Page 36

Date Night

“ C

ome on, I know the way!” I shouted, but before I could get through the door on the balcony, Jared held me back.

“You need to stay here, get back through the portal when Dariush opens it and get back to the camp. Wait for me there and I…”

Hearing this I yanked my hand from his grasp and said,

“No! This is bullshit, we go together, we stay together, and we finish this!” I shouted.

His silver eyes grew wide for a moment before narrowing.

“Ella.”

“No, Jared. This started with us and this will end with us… together. Now we are wasting time, let’s go,” I said firmly, this time holding my hand out to him, waiting for him to trust me.

And I swear it felt like a small eternity waiting for him to put his hand in mine.

But after a small sigh, he did, and the second I curled my fingers around his, I grinned in victory.

And speaking of victory, our last sight of the outside world was as…

We won the battle.

And now, it was time we won the war.

So, with this firmly in our minds and rooted in our destiny, we went off running down the tunnel.

“It’s this way!” I said, looking back at him as we raced through the tunnel toward the caves.

A place it felt like I had been so many times, I could have practically made my way there blindfolded.

Just how many endless hours had Garmr forced Anástasi to spend bringing back soul after soul, doing so until she would pass out from exhaustion?

Well, this time, I went there with a higher purpose.

But as soon as we entered through the entrance into the cave, I gasped.

I had expected to find the Hellhound army…

only to find it empty. And I quickly remembered why.

Because all those creatures I thought I had brought back for battle, were for something else.

I had believed Garmr needed them for his army, to increase his numbers.

But I had been wrong.

“Look!” I said, pointing to the ominous green glow we could see coming from one of the caverns below.

Where we were standing was much higher up from the mountain floor, on a walkway carved straight out of the rock.

A path that snaked down and was the very same one Anástasi and I had tried to use to escape.

Well, there was no escaping today. Not until we finished this.

“Last time I was here, so was Fenrir… I wonder where he has gone?” I asked, getting a really, really bad feeling.

“The last time I was here it was filled with bones,” Jared told me as we ran down to the bottom. Once there, it was easy to cross over to the other side of the mountain and see its hidden caves, thanks to it being empty.

“Yeah, and I think I know where they all went,” I told him, nodding to the only cave entrance that was glowing with the summoned life inside. But as we slowed down, before walking through, Jared took my hand once more and asked,

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Want to? No, I want to be at home watching movies in your kick ass bed, with your drop-down screen, while putting myself into a junk food coma. But hey, it’s a Tuesday, so I guess I am opting to saving the world by fighting a God and his deranged son instead.

Next time, date night is my choice,” I replied with a wink, making him scoff a laugh.

Then before he could ask me again, I told him, “But you know what they say, you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain… so let’s go be heroes, handsome. ”

After seeing Jared’s grin in return, I turned to face the bus-sized hole in the mountain before venturing inside.

The green glow from the other side offered enough light so were weren’t blindly making our way through.

Although, honestly, I couldn’t imagine Jared blindly fumbling his way through anything. Did he ever even stub his toe?

It was a strange question to ask myself, and one I might have asked Jared if we weren’t about to fight Garmr’s bad daddy.

And I wasn’t wrong, because the moment we finally emerged through the other side, what met us was a huge, cavernous open space that looked as if another section of the mountain had been hallowed out.

But then one glance at the jagged rock walls, and I could see that it must have happened naturally, otherwise wouldn’t the walls be smooth and show signs of being chipped away at?

Of course, what did I know about making underground mountain evil lairs, not a lot… but I did know about souls. Which meant I recognized pretty quickly what had been happening here.

In front of us, there was a large round platform, jutting out over a canyon… A dark and endless chasm below, that was acting as some kind of place of sacrifice.

Two strange moons of light cut across the chasm, looming in the background. The gorge made me wonder how deep the tear in the mountain went, or was it now being filled up with the bones and remains of sacrificial Hellhounds?

Because there, on the platform, I could not only see Garmr, but that of a glowing green portal.

One that was framed by a round frame made up from curved blocks of grey stone, each one etched in runes and Norse symbols.

And before it, one by one, each summoned Hellhound was lined up ready to have the life sucked out of them.

It was a death walk for each of them, and a green mist thickened around them the closer they got.

Their souls rose from them in streams before being sucked into the portal, luring them closer along the path toward the round platform hanging over the edge of the cliff.

By the time they reached the portal, there was nothing left but the bones they started with.

Each of these were then cast over the edge like waste that needed disposing of.

Their remains splitting in half at the portal before bones flew off either side of the swirling vortex and fell to the chasm below.

And unfortunately for us, there wasn’t that many left.

Which meant only one thing.

The portal was nearly complete and, with it, brought a God.

“He must have been doing this for days,” I told Jared, who also took in the scene with gritted teeth.

“They were never intended to fight,” I added, making him shake his head before turning to face me.

Gripping the tops of my arms just under my armor, he told me,

“It’s not too late to turn back.”

“You don’t strike me as a quitter,” I said dryly, making him shake his head again.

“I don’t mean for me.”

“Then it looks like that date is just going to have to wait for both of us, Beastman… now, time to get your badass beast on. You take douchebag Garmr, and I will take the angry God,” I replied, meaning he had no choice but to accept that I was going nowhere.

“That seems a bit one-sided,” he commented, making me walk backward, holding my arms out in a cocky way before telling him,

“Daughter of a God, remember?” Then I winked at him before taking off running. I heard him chuckle behind me before doing the same.

“You call me a house pet and I will be pissed, Red,” he said, catching up with me and making me throw my head back to laugh.

“Remind me to pet you later,” I said, smirking at him, loving the way he shook his head as if he didn’t know what to do with me.

Our small pleasure didn’t last long because the second the last Hellhound’s soul was sucked up into the portal, the moment of truth arrived.

All jokes stopped as the famed God Loki appeared.

And this time, it was a Summoner Queen up against…

A Norse God.