Page 80 of Hell Kissed

Her palm presses to the gray door and it swings open effortlessly with dry cold air whisking in. Through the door, a rocky cavern of space is seen. Shadows cling to the depths here and there, but no fiery flames of Hell are seen, so I guess that’s a good sign.

What isn’t, is that I’m not going there.

I’ve come all this way, I’ve fought and killed to be here. To finally see her.

Just to be rejected at the door.

“Asta, either submit your visitors or close the door. You know I hate a cold draft!” the woman, Karen, snarls while tightening her red cardigan around herself.

“What the fuck are we supposed to do?” Aric steps closer to me while searching Torben’s face for an answer.

“I don’t know. We could… go in. Inform Hela what happened and come back for Rhys.” Torben doesn’t look at me while he plans what to do with me like I’m an old lamp that’s taking up too much space.

Just put me in storage. That’s basically his plan for the dusty old lamp.

“We’re not leaving her,” Aric growls.

“You got a better idea?” Torben tosses back at the shifter.

Their bickering turns into a more incessant sound than the grating fax error that’s ringing louder by the second. Anxiety prickles in my chest like a stabbing I can’t ignore.

Latham watches me in silence.

No one offers a real solution.

There’s nothing.

Nothing we can do.

And then… I see her.

A woman with pale blonde hair tied back steps in front of the door. Her face is so much thinner than the memory that’s suddenly flooding into my mind. But her soft blue eyes… they’re just like mine.

“You are love,” she coos, tucking in warm blankets all around me.

“You are love,” she whispers into my hair as she braids back the soft blonde locks.

“You are love,” she says with tears streaming down her face while she hugs me so tightly the fear in my chest presses harder.

And then darkness consumes my memories.

There are no more.

“Mom,” I whisper among the chaos of angry words and shuffling papers and terrible ringing errors.

Then I’m running. I sprint like a wolf about to shift. It all passes by in a blur of settings. Papers flit to the ground all around my feet. My knee bends, my boot rattles Karen’s desk, and I kick off of her keyboard with a clatter of keys in my wake.

Yells can be heard just behind me. It’s all alive with thunderous noise that I can barely hear.

Because in the next instant, I leap past Asta, through the door to Hell, and into my mother’s arms.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Welcome Home

Rhys

Her hands tremble but hold me firmly against her thin frame. Long hair curtains over my face as I clench my eyes and inhale her scent so hard that a flood of memories wash into my mind. The ashen smell of honey caresses each and every one of them.