My hands and face are clammy, my stomach fluttering with disgust, with defeat. I’m running out of strength, of the rage that fuels me, andI’m so, so tired. I wait for my life to flash before my eyes, dozens of homes and deaths, Kelt’s warm hands and Eli’s rough caress. I wait for the crack of my neck, my last breath. But he only holds me, a tear building momentum on his cheek.
“This is why I must pit the Half Links against each other, let them do the killing. The connection to life is too strong for me. I only take one when I have to.” He laughs softly, hugging me close to his chest. “Would you expect anything less from the god of love?”
And with that, he sets me down in the dirt and pushes back against the wall, kneeling as though he’s not a god at all, eyes drawn with regret. But they harden. Then tear away from me. “Dig,” he yells.
For a moment, I believe he wants me to dig my grave before he ends me, but it’s much worse. He yanks a chain hanging above him. I watch with my mouth agape as it triggers twelve other chains to rise, lifting cage doors. The creatures don’t hesitate. They bend their bodies and slide under the rising metal before the doors fully open. And head straight for me.
“Get back!” I squish my father’s eyeball in my fist and holler, not quite ready to have my limbs sheared off by their sharp claws. They dive into a digging frenzy, tossing loose earth behind them. Saliva flings from their mouths with each jerking motion. Drops splatter on my arms, and my skin sizzles. I scurry back and back, away from the shoveling creatures and the flying dirt… and into Zandrite.
Hysteria gets the better of me. “Please. Let me go.”
“You brought this on yourself.” He strokes my cheek from behind, then my neck, the hair on the back of his fingers tickling my skin. “Letting the Centress take your memories to get your essence was your best option. She was the only Vaile in the realm with that gift, but you drained her of it. Now, your only choice is death.”
Not simply drained. I stole it. With no idea it would stay inside me, throwing off my balance and hurting Eli.
The pile of dirt surrounding the developing hole grows taller and wider. “Don’t worry,” he says, “Your essence won’t be wasted.”
I hold back the tears at his touch, reaching within for any way to stay alive. To see Eli again. To see Kelter. To escape. I come up empty except for hollow words that risk everything, masked in coyness. “I’m sure I could make it worth keeping me alive a while longer.”
“Is that so?” His hand continues down, passing between my breasts and landing on my lower belly—nothing fatherly about it anymore. “It’s been a long time since I’ve benefitted from the urges that come with maturation. It’s not the same as the ravenous Half Links, all mindless and physical. But you, a demigod about to fully mature and link, you’re as open-hearted and turned on as they come. You crave connection. You literally need to fuck to stay alive.”
Still kneeling, he pulls my back tight against his chest, his arm holding me against him, his length pressing against my back. I bite my lip, suppressing every curse word I know from flying out of my mouth while forming a needy tone on my tongue. “Please. I won’t last much longer.”
His free hand yanks my head back so he can speak into my ear, puffing his nasty breath over the side of my face. “Who better than the god of love to save the god of death’s daughter with a long, sensuous fuck before she’s killed? It’s perfect.”
I stroke the hairs on his arm as I stow the eyeball away in my pocket—my bra seems a tad inappropriate. “At least I’ll die satisfied.”
He moans, dropping his arm from my belly to slide his hand between my legs, and I make my move. I turn around and kneel in front of him. He pants into my face. I hold my breath to keep from passing out and put a hand on his thigh. And another. His leg hairs poke through the fabric and prick my palms. I glide one hand up and up and shift the other to the side, near a pocket. He closes his eyes and rests his head on the wall.
My soul sours. But I have one chance. One damn chance. I lean into him. “Take it out. I want a god-sized cock inside me before I die.”
Instantly he fumbles with his pants, trying to free himself, oblivious to everything else. I slip my hand in his side pocket, disguising the motion as a caress of his leg, and pull out my necklace by the chain. His length now exposed and much too close to my face, he grabs the back of my neck and pulls down. Toward his cock. And a frightful amount of hair.
Nope. I try once more to shove every bit of darkness and pain out toward my fingers as I grip his thigh tight. I beg—not the gods or any other power I can’t understand, I beg myself—to take control, to choose, to fight to live another moment, another day. What’s the point of having magic if I only succeed at hurting those I care about?
I carve out a reality where I’m strong and brave and decide my own fate, then I force myself to believe it, to believe in myself. And I see it. A grimace forms on his face. It twists into flawless agony. His body glows white as the pain consumes him.
Finally.“Not even to save my life, you old fuck. And my man would have his knife speared through your hairy golden god balls so fast you’d wish he’d stabbed you in the heart.”
He pulls away, spending only a moment in shock, gasping for breath, then lifts me into the air and chucks me into the freshly dug pit.
Chapter 31
EVER
I’m sure I’ll break on impact, that my bones must be as weak as my unfed muscles. The fall lasts longer than it should, the mere seconds slowing to a torturous crawl. Too much time to think about the awaiting pain, to fear the unknown.
I remind myself it’s always worse in my head than reality, but they’re on the verge of a tie right now.
I land stomach-first on the back of one of Zandrite’s tunnel runners, flattening my lungs. I forfeit all my air. It squeals and bucks me off. I fall to the moist dirt, black claws gouging the ground all around me. Their vicious movements shear off layers of skin. Horns jab me in the ribs. I distance myself from my body, leaving pain beyond reach, beyond recognition.
I’m fine.
I watch patches of flesh peel from me like stickers, revealing a beautiful, raw red below. Blood is so familiar to me that it’s calming. But it shouldn’t be. I cover my face. A knee clobbers my stomach, and I fold into myself with a rolling groan, pulling a vision over reality.
The tunnel runners sniff my body, cold, wet noses nudging roughly against me. Then wet licks that burn through layers of skin. I scream in agony, but not for long. Their merciless tongues scrape over my cheeks. My neck. My chest. Until my skin is charred black, so many layers deep that not a sound comes out. So deep my heart burns to a crisp, its final beat no more than a smoky puff.
A bony blow to my chest pounds the vision from my mind. I return to finely textured dirt, to harsh grunts and a stench of filth so strong that I gag until my ears pop. A nose prods at my pocket, aslobbery mouth chomping until it finds what it wants. The tunnel runner holds my father’s eyeball in its mouth, and I swear it smiles before it bites down on the slippery sphere. Blood spurts. Then it chews. And swallows.
