Page 7 of Another Damned Storm (Another Damned #3)

HOOK

The bed beside me was empty. I knew it before I reached out and laid my hand on the cold pillowcase, but that crushing disappointment didn’t hold a candle to the emptiness consuming me from the inside out.

That clawing nothingness was what dragged me from my tortured dreams and into my new nightmare. It was the same force that had me sitting up in bed with my heart lumbering against the growing ache in my chest.

She was gone.

And what did I find resting on the nightstand? The bracelet I’d given her, with live wards burned into the copper alloy to protect her. Not only had she taken it off, but she’d left it where I would see it.

A clear message.

“Damn her,” I growled. I hauled myself out of bed, slipped into my pants, and flashed to the island.

Following the trail of her magic—my magic—was easy enough, but it amounted to a pointless exercise in torture. I knew I wouldn’t find her standing on the beach, that much was obvious from the hollowness inside me. Our connection had been severed, which meant she wasn’t in the Nassa any longer.

Foamy waves crept up the sand where remnants of her boot prints still lingered. I hadn’t missed her by much, but whether it was by an inch or a mile, she was still gone.

I sank down to the sand, rested my elbows on my knees, and stared out across the water.

I’d known it was coming, and I’d known it would hurt.

Never wasn’t the kind of woman who would let the world burn if she could do something to stop it.

But damned if some foolish part of me hadn’t been hoping our connection would survive the distance.

“Looking for your girlfriend?” The voice was all too familiar, and I shot to my bare feet, spinning to face her.

“Keep your distance, pixie,” I growled. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone, let alone a monster like her.

She held her hands up. “It was just a question, Atlas.” Her voice dripped with poisonous honey. “I thought it was strange that you would let your latest obsession run off with anyone, let alone a guy who looked like death.”

As if I’d had a choice in the matter. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered chaining Never up and holding her here with me the moment I’d sensed what she was planning. I’d even entertained the thought briefly.

She was mine, dammit.

The only thing that had stopped me was the knowledge that holding her here against her will would destroy the trust we had both worked so hard to build.

I was so fixated on Never that it took a long moment for the rest of Anya’s words to sink in.

“Death?” I had assumed Never would summon Nerebis to take her to the Alius, but perhaps she didn’t know how. Or perhaps she’d summoned someone else altogether .

The devil pixie smirked. “Black cloak, big scary scythe? Yeah, I saw him.”

Tenebris. My heart rate picked up, and I found myself quite suddenly caught between fury and worry. I knew powerful forces had been looking for her, but for Tenebris to escort a soul himself? That was rare.

Was she truly such a threat?

“Oh, you sweet fool. You are positively shaking,” Anya cooed, taking obvious delight in my misery.

A rush of power welled up inside me, and before I fully grasped what I was doing, I had her pinned against a rough boulder by her treacherous neck. “Silence, Anya,” I demanded, letting the full force of my magic drive the command home.

She withered in my grip, shrinking back against the rough bark even as her peridot nails clawed at my skin. “Please,” she croaked. “You’re hurting me.”

As if I would make the mistake of granting her even an ounce of mercy ever again. “I thought you enjoyed pain,” I said, slipping into a cruel calm I hadn’t felt in ages. I eased my grip just enough to allow her to draw breath.

Anya’s glittery brow creased, and she gave her head a tiny nod. It was likely all the movement she could manage with the grip I had on her throat.

“Do you want more?” I demanded, bringing my face just two inches from hers.

Her green eyes danced, but for the life of me, I couldn’t tell whether it was fear, amusement, or arousal that was animating them. She always did like to play rough.

When she didn’t answer, I leaned my body closer. I might not be in the mood for her games, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to play one of my own. She arched into me, pressing her soft curves against me as she hooked a leg around the back of one of mine .

A feminine purr made her throat vibrate beneath my hand, and I had to fight the instinct to let go. I’d forgotten that detail, how pixies purred like kittens when they were aroused.

The sensation made me want to wretch.

I was all twisted up inside as I brushed my lips against her ear, willing myself not to crush her windpipe. Yet. I hated her with every fiber of my being, and I could not, for the life of me, remember what it was about her that had allowed me to lay with such a creature.

“What do you want, Anya?” I whispered roughly.

She sighed, but instead of pulling my cock to attention, it just grated on my nerves. Disgust rolled through me.

I asked again, throwing a fresh wave of power into the whispered words.

Her body shuddered against mine, and I nearly shoved away from her. Just being close to her made my skin crawl and my stomach churn.

“Last chance,” I warned, letting my lips graze the shell of her ear. I hated doing it. Hated myself for giving her even a hint of pleasure after the way she’d viciously attacked Never when we were battling Petra.

But I was feeling especially heartless.

Anya had nearly killed the woman I loved months earlier. If Never had still been mortal, she would have succeeded. It was an assault she needed to pay for.

Her eyelids fluttered. She was clearly enjoying the attention but woefully oblivious to the revulsion pulsing through me. “You,” she finally breathed.

With a snarl I couldn’t keep caged, I tightened my grip. Her eyes flew wide, bugging out of her mischievous little head. Fingernails clawed. Feet kicked. She bucked and writhed, but I had my power back. Even shared with Never, I was stronger than I’d been in centuries .

I glared at her, tempted to get in some final, cutting remark, but all I could think about was Never. All I could see was the river of crimson that had poured out of her after the ruthless attack.

Fear glittered in Anya’s eyes—real fear, the likes of which I couldn’t be sure I’d ever seen—but it was no match for the white-hot anger that scaled my back like a panther on the prowl. With a snap of my wrist, I let it loose, and the last pixie in the Nassa went limp in my grip.

I held her up for another few moments, inching her higher and watching her intently to make sure she hadn’t found a way to fool me. When pixie dust began to fall in waves around her dangling feet, I smiled a mirthless smile and let her body fall to the ground.

“Good riddance,” I muttered.

I couldn’t be sure how much time would pass before I crossed paths with Never again, or if it was even possible, but it helped knowing she had one less threat in the universe.

And speaking of threats…

“Nerebis!” I bellowed, tipping my face toward the lightening sky.

I didn’t believe for a moment the fate would deign to grace me with his presence again. Especially considering the way we’d left things last time. That didn’t mean I was above trying, however.

I called for him again, my voice and power ringing through the realm with the summons. I didn’t care in the slightest that I was summoning a creature as powerful as a fate, to my cursed realm, while I stood barefoot in the sand wearing only a pair of pants.

What was it Never would have said in a situation like this? “Fuck him if he can’t take a joke,” I said to myself, wincing at the pang of longing that struck me .

“Always the rebel.” The accusation hit my ears as a form coalesced in front of me.

The stranger came together slowly, as if pulling elements from my world into himself. He was about an inch shorter than me, with hair that carried a brilliant orange tint in the coming dawn. Interestingly, it was styled so it appeared as though he had horns.

When he dipped his head in a silent greeting, those horns turned out to be dual mohawks that stood about two inches tall.

“You are not a fate,” I said curtly, taking in his crisp button up shirt and the way his pressed black pants were rolled at the ankles, showing off ruby red combat boots that had surely never seen even a moment of combat.

“You caught that, huh?” he asked with a smirk.

I rolled my eyes at the interloper. “I killed the last fool who tested my patience, boy.”

He shook his head, but his cocky humor shifted when he caught sight of Anya’s quickly degrading body. Within hours, a small pile of pixie dust would be all that remained.

There were some who could harness the magic in that dust, such as witches, alchemists, and the like. While it would do me no good trapped in the Nassa, I had the sense it was her death that had drawn him to my realm.

“Who are you?” I asked.

He dragged his gaze back to me and offered me a lazy shrug. “I might be a friend.”

“Which means you might be a foe,” I shot back.

He shoved his hands in his pockets, and the distinct jingle of coins snared my focus.

There were only a handful of worlds where metal coins were used, and the human realm was the most populous among them.

“Or maybe I’m no one, and I’m only here to bargain for a treasure. ” His gaze drifted back to Anya .

Impatience crawled along my nerve endings. “You want the pixie dust.”

He laughed, but it was a decidedly hungry sound. “It’s valuable stuff where I come from.”

“And where is that?”

He rolled his shoulders back and sniffed. “The human realm.”

“How did you find this place?” The Nassa was hidden in its own little pocket of the universe. It might not be the best kept secret, but anyone who came here was either born here, sent here, or had enough power to navigate time and space to find this little sliver of strangeness.

“How does anyone find any place? I wander.”

“No one simply wanders into this realm.”

He sucked air through his teeth and jingled the change in his pocket again. His gaze hopped over my shoulder then snapped back to me. He was like an addict looking for his next fix.

I shot a glance behind me. Not like an addict. I would wager he was an addict, and pixie dust was his drug of choice.

“Her death drew you here, correct?” I asked.

He chewed on his bottom lip. “Maybe.”

Almost certainly an addict. “What’s your name?”

“Criton.”

I couldn’t recall ever hearing the name before, but an air of power surrounded him. “Are you a god?”

“Demigod.”

So, half god, and from the look of him, there was a hefty dose of trouble mixed into his blood.

Of course, if you asked anyone in Othrys, the realm that was home to the Titans and many other gods, they would tell you the same about me.

“And you’ve developed a taste for pixie magic?” It wasn’t all that unusual for demigods to search out ways to boost their power, but pixie magic was a rarity. “I thought they were nearly extinct.”

Another jingle. Another hungry glance. “They are.” He rocked back, yanked his hands out of his pockets and shook out his arms. “What do you want for it?”

I supposed the dust resulting from Anya’s death was mine to bargain with. I was the one who ended her life, after all. But the fact that a dead pixie was enough to draw him into this realm was what really interested me.

The rusty gears in my mind began turning once again, groaning and grinding, but finally functioning despite the pit of misery swirling deep inside me. “I believe the real question here is: what are you willing to do to earn it?”