Page 11

Chapter eleven

I t had taken forever to round everyone up and gather them into the square around the bonfire.

Keegan had headed to the river with Rune to bring back the souls standing watch in the forest, leaving Noah behind to help in the village.

While not technically a two-person job, he hadn’t argued when his mate had insisted that he come along.

Partly because the thought of being separated from the big Guardian terrified him.

What if the shadows returned?

What if Rune was hurt again?

Mostly, however, he had been relieved.

Staying meant actively trying to convince the entire village of something he didn’t even know if he believed himself.

The plan seemed solid in theory—almost too easy—and the last time something had sounded too good to be true, he had ended up dead.

To be fair, he didn’t think anything so dramatic would happen this time.

In fact, he mainly worried that nothing would happen at all, and in turn, he would end up disappointing everyone.

Because whether he wanted the responsibility or not, this wasn’t just about him anymore.

Now, everyone was counting on him.

Standing in front of the diner with his mate and his brother, he turned away from the crowd, but he could still feel their eyes on him.

Worse, he could feel their hope, but instead of buoying him, it just made him queasy.

“What if this doesn’t work?”

“Then we find another way,” Rune answered in the same offhanded way one might respond to being told the milk had gone bad.

“Everyone is expecting me to save them, but I have no idea what I’m doing. What if nothing happens?” Realizing that was probably the better option, he sighed and shook his head.

“What if I make it worse?”

“What if you don’t?” his mate countered.

“Rune, I’m being serious.”

Cupping the side of Keegan’s neck, Rune pressed a thumb under his chin, holding him in place as he bent to brush their lips together.

“So am I. If it doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.”

“How? They’ve been trying for years.”

“Yeah, but we have something they don’t.”

Keegan arched an eyebrow.

“If you say ‘love,’ I’m going to lose my lunch.”

From everyone else’s perspective, Rune probably looked a little deranged when he barked out a sharp laugh, but his eyes never left Keegan’s.

“Connections, kaelaer . We have connections. The way time works here, it might be weeks or years, but Orrin will notice we’re gone. Hades and Erus will return. Someone will come for us.”

He had completely forgotten that his mate had literal god-tier connections in the Underworld.

The soul-saving, portal-opening, world-splintering kind of connections.

Granted, he didn’t want to be trapped there for any length of time, but years sounded a hell of a lot better than eternity.

“In the meantime,” Rune continued, “let’s try to save ourselves.”

Pep talk received, and confidence bolstered—at least temporarily—Keegan took a deep breath and dipped his head.

He wasn’t their last hope.

He was just their only hope right then.

A small but important distinction that eased some of the pressure and lessened the heavy weight on his shoulders.

Still, when Joseph came to ask if he and Noah were ready, he couldn’t look the older man in the eye.

He couldn’t face the excitement mixed with expectation shining in his expression.

“We’re ready,” Noah answered for both of them.

Although John and Joseph had been trapped longer than the others, used as keys to open doorways between realms, even they didn’t truly understand how it worked.

Rather, they had simply tried to recreate what they did know.

Brie had always used a mirror as a gateway, so they had brought a large, oval one from the apothecary and set it up in the town square.

“Don’t we need some kind of incantation or something?” Keegan asked as he and his twin took their places in front of the mirror.

“Normally, yes, but the portal never fully closed.” Noah glanced over his shoulder to the crowd gathered behind them.

“That’s why it kept sucking souls through from the Underworld.”

Keegan bobbed his head in acknowledgment.

“So, we’re just trying to force it open wider.”

“And reverse the flow.”

“Noah, if this doesn’t work—”

“It’ll work.”

“But if it doesn’t—”

“It’ll work.”

For fuck’s sake, he was surrounded by the most maddeningly optimistic bastards in the universe.

“Will you just shut up and let me apologize?”

“Apology accepted.”

Asshole.

“Okay, listen up!” Joseph called, getting everyone’s attention.

“If this works, the doorway will only be open for a few minutes. There will be time for everyone to make it through, but we have to be fast, and we have to be orderly.”

He received a bunch of nods and a few murmurs of agreement, but mostly, everyone appeared fixated on the mirror, and by extension, Keegan.

“Ready when you are, boys,” Joseph told them as he moved away to join the rest of the group.

Sighing, Keegan turned to face his twin, his pulse throbbing in his throat and blood roaring in his ears.

“Sink or swim?”

Noah grinned, his eyes softening yet still blazing with determination.

“Sink or swim.”

Win, lose, or draw, they were in this together.

Arms bent in front of them, they clapped their palms together and held tight.

“You know, if we were really arm-wrestling, I’d totally win.”

Noah snorted.

“Not with those skinny ass arms.”

They waited, muscles tight and fingers flexing, but nothing happened.

Instead, they just stood there like a couple of dumbasses, holding hands and staring fiercely into each other’s eyes like the cover image for an MMA cage match.

His heart heavy with the weight of their failure, he tried to pull away, but Noah wouldn’t let him go.

“Wait,” he insisted.

“Just…wait.”

“Noah, we tried. It’s not working. We’re just not—”

They both hissed at the same time, their fingers curling reflexively and digging into the back of the other’s hand.

The scars on their arms illuminated, spreading across their skin with a faint golden glow.

It danced and glittered, throwing its warm radiance across their faces as it raced in a circuit along the tangled lines.

In response, the mirror behind them began to vibrate, the glass rattling inside the ancient frame, and stark, blinding light pulsed from the center.

Swirling and spiraling, it grew, spreading as the doorway opened right before their eyes.

“We did it!” Noah exclaimed, dropping his hand and dragging him into a crushing hug.

“We really did it!”

The mirror shuddered and immediately went dark.

“Fuck,” Keegan cursed.

“Quick, give me your hand again.”

The moment their skin touched, the markings glowed, and the doorway cracked open again, small at first but growing in size and strength as they continued to grasp onto each other.

The crowd cheered, a celebration born of pure joy and soul-deep relief, and for the first time, Keegan finally let himself share in their excitement.

“Don’t let go.”

It might not be how things had worked the first time around, but he didn’t care.

They were going home.

All of them.

Forearms twined, hands clasped, they moved to the side, clearing the way as Joseph, his twin, and Rune began ushering souls toward the portal.

But they had a problem.

The longer he and Noah held onto each other, the more it burned, the magic searing deeper into their skin.

Pain radiated up Keegan’s arm and across his chest, the lines slithering outward to encompass more of his body.

“Don’t let go,” Noah echoed back to him, his expression tight and his arm quivering.

“You can do this, kaelaer.” Rune’s voice floated into his mind, a balm to the flash burn that consumed him.

“Hold on just a little longer.”

Keegan clenched his jaw and tightened his hand around Noah’s with renewed resolve.

He could do this. He could burn for the people he cared about, for the souls who deserved better than this hollow, nightmare existence.

But beneath the pain, the fear, the joy and relief, he felt the tremor.

He sensed the magic growing more unstable, flickering at first, then throbbing, pounding out a warning.

“Hurry!” he shouted to his mate.

“Get them through!”

The mirror portal sparked, spitting out flares of golden light, drawing gasps of unease from the group, but they didn’t stop moving.

Their steps became a little quicker, a little jittery, but they continued to file through the doorway in small clusters.

With only a few groups remaining, the portal gave a violent shake, expelling a gust of wind that cut through the night like a blade, extinguishing every light in the village.

Even the bonfire died, the roaring flames reduced to smoldering embers, casting them in darkness apart from the circle of light that surrounded the mirror.

“Go, go, go!” Rune shouted, grabbing souls and shoving them toward the doorway.

“Hurry!”

The searing pain had reached Keegan’s neck now and had started crawling up the side of his jaw.

Noah didn’t look to be fairing any better—eyes tight, his face a mask of pain and stubbornness.

“It’s fine,” Noah panted.

“I mean, it could be worse.”

Keegan honestly didn’t see how.

Then the clacking started.

Those who remained screamed and darted for the doorway, pushing and shoving at each other as they scrambled to be the first to go through.

The chittering grew louder, more frenzied, and shadows darted at the edge of his vision, amassing into a black cloud as it rolled across the ground.

“That’s the last one, boys!” Joseph shouted.

“Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Keegan turned his head, watching through blurred eyes as the older man disappeared through the wavering light.

Something moved in the darkness behind the mirror, a shadow but sharper, more defined, arms tucked as it sprinted toward them…

toward the gateway.

“It’s her,” Noah gasped.

“It’s Brie! Don’t let her through.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to do that?” He wasn’t about to close the portal and trap himself just to stop her.

“She’s already dead. Let the Underworld sort her out.”

“You don’t know her. You don’t know what she’s capable of.”

He heard the fear mingled with the anger in his brother’s voice, felt his hatred burn as intensely as the magic that scorched across their skin.

“Let’s go,” Rune demanded, jogging up to them and shoving them toward the mirror.

“We can close it from the other side.”

He met Noah’s gaze, and they both nodded.

Hands still clasped, they turned and ran for the mirror, only to stumble to a stop when Brie careened around the edge of the light, stumbling into view and making a tight turn straight for the doorway.

She was fast…but Rune was faster.

Catching her by a fistful of her dry, stringy hair, he dragged her away from the light, his expression unchanged as she screamed and flailed.

“Let me go! You can’t do this! This isn’t right.”

“You have a lot of nerve lecturing me on right and wrong,” Rune responded, ice dripping from every word.

“You did this to yourself.”

Gone was the healthy, studious woman Keegan had met in a quiet coffee shop.

In her place was an aged, decrepit caricature of a human being.

Her cragged skin drooped, practically sliding off her face, her sunken eyes shadowed with deep bruises, and her gaze wide, mad.

“Rune, we have to go!” While it would be satisfying to list off every horrible thing about her, he didn’t know how much longer he could hold on.

“Let me go!” Brie screeched.

“I don’t have magic anymore. I can’t hurt anyone.”

“You never had magic,” Rune told her.

“You stole it, corrupted it, and used it to hurt a lot of innocent people. Where was your compassion then?”

“I’m sorry!”

“Rune!” Keegan begged.

“Please!”

“I didn’t know!” Brie sobbed.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. You have to believe me.”

“I don’t.” Turning on his heel, Rune marched to the edge of the light that encircled them.

“You wanted to play in the shadows?”

Then he tossed her forward into the darkness, her screams echoing behind him as he strode back toward the mirror.

Taking Keegan’s free hand, he stood straight and nodded.

“Don’t look back.”

And they didn’t, all three of them staring straight ahead as they stepped into the light.