Page 41

When Love is All That Matters

Jared

“ N

O!” I roared the second I was forcibly pulled through the portal she created. The pain, the pure raw agony was unlike anything I had ever felt before.

Nothing felt like this.

I didn’t know how to breathe.

Didn’t know how to move.

I just fell to whatever ground the portal had thrown me out of and I didn’t fucking care where! I didn’t care about anything other than the heart I had left behind.

The heart I had been forced to leave.

The world could fucking swallow me whole and spit me back out for all I cared, and it could have fucking burned to the ground!

We could have lost to every fucking evil god out there and I just…

Wouldn’t have cared.

Because nothing in my life mattered anymore.

All was lost.

My soul torn in two.

Which was why I fell to my knees, covered my head with my arms and cried. And the tears just wouldn’t fucking stop. This pain would never end! I knew that.

I wanted to fucking die!

I wanted to stay there and be with her till the end. The life she sacrificed all to save the fucking world. A world that didn’t deserve her! Didn’t deserve her light, her heart, her perfect fucking soul. One that till the bitter end she gave in order to save us all.

A life she gave to save me.

It was too much. This pain was too much.

“Brother!” I heard the shout of Orthrus as he raced towards me, my head not even being able to lift off the ground, where I was doubled over, still holding my head. My mind breaking as it replayed our last moments together. Gods it was too fucking much!

“Gods J, what happened?!” he asked as he came to me, dropping to his knees before me and all I had the strength to do was look up and tell him through my tears,

“She’s gone.”

Those two words ripped from me, with pain blurring my vision, as the tears just wouldn’t stop. I was sure my brother’s face showed pain as he closed his eyes and said,

“No.” Then suddenly I was in his arms, being embraced by my brother, as I cried on his shoulder.

“Gods no.” he whispered but my tears said otherwise. No matter how much I wished it wasn’t true. I would have given my life for it not to be true!

“Oh brother, I am so sorry.” He told me but his words brought little comfort, for I knew nothing would. And as others approached it didn’t take a genius to know what had happened. As I was a broken man without Ella by my side.

“I wasn’t strong enough… I… I… didn’t do enough… she… she sacrificed herself for us all Orth… why… why would she do that!

How could she fucking leave me!” I shouted in anger. My heart wrenching with grief.

“Oh gods.” I heard the cries of others then, all around me. The sobs of her aunt, of her cousin.

The tears of so many. So many fucking tears! The cries of her sister. The roar of anger from her father, so much fucking pain!

“Because she loved you.” My brother said ignoring it all.

“Then why didn’t she let me stay with her? Why did she force me to leave?” I asked him, now raising my head up off his shoulder to look at his own tearful eyes.

“Why did… she let… me go?” I asked him, through broken words, my heart breaking over and over again. To which his own tears fell as he told me,

“Because she loved you, brother.” He said once more and I shook my head,

“But then why did she have to go and die, Orth?” I asked my voice thick as I finally said the word. Finally admitting what had happened to myself, as if a part of me hadn’t wanted to believe it.

Again, the sounds of pain coming at me from everywhere. A testament to how many people loved her. At this he let his head hang for a moment as more of his tears fell to the earth.

The world in which she saved would never know.

Never know who they owed their lives too.

“Why didn’t we get our Fate? She is my Chosen one and I only got to have her for a short time.” I cried and more sobs rang out at my pain.

The other Kings I knew would be holding their queens in their embrace. I hoped they knew how lucky they were. That they got to keep theirs.

All I had was loss and memories of something wonderful. Something so perfect, most of the time it didn’t feel true. But it was and it was all mine. And now I had lost it.

Faced with nothing but a lifetime of grief and suffering.

I thought I had known it well after believing I had lost Lerna. But now I knew the truth. This was what it truly felt like to lose your soul mate. The one person in the world who made you whole.

Gone.

Forever with a piece of me.

“Jared!” I heard my name being shouted and I looked away, for I didn’t want to hear it. Not even from my best friend. I didn’t want to hear the ‘you did all you could crap’ or the ‘she’s in a better place!’ I didn’t need any of it!

“Marcus wait, you don’t know what’s…”

“Fuck that! Jared! Jared fucking listen to me now, Hades…” At this I lifted my head and looked at my best friend, his face the most serious I had ever seen it.

“Marc, just let it go man!” Orth snapped when suddenly he grabbed my brother by the shirt and shook him,

“NO! I will not let this fucking go! Now fucking listen to me, Jared remember, try to remember, Hades told you something!” I frowned at this, asking myself what the fuck did any of this have to do with anything.

“Leave me the fuck alone!” I snapped but then the bastard actually grabbed me, and everyone surrounding us gasped as the asshole actually fucking slapped me.

Like some little bitch! I growled low in my throat, too close to the fucking edge not to kill him, as I rose to my feet just as he did the same.

“Whoa! Don’t kill him!” Keira shouted, making Amelia shout through her tears,

“Aren’t you going to do something!?” this was said to my brother, as now I was stalking my prey as Marcus walked backwards, still going on about fucking Hades.

“Stupid fucker slapped him after finding out his Chosen just died, what do you think!” Orth snapped making me wince as fresh new pain sliced across my heart.

“For fuck’s sake, J, I can’t fucking speak it, so your gonna have to figure it out on your own…

what did fucking Hades tell you!” Marcus said, the panic in his voice was so faint, it actually made me stammer to a stop.

And then I thought on his words, finally infiltrating the red mist of rage.

What couldn’t he say…fucker could say a lot of things but nothing about… fuck!

“Hades…he told me something about…oh gods!” the second I remembered, my blood turned to ice and suddenly, I was scanning the crowd for the one and only person I needed.

“Dariush, I need you to get me back to my club, right fucking now, back to Devils!” He nodded once and thank fuck he knew it!

Because suddenly the portal opened and I ran inside it.

My brother and Marcus following me, and no doubt everyone else, but it was only the three of us that took off running!

I didn’t stop to explain. There wasn’t time.

Not if there was a single fucking hope left.

So, I tore through the club, thankfully that it had remained empty since all the shit had started.

It meant I had no one slowing me down as I made it across the cave quicker than ever before.

I threw myself into the door, practically breaking the fucking thing down as I kept running.

My one chance to save her! One in a fucking million and Hades had known it! Because he had told me that even the Well of Souls can sometimes hold life!

Her life.

I didn’t know how and I didn’t care, I just needed to get to her in time. I couldn’t fucking lose her again. So, I ran until my fucking lungs burned, down to the dungeons and into the room where the veil between my realm and here was at its thinnest. The only way she could ever make it back!

Which meant the second I saw it, I just reacted, the souls be damned!

I hammered my fist onto the ice and cracked it with one hit.

The souls all reaching out to me. My voice hoarse as I called her name, my brother and Marcus quickly doing the same.

But when we didn’t see anything, my heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of my chest. There was no sight of her and I wanted to roar in frustration and pain.

“Come on Cookie! Remember what I fucking said!” Marcus said making me roar her name,

“ELLA!”

“RED!” my brother called as Marcus did the same. And when I stopped Marcus told me,

“Don’t stop, keep calling out to her.”

“Ella, come on, please hear me! Please hear me baby, I am here! I am right fucking here!” I said knowing I couldn’t fucking go in there searching for her. I would be dead in a heartbeat. But then just as I was starting to lose all hope,

“There!” I shouted as suddenly I saw something red in the dark water. Red like her hair!

“Fuck! There she is!” I shouted and the second I saw her panicked face looking up at me, I knew she was in trouble. So, I shouted,

“Hold me, I am going in!” Neither of them argued, I just held my breath and dipped half my body under and reached out for her.

Her hand merely inches from mine, she was so close!

Then the second I saw a ribbon of blood rise up and entwined around our hands, it was as if it was linking us together.

Suddenly her hand found mine and the best feeling in the world as her fingers tightening around my own.

I grasped them tight, vowing never to fucking let them go and I pulled her close. Her eyes finding mine in silent relief.

My brother and Marcus seeing this, yanked my legs back and pulled us both free just as the first of the souls tried to reach out and grab us. Their gnarled hands missing us by centimeters.

The second I got her out, I helped her get the water out of her mouth, tipping her head to the side so she could be sick. The sound of life was like a fucking elixir for my soul!

“Ella baby, Gods…I am here, you’re here… you’re really here.” I stammered overcome with emotion, now holding her to me, fully intent on never letting go of her ever again. But then she went and opened her eyes and the first thing she said to me,

“Did I keep my promise?” at this a sob tore out of me, my tears making my vision blurry once more. I whipped them away, not wanting anything to come between the sight of her. I then stroked back her hair, lifted her head to mine and told her,

“Yeah baby, you did.”

“Good, because there is something I have been meaning to tell you.” At this I grinned down at her but the next words out of her mouth no one could have ever prepared me for…

“You’re gonna be a daddy.”