might have pushed her too far out of her world. Like a knee-jerk reaction.” He squeezed my hand gently.

“When you reached for her, I imagine her magic reacted to yours and pulled her back into her own world.”

He talked about it like the girl’s magic was an entity of its own, and maybe it was. The way I had to call up the power Hook gifted me almost felt like negotiating with some stubborn part of myself.

I let go of his hand and shook off the strangeness of it all. “What about Criton?”

“Present and accounted for.” I wheeled around to find a man leaning against a tree, watching us with friendly curiosity. “What kind of trouble are we getting into this evening?” he asked, his gaze settling on Hook.

“I suspect you already know,” he fired back.

The newcomer smiled at him. He was sporting shiny red combat boots and navy Dickies, and that smile, combined with the way his coppery hair was parted down the center and shaped into twin faux hawks, made him look more like a devil than a demigod. “You want to make another deal?”

Hook tipped his head. “We need your help with the weather god. Do as I ask, and I’ll tell you where to find what remains of the pixie dust.”

Criton’s gaze slid to me before returning to Hook. “If you need eyes upstairs, why not send your gal pal here?”

“Because she can’t visit the realm of gods,” Hook replied.

His eyes narrowed. “You sure about that?”

Hook didn’t even look my way. “Yes, but if you aren’t up to the task, I can find someone else.”

He laughed, and it was a surprisingly friendly sound amidst all the hostility floating in the air. “Not at all. I’ll tell you what you want to know. ”

It was Hook’s turn to glare. “Have you been keeping an eye on him?”

“From a distance, and I’m not the only one anymore. Apparently, he’s been trying to slip in and out of this realm without being noticed, but his trips are starting to draw attention.”

“From who?” I asked.

Criton turned to me. “The council.”

Well, that wasn’t what any of us wanted to hear.

“Even my father?” Hook asked. There was so much ice in his voice, I was surprised the temperature didn’t drop about twenty degrees.

He nodded.

A ripple of intense feeling bled through our connection, sending goosebumps racing down my arms. I couldn’t separate one emotion from the next, but none of them gave me the warm fuzzies.

Then again, if my dad had damned me to spend eternity trapped in a pocket realm with zero outside contact, I wouldn’t exactly be buying the guy a ‘World’s Best Dad’ coffee mug.

It also meant we might be screwed.

“I’m guessing those magical wards won’t keep you safe for much longer,” Lily said echoing my thought.

“Do you know where the weather god has been traveling to when he comes here?” Hook asked.

Criton slipped his left hand in his pocket and something jingled. “I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.”

“Charleston.”

“That’s where the party’s at, apparently.” For a demigod who was trading information for a quick fix, he seemed awfully relaxed. And annoyingly smug.

“If by party you mean a bunch of freak storms and some random ass demons,” I said. “But it’s one city, and not even a big one. Why would that even ping on the powers that be’s radar?”

He scoffed. “Because those storms and those demons are upsetting the natural order of things.”

Where had I heard those words before? Oh, right. When Nerebis warned us about my whole situation. But the more I learned about what was happening in this realm, the more I questioned whether I was really the problem.

Sure, I’d lit up like a fucking glow stick in the Alius. That didn’t bode well. Except, the same thing didn’t happen in this realm, and it wasn’t like my arrival brought a swarm of locusts or triggered mass riots in the streets.

Criton leveled me with a look. “The demons and storms aren’t the only things kicking up dust out there.

The council noticed the exodus of magical creatures, too.

Witches, faeries, vampires: they’re all scattering.

Even the shifters, and they are notoriously a territorial bunch.

” He turned to Lily. “That pack you’re running is the last in the area. ”

“I’m aware,” she said coolly.

“So is the council. They’ve seen what’s happening and they’re watching. As far as I can tell, they seem content to let things play out for now, but I imagine that will change when they catch wind that the outcast son and his defiant mate are mixed up in things.”

A sense of protectiveness swelled inside me, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming from me or Hook. I didn’t like the idea of the very gods who had spent lifetimes ignoring him taking a renewed interest in him just because he broke the rules to be with me and keep me safe.

“But you’re sure they’re just watching?” I asked.

“For now.”

Hook made a chopping motion with his hand. “I care little about the council. What matters at present is the weather god. Does he have a routine? Do you know what draws him to this realm when he does visit?”

Criton shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve been keeping tabs, Atlas. Not stalking.”

One could argue there was a fine line between the two.

“If you want the final satchel of pixie dust, you will come find me the moment he steps foot in this realm again,” Hook said firmly. “And you’ll tell me precisely where he is at that time.”

“We’re going to try to catch them in the act?” I asked. As far as plans went, it wasn’t the worst.

Hook didn’t respond.

The demigod licked his lips. “Is that all?”

He nodded.

“The bag, is it actually the last of the pixie dust?” Criton asked.

Another nod. “It is the remains of the pouch I reserved for traveling here.”

Criton’s face broke into a smirk. “Do you have it on you?”

“Do we have a deal or not?” he snapped.

“Oh, we have a deal.” Criton reached out his right hand.

Hook hesitated, and I couldn’t blame him. Somehow, some way, it felt like a set up. When he did finally shake on the deal, Criton’s smirk turned sly.

“What if I told you he’s in Charleston right now?”

The sonofabitch. “Where?” I blurted.