Zealot (Hidden: Soulhunter Book 3) Read online

  “It was,” I agreed. “But I liked it.”

  He laughed again and held me tighter.

  “Brennan?”

  “Hm?”

  “I love you, too. And nothing will make me stop. We have wasted so much time second-guessing this.”

  “We have,” he said, lowering his lips to my earlobe. “We should stop doing that. I love you. You love me. It doesn’t matter what it looks like or how much time we spend together. Everything else is a distraction.”

  “Yes. I wish we could have the last several months back.”

  “Me too.” He nibbled my earlobe, and I felt that deep rumble in his chest, that purr that I always equated to being in bed with him, our bodies exhausted, coiled together as we talked, often until our room brightened with the dawn. I shimmied my backside and felt his body respond to the movement immediately.

  He kissed his way down my neck, then bit me, right where my neck meets my shoulder, the same spot he’d bitten me the first time we’d made love. I whimpered, and he held on, biting, sucking the tender flesh there.

  “We’ve never had a problem with this part of it,” I said, my voice shaking.

  His tongue traced the bite marks he’d left on my neck, and I knew it was merely a moment of respite, a moment of comfort before I’d feel the bite of his teeth again. “No, we haven’t,” he murmured, and his teeth found my flesh again, biting harder, claiming ownership and domination in a way I would never even consider letting another man. I knew there would be a bruise there, teeth marks. I relished seeing those marks on my flesh, a visual reminder of what we were to one another, that no matter how unfeeling the rest of the world believes I am, he knows better. I groaned and tried to turn myself on his lap so I was straddling him, but he held me firm.

  “We both know you’ll only be pissed with yourself if you start that. You’ll lose too much time. You’re already getting antsy, because you want me, but you’re thinking about how many undead are out there now, and how bad you want to destroy them. You’re horny, which I love, but you also want to hunt Persephone’s ass down and hand her over to Molly, just to see what happens.”

  “You know me very well, Cub,” I whispered. He kissed the side of my neck, my shoulder, tongue and teeth adoring that one part of my body in a way I knew he was perfectly capable of doing with every other part of my body as well.

  “I do. And that’s why I’m going to let you go do what you need to do. And I’m going to go home and take a cold shower and probably put my hand to work for a while,” he said, and I shook my head and groaned, surprising myself by grinning at him. His eyes had that old devilish spark to them, and I leaned forward and claimed his lips. We kissed like two people possessed, like two people starving for one another, a battle of lips, tongues, teeth, and I never wanted it to end, even as I felt the pull of duty calling me away from him.

  He pulled away, just a little. “And when that’s done, I’ll be out, hunting and knowing that no matter where you are, we’re both in the fight together. Go do what you need to do.”

  He stood up, pulling me with him. “Besides, maybe if we find Persephone, at least, you can take a little break before the world ends.”

  I shook my head. “It still does not feel real to say it.”

  “It doesn’t.”

  I glanced down at my feet, then back up, meeting this eyes. “If I get that break, I’ll be sure to do that thing you like.”

  “Which one, Tink?”

  “The one I do on my knees, Cub,” I murmured, and then I took a step back, grinning at the hungry look in his eyes, at the way his hands fisted at his sides.

  “Now I’m gonna hunt even harder,” he said, and I laughed.

  “I had a feeling you would. I will as well. Hunt well, husband.”

  “You too, wife. Kick ass. I love you.”

  I blew him a kiss, and then I rematerialized, this time, still wearing an undoubtedly goofy grin on my face. Even if my world ended at this very moment, I knew that that part of my life was right, and that was no small thing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I spent the next six hours following clues, hunches, reports of Persephone sightings that turned out to be false or too old to be of use. I slayed undead without mercy, and my boots were covered in the gore left behind. Every time I felt tired, I reminded myself that maybe, just maybe, I would have the chance to be with my husband one more time before this all ended, if only we could at least get the vengeance so many of us wanted.

  And yet… I was thinking bigger. I wanted more. I was not ready to give in, to say goodbye, to allow things to end on one of Nyx’s whims. Mollis had not been wrong. Nyx was not all-knowing, no matter how much all of us had built her up to be so. She had come to me. She had made a bargain with me.

  “Nyx,” said, repeating the name like a mantra, until, finally, she appeared.

  “If this is a trick, I will end it all now. I know my granddaughter thinks to hunt me and end this. It will not work.”

  “No tricks,” I said, crossing my arms. “A bargain.”

  “You seem to think you have something worth bargaining with, Guardian.”

  “You know your granddaughter hunts you. Do you know who it was who caused this imbalance? Because I do.”

  She tried to hide the interest in her eyes, the way her posture straightened, but I caught it all.

  “Who?”

  “Oh, I do not know if it is worth telling you, seeing as how you plan on destroying us all anyway. Which still seems like quite the overreaction, by the way.”

  “Foolish children,” she hissed. “Do you really think it is a simple as that? That balance is a personal quirk of mine and I would just end this on a whim? Is that what you think of me?”

  I studied the Creator. She was very obviously angry, but there was more. Panic. Worry.

  Fear.

  “Nyx. Explain it to me, then. Because yes, from our perspective, this looks like a whim. You are the most powerful being in existence. You are our Creator and our ultimate Destroyer. I know things are bad. I know you cannot act to change it… but destroying us seems—”

  “Heartless, cruel, and random. I know,” she finished for me. She sighed. “Did you really think I was the only Creator?”

  I watched her closely. “Yes? Actually, I did.”

  “And here I believed you were smarter than the rest,” she said quietly. “I am the Creator of this realm. There are other Creators. Other realms.”

  I did not say anything for several moments, taking the time to absorb something she had dropped on me as if it was nothing, as if it should have been common knowledge. I shook my head and filed it away for later.

  “All right. So what does that have to do with destroying us?”

  She gave me a withering look, and I refused to look away or cower beneath it. “Balance is the deal we all struck. We would each create our realm with a focus on balance. Balance in one world, means balance in all worlds. Before balance, there was war among us, as each of us tried harder to gain power over the others.”

  “How many?” I asked.

  “Seven.”

  I could barely wrap my mind around that, but she went on. “We each took an equal part, as a treaty. That balance, that promise, was what kept reality from falling apart before it even began. As part of our treaty, if one of our realms becomes unbalanced, if the life energy from it begins to become so unsteady that the others can feel it, the neighboring realms have every right to absorb it, to try to take it. This current imbalance is causing fissures between our realm and our closest neighbor. If you think me an unfeeling Creator, you would not want to meet the One who would be in charge of you if this imbalance continued. He is warlike, and death and destruction are his balance. This realm would be ripe for the picking. He would destroy all in his path, enslave the immortals of this world, and burn the rest to the ground. Our relative peace would be his imbalance, and he could not tolerate that.” She paused. “So, yes. I would rather destroy you, as painles
sly as possible, than watch him destroy this realm and those of you I have created.”

  “If we can halt the imbalance—”

  “You have been trying, valiantly, and failing,” Nyx pointed out. “I gave you what time I could.”

  “I cannot keep up with the undead. I recognize that now. But if we are speaking of imbalance, surely part of the balance would be restored by punishing the one who caused the imbalance. Yes?”

  Nyx bit her lip. It was a very human gesture, and it hit me then how much time she had likely spent, just watching those she had created. “Who was it?”

  “Persephone.”

  Nyx raised her eyebrows. “Well… that is unexpected.”

  “We believe her grief over Hades pushed her to it.”

  “And her endgame was?”

  “To bring Hades back to life. To use her powers to bring him back. The undead were a diversion while she was working on it. As far as we know, she failed.”

  Nyx was silent for several moments, considering what I had told her.

  “Destroying Persephone, or bringing her to me, so that I could re-absorb her energy… that would buy you time. The undead would still need to be dealt with, but it would buy time.”

  “That will be my focus, then. She has been hiding. We will find her.”

  “Guardian.”

  “Yes?”

  “You still only have until the full moon. He will move the day after, unless our balance begins to swing back to its correct state.”

  My stomach sank a little, but I nodded. It was better than nothing, and at least, this way, there was the possibility of more time beyond the full moon.

  “I will not fail,” I said.

  “So you say. Let us all hope so, eh?” she said with a sad smile.

  “Well. Surely you would be all right, in the event of this takeover,” I said, tilting my head and watching her closely.

  “My Enemy hates me. He would destroy me in every way possible before giving me my end,” she said.

  “And would none of the others step forward to help you?”

  She shrugged, and then we both said it together: “balance.”

  “Yes, balance,” she said. “They are forbidden from interfering in affairs between neighbor realms. And in this case, this is not a fight they would want to be involved in anyway.”

  “Can He be reasoned with?”

  She smiled again. “My darling Guardian, I have spent eternity trying. Ex-lovers make the worst enemies,” she added as I stood there in shock. “Two days, Guardian. Best of luck to you,” she said, and then she was gone.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was barely an hour later when the imps found me. Bashiok, Mollis’s lead imp, bowed his head when he saw me.

  “Guardian,” he said in his rough, high-pitched voice. “Queen needs you.”

  “Did they find Persephone?” I asked, wiping my Netherblades on the trunk of a nearby tree, trying to get some of the blood and gore off of them. I had not yet stopped hunting the undead, even as I looked for Persephone. Habit.

  Bash shook his head. “Sea gods in a frenzy. Bad business, Guardian.”

  My stomach twisted, but I just nodded in response. “To the Netherwoods?”

  He shook his head. “Poseidon’s palace.”

  I gave him a short nod and rematerialized to the beach near the palace, where I had waited with Quinn what had felt like mere hours ago, and at the same time, like a lifetime ago. Poseidon’s guards lined the beach, some on legs, some swimming the waters. The one who seemed to be in charge nodded at me and gestured me forward. They all had the same tense, pinched, angry look about them. I let one of them escort me below the waves. As we drew closer to the palace, it was clear that the guards were all in a frenzy, and I could feel from all of the power signatures swirling around me that there were many, many immortals in attendance here. I hurried toward the throne room, faster once I heard the sound of raised voices coming from that direction. Mollis’s was one of them, answered by Poseidon’s loud roars. When I walked in, Mollis and Poseidon were facing off, both of them red-faced, angry. Nain stood behind Mollis, barely holding onto his non-demon form. Triton stood next to his father, hand on his chest, trying to calm him down.

  “This isn’t helping, Father,” he was saying. “You can’t blame her.”

  “I can blame whoever the hell I want,” Poseidon roared. “She started this witch hunt. She pushed her. She brought this down on our heads.”

  “What?” I asked, and they all turned to look at me, finally realizing I was there. The other immortals all stood around, including my New Guardians, as if they were unsure about what to do next. “What is happening?”

  “Persephone attacked,” Triton said quietly. “My sisters are gone.”

  I gave a quick shake of my head. It was as if I understood the words he was saying, but they made no sense in that particular order. “Persephone attacked?” I repeated.

  “Yes. She attacked my home, and my daughters are gone,” Poseidon thundered, and Triton tried to calm him again. “I blame her, but I blame you. You did this, didn’t you?” he asked Triton, and Triton took a step back. “This is your fault.”

  “That is not fair,” I said, and Poseidon glared at me. “She used him. She threatened him. Be angry with the one who did this, not those who are near now and easy to blame.”

  “She would not have been pushed to it if she were not being hunted. If she had not lost her husband. If her world had never been upset to begin with,” Poseidon said, every word losing a bit of bluster, until he had lowered his voice almost to a whisper.

  “She found out that we learned about her role in all this. Or she had a lucky guess, perhaps. But either way, it is clear that we need to be better,” I said, meeting Poseidon’s eyes and then looking around at the assembled immortals. “We need to be stronger. We need to not start fighting among ourselves, not when we have finally, after all these years, managed to find some common ground. Let us keep that. Let us go after our enemy, united.”

  “Mistress,” I heard one of the imps calling, and all of us turned to watch him run up the aisle toward where Mollis stood. He looked terrified, his eyes wide. “Mistress!” he repeated.

  “What is it?” Mollis asked.

  “Netherwoods is under attack. Palace destroyed. Demons down.”

  “Where are Bashiok and Dahael?” Mollis asked, looking around as she gathered her children, preparing to transport herself and them there.”

  “They went back ahead of us, Mistress,” the imp said, hanging his head. “Just got Dahael’s message. “Bashiok is down.”

  Without another word, Mollis, Nain, and the rest of the Nether immortals disappeared, rematerializing back to their home realm.

  I looked at the others again. “This is your chance to take your anger out on the one who deserves it. It may be the only chance we ever get.”

  My New Guardians gathered around me, and, together, we transported ourselves to the Netherwoods as well.

  I could not get rid of the terrible feeling that Persephone bringing the fight to us had to be just about the worst sign ever.

  Two things happened when I arrived back in Detroit.

  The first was that something, and I had no idea what, had set the Netherwoods aflame. I stood a bit back from it, having intended to get a read on the situation before jumping into it. Humans had come out of the nearby homes and businesses to stare at it, murmuring fearfully among themselves.

  The second thing was that the Earth started rumbling, shaking beneath our feet. The people standing nearby stumbled and fell, and the rumbling just continued, becoming more violent. I fell into Quinn, who was falling into a few of the other New Guardians. We were on a corner, near a few tall office buildings not too far from downtown. I happened to look up and see the building teetering dangerously.

  “Get them out of the way,” I said to Quinn, pointing to the people crawling near the building. He nodded and rematerialized at one side of the building, wh
ile I took the other, gathering as many humans as I could. We had just gotten the last two out of the way when the building gave a sickening rumble, a screech, and then it began to fall.

  The humans ran. There was no order, no sense to it, and the loud rumbling sounds in the distance indicated that this was not the only building to fall. Quinn and I exchanged a glance.

  “So this is it, huh? Beginning of the end, right?” he asked in a rough voice.

  I did not answer. He knew the answer as well as I did. This felt like the death throes of a dying planet, the last, gasping breaths of a world whose time had come to an end. Sirens wailed in the background, people screamed, and the undead came out of whatever hiding places they’d found from us, drawn to the newly-dead.

  There would be many, I realized, looking around us at the rubble that had once been a busy street.

  And that was when I heard the roar of engines overhead, saw the planes flying over the Netherwoods.

  Saw the bombs that dropped onto the burning palace where my friends now battled. Whatever protections Gaia had put on it still stood, against the human weapons, at least. I let out a breath I had not realized I’d been holding.

  “We can do nothing here. Nothing for them,” I said, nodding toward the humans. “But we can help end this the right way.”

  Quinn nodded, and reached his hand out. He shook my hand firmly. “It has been an absolute goddamn pleasure working with you, boss.”

  “Likewise, Quinn,” I said. The rest of my New Guardians arrayed themselves around me, and in the next instant, we were rematerializing into the inferno.

  Inside the Netherwoods was even worse than I had imagined it would be. Aside from the otherworldly flames leaping from the surrounding trees and from the windows of the palace, creatures I had not seen in thousands of years rampaged. What humans know as a “dragon” flew, screeching, overhead.

  “That explains the flames, I guess?” Quinn said, mouth agape, and I nodded. The earth rumbled beneath us, just as it had in the city, and a pair of enormous, dark shadows moved through the smoke and flames ahead of us.