Chapter 49
If I had enough strength, I’d rip his head off right here, but I needed to save it for the right moment.
“It’s a long story. In short, I thought that after leaving the clan, I wouldn’t be controlled by him. My mistake.” He knelt beside me and helped me up, his arms wrapping around my torso as I gritted my teeth against the pain. “He controls any of us, clan or not. We belong to the underworld, and he’s the god who rules it.”
A loud crash reached our ears, and I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet. Bridget was here!
“You’ll owe me for the rest of your life, you bastard,” I growled, masking the pain, and started climbing the path he pointed out.
With every step I took, the tremors grew stronger. Bri was destroying the entire mountain. I forced myself to run as fast as I could. I wasn’t at a hundred percent, but I was so close now—I couldn’t give up.
I reached the outside, and the sunlight blinded me for a few seconds. Dizziness hit me after all those days without food or water.
“I found him!” a voice shouted nearby, and I forced my eyelids open. “Let’s get out of here, Quanah.” It was Seth standing in front of me.
The boy I’d watched grow up pulled my arm over his shoulder to support my weight, and we started walking.
“Where is she? Where… where’s Bridget?” She and our son were my biggest concern right now.
“She’s destroying everything. Hades said he wouldn’t hand you over unless she went with him. I don’t doubt she would’ve gone if it weren’t for the baby. In the end, she decided to destroy the mountain and get you out without his help.”
Destroying a mountain? Damn, that would demand far more than the training we’d had. She needed to know I was okay. If she saw me, she’d stop this madness.
“Take me to where she is!” I ordered, knowing I needed to see her as much as she needed to see me. Only then would this insanity end.
“But the orders are—”
“Now, Seth!” He didn’t wait for me to shout a second time and took me there.
The smoke rising from the mountain’s rubble began to cover the entire area where the others were fighting. It was a struggle to see through all that dust, but then I saw her—a black aura enveloping her body, her eyes burning like embers in a shade of red. This was Bridget enraged. Hades was right—my mortality was a weakness. She was here, putting herself at risk, exposing herself like this, because she wanted to save me.
I started running toward her, ignoring the others battling. I could hear the vampires’ screams as they clashed with my people, but my eyes were too focused to notice anything around me.
When I got closer, I realized her body was levitating. For the first time, she was hovering a few inches off the ground, leaving me completely speechless.
“I should bury you with your mountain!” she shouted, not stopping her powers for a second.
With one hand, she controlled the mountain’s collapse, and with the other, she blocked the path for the others, so even if the vampires were attacking, Hades couldn’t do the same to them.
“I don’t die, foolish child!” Hades stood on the other side of the field, haughty as if nothing was happening around him.
“I’ve heard you not only die, but I’ll be the lucky one to kill you!”
He wasn’t used to being defied, yet he knew he couldn’t touch her, and that only fueled his rage further. I could see him seething with anger, now not only unable to touch her but also our friends.
“You’ll suffer!” He roared, and a path of fire blazed across the ground, spreading from where he stood toward me.
Seth pulled me, trying to get me out of the way, but no matter where we went, the fire was consuming everything around us.
“Quanah!” I heard Bri shout.
I was too weak to transform, and when I looked up, I saw a fiery sword emerging from the flames. I knew that was my end. A howl rose among my men fighting, but the next second, my body was yanked away from the fire.
I flew until I was beside Bri. She pulled me to her, and I didn’t resist. Despite the pain from my wounds with her tight grip, I was overjoyed to see her safe. I buried my nose in her hair as I hugged her tightly, breathing deeply to take in her scent. How I’d missed that.
“You can’t save everyone!” Hades’ voice was what made us pull apart.
We looked where he was pointing, and Seth had a sword buried in his chest. His body trembled, and I ran to him. The flames vanished instantly, as did the sword. The wind blew fiercely, and the ground’s tremors only intensified.
“Seth, don’t do this! Stay with me, kid.” I held his body, gently laying him on the ground. His eyes seemed unfocused, darting everywhere, and then he coughed as blood started trickling from his lips. “Seth?”