Page 3

“Is she alright? Her disease, did something happen?” Libby asked with a panicked expression.

I swallowed hard and couldn’t help myself when I turned away, walking toward the living room window so as I didn’t add to her panic.

The sight of the driveway was one that played out the past, as I saw myself there with my bike.

Ella standing in front of me as I placed the helmet I’d had made for her, on her head.

The sight an endearing memory that I wished I had the power to return to.

A memory that faded as I closed my eyes and lowered my head, as the fresh agony rippled through me. But then I felt both my hands uncurl from fists as soft, feminine fingers entwined in them, making me look to see both Keira and Amelia at my side, giving me strength.

“We will get her back, Uncle, won’t we, Mum?”

I swallowed hard before nodding when Keira squeezed my hand and agreed.

“We will, love, as a family.”

I nodded, holding back the tears I felt trying to push past the walls of my emotions. Because I couldn’t lose it now. Not when I had so much to focus on. The plan. The war. The rescue. All of it…

My personal battle.

It felt like all my life had built up to this point.

All my experiences being who I knew deep down I had always meant to be.

Who the Gods had chosen for this beast inside me.

Cerberus, the one who I had once believed had made me feel complete, had made me feel whole for so long.

And now there was so much more to that than I ever thought possible.

Because now I knew that all this time there had been a piece missing.

And now we had both found her, we knew how it felt to truly feel whole.

To feel complete.

She was my everything and I would fight to the death to get her back.

Her and my brother. Which was why I gave both their hands a squeeze in return.

The extension of my family were with me.

So, without words, I told them what this union meant to me.

Because I wasn’t alone in this. We all had a piece of our hearts taken from us with Ella gone.

We all wanted her back. And as I turned to face the other Kings in the room, I knew that we had each been in this situation before.

But there was one man who hadn’t, and he appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

“If this is about Libby, then I haven’t told her yet… wait, where is Ella?” Frank said, stopping after scanning the room and finding it empty of the one person he would have wanted to see the most.

“Why don’t you take a seat, Frank,” Dom suggested, making him frown before every muscle started to tense in his posture. This as he narrowed his eyes at his brother-in-law and stated,

“I don’t need to take a seat, what I need is someone to tell me where my daughter is!”

Keira took over and walked over to him, placing a hand at his arm, one that was now folded over his chest.

“She is alive, Frank, but she has been taken by Garmr like we feared,” she said softly and like me, a range of emotions flicked over his features, anger being the main one.

“No… No… NO!” he roared, making me flinch.

“I know it’s hard but…”

At this he pulled from Keira’s hold and stormed outside, but when she went to follow, I held a hand up.

“Not this time, Doll face, this time, it’s on me,” I said. She nodded in response, the tears in her beautiful grey-blue eyes clinging on and making them look like glass.

I turned away and followed Frank outside to find him near tearing his hair out, as he hunched over, speaking in another language. Some ancient sounding Latin I, admittedly, didn’t understand.

“Frank.”

“How the fuck did this happen, Jared!” he snapped, making me tense but taking the blame like a hit to the gut all the same.

“There are no excuses here, Frank, only the truth when I tell you that I wasn’t strong enough,” I admitted, making his head whip around, showing me now the other side of him coming through.

My first glimpse of his true self. His eyes losing their dark brown and now glowing like light beneath the ice.

His veins like navy ink branching out around his eyes, the tips of his fingers as if frozen after held too long under some icy lake.

“Then I will kill him for you!” an unholy voice promised, at the same time a pair of heavenly wings burst from his back.

The tips of each feather was a midnight blue that faded into the purest of white.

But this wasn’t the only change, as a long, clear glass sword grew from his hand, one that crackled with a blue electricity inside the center with a twist of his wrist. The long blade grew the length of my arm and was soon swung around toward me until the tip was inches from my face.

“Now where is she?!” he demanded in a deadly tone.

I took a deep breath, pained to explain the truth but forcing myself to all the same.

“She is somewhere you can’t go,” I told him, making him grit his teeth.

“I will lose my wings before I see Hell take her!” he vowed venomously.

“Good, I was hoping you would say that,” I told him in a calm tone that was enough to tell him that I was unfazed by the fact he had a weapon still pointed at me.

His expression changed to one of questioning, but before he could ask, the very human aspect of this situation suddenly ran out of the door.

His ice white eyes snapped to his front door where a gasp of shock came before the fearful sound of his wife as she started…

Screaming.