Page 35 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)
NEVER
The look on Thrain’s face held me rapt. His fear was a drug that tasted like triumph and rolled over me, leaving an intense euphoria in its wake.
It would have been so easy to sink into that feeling. To keep squeezing until the light in his cruel eyes faded to nothing.
But the world around me took a violent turn.
It flipped and twisted, and I found myself in a great stone rotunda that looked like it was something out of Ancient Greece.
I had to crane my neck all the way back to see the pinnacle of the ornately painted dome high above me.
Flowering vines spilled over the railing of the endless balcony, filling the room with a scent so sweet it made my teeth ache.
A whimper snapped my attention back to the pathetic gray god in front of me. Thrain flailed weakly as I clutched his heart in my hand. It didn’t matter where he flashed us. He could take us both to hell for all I cared, as long as he suffered.
“Young lady?” I whipped around with a snarl, spotting the source of that buttery male voice in an instant. “Would you be so kind as to release your hold on that withered heart?”
I blinked, trying to process the words .
Release? He wanted me to let go of this… monster? Not a fucking chance. But for all the snark coursing through my mind, all I could manage was a defiant grunt.
“In that case…” The man with hair the color of Onyx and eyes an impossible shade of green stood, snapped his manicured fingers once, and suddenly I was on my knees.
Thrain groaned nearby, and I snarled as I tried to get to my feet. I wasn’t done with him. I wouldn’t be done until I’d carved him into a thousand pieces a thousand times. But I couldn’t lift my knees off the rough stone floor.
What the fuck? That was what I tried to say, but all that came out was a growled, “Fuck.”
“Ah-ah.” The black-haired man who oozed strength and self-importance ticked his index finger back and forth. “You have made your point.”
Oh, no I hadn’t. I bared my teeth at him and let the power inside me swell and rise until it filled every cell in my body to the brink of bursting.
With another snap of his fingers, another man appeared in front of me. This one looked similar to the first, but rougher. His hair and clothes were singed, his amber eyes haunted, and the scowl he wore was tight with confusion.
I knew him, knew his face. I could imagine his voice without hearing it, but each time I reached for his name, it flitted away.
He dropped to his knees in front of me, and when he reached out, I jerked back. He stilled, his hands hovering in the air like he meant to wrap those strong hands around my neck. Then that amber gaze focused on mine. “Breathe, Never.”
That voice. It sounded just like I knew it would.
And he wanted me to breathe?
Did I know how?
It felt like all I knew how to do was pant like a feral wolf. To fight and kill and rain destruction .
Something vulnerable inside me opened wide, and I was overwhelmed with a flood of emotion. Joy, relief, love. It was the last one that had me sucking in a deep breath. Then another.
Tears stung my eyes, and I swallowed hard. “Hook,” I whispered.
He moved slowly, bracketing my face gently in his big hands. “Hello, love.”
I started shaking. How the fuck had I forgotten his name? And so fast.
I leaned my cheek into his palm. “What the hell am I?”
“Now that is a very good question,” said the black-haired man.
Hook went rigid. He turned his head slowly until he found the source of that voice. Then he was on his feet in a blink, blocking the black-haired man’s view of me with a snarl of his own.
Without him there to hold me up, I crumpled forward, catching myself with my hands. The seemingly endless energy I’d been basking in moments before was a distant memory, replaced with fear and doubt and enough confusion to choke an elephant.
“Iapetus.” Hook spat out the word like it left a bad taste in his mouth.
I knew that word. Its meaning was buried in the back of my mind, but when I dragged my head up and looked between the two men, it came to me.
Iapetus, the Titan god of mortality, head of the Council of Gods… and Hook’s dad.