Page 37 of Between Bloode and Death (Between the Shadows #5)
CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
Val didn’t know what to think. One moment she’d been treated sweetly by the vampire who thought of humanity as the bottom of the barrel, that after giving her the best sex she’d ever had.
Then a freaking goddess of death had literally popped into existence next to them, only to lead them out of a laboratory into a crossroads.
The Crossroads.
The place felt like home, full of the power of the Between.
Though Val had met with Hecate previously, she’d been so overwhelmed with danger and vampires she hadn’t had a chance to consider what it meant to be near a death deity.
Val wanted to fangirl so hard.
Instead, she smiled pleasantly. Be cool, Val. Be cool.
Hecate studied her and Khent then turned to the bar and ordered them drinks from a dead woman dressed in a 1920s flapper dress and feathered headpiece.
“Catherine makes a mean drink.” Hecate smiled and handed them fancy glasses.
Khent took his and sipped. “Berserker. Not Riley?”
Hecate shook her head. “Honestly, Khent. I would never do that to Kraft. Behave yourself.”
He smirked and took another sip.
Val thanked Hecate for the copper mug filled with golden liquid, lightly perfumed to smell both fruity and fresh. The sip made her gasp. She tasted life, so bright and fizzy, with a punch that revitalized her from her head to her toes.
“Good, yes?” Hecate smiled, her expression sweet and knowing.
“Delicious.”
“It’s mead.” Hecate studied her. At Khent’s scowl, the goddess amended, “It’s a bastardized version of mead, one humans can partake without aftereffects.”
Val sipped more. “What kind of aftereffects?”
Khent answered for her. “Mead causes most humans to lose touch with reality and engage in self-mutilation, cannibalism, and blood-drinking. It’s not pleasant. Humans can’t tolerate blood the way we can.”
“And, er, eating the flesh is also gross.” Val stared at him.
He shrugged. “Not my cup of tea, but I’m not against it.”
Hecate huffed. “He means humans can’t handle the divine aspect of the treat.”
“I said what I said.”
Val could see Hecate trying not to smile. She appeared to like the vampires, creatures no one really cared for. They didn’t worship gods, hated other species, and didn’t even like their own kind.
Yet Val could see what Hecate saw, because she found Khent charming though she couldn’t have said why. Much of what he said came across as arrogant. But getting to know him better, Val heard the humor others often missed.
“Why did you want us here?” she asked after they’d been drinking in silence, the three of them watching one another.
“To meet someone.”
“Oh?” Val looked around, still struck by the fantasy of her surroundings.
She spotted centaurs and dwarves, lycans in shifted form, a few horned demons, and trolls laughing at each other and the goblins with them.
Gods and giants, dark and light elves. One and all in this place that didn’t exist in her world.
A cornucopia of myths and legends, drinking and carousing as if it was normal.
“This is so bizarre.” Yet a sight she’d take to her grave.
“This is reality,” Hecate said softly. “We are all connected, fae to demon to human to god. Even to vampire.”
A glance showed a hobgoblin glaring at Khent, the smaller goblin twice as vicious as a veil viper, according to the stories Val had once heard. And a veil viper could take down a lycan with one bite.
“Hobgoblins? Really, Hecate? That’s like inviting rats into the kitchen.” Khent grimaced.
Val couldn’t tell if he was feigning disgust just to annoy the creature that could obviously hear him, or if he genuinely meant it.
The hobgoblin, this one a mottled green and brown with pointed ears and lower fangs overlapping its black upper lips, raced toward him on four feet, bent unnaturally since hobgoblins normally walked on two legs.
It screeched at Khent, fangs out, and went for his throat. “You killed my—”
Before Hecate could intervene, Khent threw the hobgoblin at a nearby pair of glowing beings. Gods, maybe? They didn’t look pleased with him or the hobgoblin now trying to pick a fight with them.
“There he is.” Khent ignored them, focused on someone else, and tore into the crowd.
“Oh boy. I told him to keep himself hidden.” Hecate sighed and took off after him.
They threaded their way through the crowd, the music and booze flowing.
To Val’s surprise, everyone gave Hecate and her respectful nods. They must have thought her Hecate’s apprentice or something.
Val nodded back, feeling proud. Of what, she had no idea. Perhaps because here, among those waiting to cross into another realm, she belonged. Her place had always been to straddle the worlds of life and death.
In Hecate’s Crossroads, Val’s existence made sense and wasn’t something to fear but to appreciate. She fit.
They found Khent in a darkened area empty of onlookers, his hand around Morpheus’s neck.
The god of dreams dangled like a broken doll while Khent shook him and swore at him in a foreign tongue.
Upon seeing Hecate, Morpheus motioned for her to do something.
Val didn’t know if she should, because Morpheus had sold them out to Nergal. For all they knew, Nergal and Vladimir had this supposed Bloode-Stone, which would be very bad for humanity.
Hecate frowned. “Khent, please drop him. We have things to discuss.”
“I can kill him here and now. No one need ever know.”
Val knew he meant it. And she understood why the gods had once limited vampiric power. Khent didn’t seem at all afraid of hurting or even offending Morpheus, the god of dreams. She had no doubt he’d kill the deity if Hecate would allow it.
And maybe if she didn’t allow it.
That would likely get him in trouble, something Val was loath to see happen, though he surely didn’t need her help to stay safe.
Whatever “safe” meant to a vampire.
Hell, why did she even care? She had a necromancer to kill and an underworld god to avoid. Not to mention a host of shifters and Talon relying on her. So what that Khent had been solicitous and caring? He was a vampire.
Sometimes it was like she didn’t know her own mind.
She couldn’t help trying anyway. “Khent, please. Let’s hear him out.”
He glanced at her, looked back at Morpheus, then threw him away.
Instead of falling into darkness, the god slammed into a wall that formed out of the shadows.
He landed with an audible thump.
Hecate moved her hands, and three more walls shifted to enclose them in a small room. “There. Now we can talk plainly. Morpheus, what have you learned?”
He straightened and glared at Khent, wiping invisible dirt from his mortal clothing that turned into a kilt and tunic, showing off his golden muscles. “I’ve learned that reapers are assholes.”
“Oh please. You already knew that.”
Khent grinned.
Val’s heart raced. The sight of his smile stole her ability to reason every time.
He saw her looking and winked.
She fanned herself, which made him chuckle and cross to her side, putting an arm around her shoulders.
“Fine.” Morpheus sighed. “Can I get a drink? I think I’ve earned it.”
“You’ve earned a kick in the pants,” Val muttered, annoyed but too in awe of being around gods to tell him in graphic detail what she really thought.
“Ooooh, burn. Not.” Morpheus snorted. “Hey, Hecate. That drink?”
Hecate waved a hand again, and a bar table and four tall stools appeared, drinks in front of each seat at the table.
Khent and Val sat close to each other. Val drank, needing an excuse to stop staring at Khent’s smile.
Hecate sat as well but switched Morpheus’s cup with Val’s the moment Val put her cup down. “Sorry. Wrong glasses.”
Morpheus shrugged. “I don’t care what it is. I’m tired and thirsty and sick of being Nergal’s play toy.”
“You agreed. You can’t back out now.”
Val sensed she’d missed quite a bit, because instead of the anger and upset the goddess should have displayed at Morpheus’s traitorous transgressions, Hecate appeared eager to hear him out.
Khent’s eyes narrowed. “You only pretended your perfidy?”
“Such big words from a vampire,” Morpheus sneered, apparently not one to readily forgive the guy who’d tried to choke him out. “But yes. Do you really think I’d have taken us to Irkalla if I thought Nergal could control me? Bitch, please. I’m the god of dreams.”