Chapter 197: Rhys
“Well, it is a little bit,” Maizie spoke up, looking up from the magazine she was still flipping through. “The Red Blood pack didn’t worship her. We didn’t worship anybody.”
“Well, that isn’t exactly true,” Michael interjected. “We used to worship the Moon Goddess, until it was forbidden.”
“Do you think that’s what happened?” Maizie asked eagerly, fully sitting up now, and staring at Arlo with wide eyes. “Do you think the Moon Goddess abandoned us when religion was forbidden? And that’s why everything went bad in our pack?”
Arlo looked at her with a little bit of fear in his eyes. I wasn’t sure what that was about. Was it because she was from Red Blood? Or was he remembering how she had hurt Sawyer? Or was it something else entirely? I raked my brain for anything I might have missed between the two of them, but I honestly couldn’t think of anything.
“The Moon Goddess doesn’t abandon her people, even if they abandon her.” Arlo said after a long moment with a tightness in his voice, like it was hard for him to talk to her.
“Yea, I don’t think that would fit with what we know either,” Grace added, her face thoughtful. “I mean, Ethan, as much as he lied, he stated that the Lycans were created by her. And I don’t think she would have pulled us into her world if she was abandoning Lycan kind to warn us that things were coming.”
“You were pulled into the Land of the Gods?!” Arlo exclaimed in surprise.
Grace looked at me with wide eyes, realizing she had told Arlo something my gut had told me not to tell him, but the damage was done. Maybe it would be more helpful for us for him to know it though. We might get answers now a little faster.
I gave Grace as reassuring smile, and a nod to encourage her to just go ahead and tell him.
“Well, yes, I was, and somehow, I pulled Rhys in with me... I thought it was just a dream until I woke up, and we realized that we both had had it. We both sustained injuries. We were both there. And at first it was peaceful, but in the end, it was intense and terrifying.”
“And what did the Moon Goddess tell you?” Arlo asked eagerly.
“She just gave us a warning.” I answered flatly. “And then we were attacked by creatures that we didn’t get a clear view of.”
“She attacked you guys?!” He asked with what sounded like glee in his voice.
“No.” Grace replied, giving him a weary look. “We think either it was the protectors of the realm, or another god set them on us.”
“The protectors of the realm or another god,” Arlo mumbled under his breath repeatedly as he dug through his bag for something.
Heather gave me a ‘what is happening’ look, and I just shrugged back at her. I knew as much as she did. Everyone else in the room seemed to share her confusion, except Sawyer who was just staring awkwardly at Maizie, and Grace who looked surprisingly relaxed.
“Why does Grace look pleased?” Sawyer asked through our mindlink, finally tearing his gaze away from Maizie.
“I honestly don’t know.” I replied.
But she did feel relaxed. I could feel it through our bond. It made me wish I could mindlink her even more than I usually did.
“And you said you didn’t see what the creatures looked like?” Arlo asked, twisting around to face us with two hands still in the bag.
“No. They stuck to the shadows. They tried to intimidate us first before attacking.” Grace answered thoughtfully. There was something really weird about her mood right now, that was beginning to freak me out a little.
“Stuck to the shadows…” Arlo muttered under his breath as he finally pulled out a book and began to flip through it urgently.
“It doesn’t sound like protectors of the realm to me.” Arlo answered, finally finding the page he was looking for, and passing it to Maizie to look at then pass around, as he again began to frantically dig through his bag again. “Protectors of the realm are practically giants. They tend to be like 8 feet tall, and from what has been reported through multiple mythologies, they tend to stick to guarding the border. If the Moon Goddess brought you there, you would be considered her guests, and they would not have bothered with you. The Moon Goddess is known to live in the middle of the realm where the moonlight is always shining. It would be odd for her to be at the border where she would be at her weakest. It would be easier to portal you in to her space.”
“We didn’t see the moon while we were there though, did we, Grace?” I asked with a frown.
She shook her head. “No, we didn’t. But we also weren’t looking for it. Maybe we were in neutral territory? Wherever we were, we weren’t supposed to be there, and I honestly don’t think she was either based on how she acted.”
“Well, can you describe what it looked like?” Arlo asked in irritation, which I was sure was about us not giving him all the information he needed to do what he thought was his job.
Grace looked at me, and I gave her a subtle nod. I was sure she would be able to give better details than I would. She always had an eye for detail, which was one of the many things that would make her a great Luna Queen.
“Well, it started off when I got there, I was in a field of wildflowers, but the wildflower field was surrounded by these really dark woods, which is where Rhys emerged from. It was a very dark contrast.” She paused for a moment, thinking, before continuing. “The far side of the woods, seemed to be dying, but it had less of a dark and scary vibe. The noise came from that direction though. And so we fled to the woods nearest to us, but everything was dead it seemed. And if not dead already, it was dying. We thought we would be able to hide somewhere or lose them in the woods, but it was like they were home. They knew every turn; they clearly knew the woods better than us. And as I stated, they stuck to the shadows.”
Arlo sucked in a breath, and nothing prepared me for the words that came out of his mouth next, as he held up a different book with an eerily familiar picture. “It sounds like you are being hunted by the god of death.”