CHAPTER SIX
My pack instantly fans out around me.
The elves will be able to use their panther senses to detect the oncoming threat, and Lucian and Jonah quickly respond in kind.
Strife was directly in front of me and he steps to my left as the tangle of their arms unfolds.
Riot and Rumble move farther left of Strife while Anarchy and Lucian spread out on my right with Jonah beside Lucian. They all form a protective boundary around me while giving me a full view of our surroundings.
Ahead of me, within the cave, four men prowl toward us.
Well,menmight not be an entirely accurate description.
Despite myself, I shrink back a little at the sight of them.
They’re all at least seven feet tall, each one naked from the waist up, wearing only black pants. Long claws extend from their fingertips, not smooth like mine, but jagged. Their eyes are fiery red and full of what appears to be literal fire, and their chests are crisscrossed with streams of lava.
They’re a little reminiscent of Jonah’s full jotunn form, except that these men have the teeth of beasts and the faces of hounds.
I once saw a picture of a statue of an ancient Egyptian god in one of the books my jailor had brought me while I was imprisoned. It had the body of a man and the head of a jackal.
These men look a hell of a lot like that.
Their eyes burn across me, their growls sounding beneath the shrieking wind as they come to a stop twenty paces away, each one with muscles coiled as if they’re preparing to strike.
I brace for an attack, taking deep breaths and reminding myself that my pack and I have faced dragon shifters together. I’m certain that we can bring down these hounds if we need to.
Then, another figure rushes toward us from the darkness of the long tunnel.
The central two men step aside to let the newcomer through.
I recognize Hel, the Goddess of Death and the Underworld, hurrying toward us. Or, as she prefers to be called,Halle Vanguard. She is the sister of James Vanguard. Both of them used to be generals in my father’s army.
That is, until my father betrayed my mother.
One half of Halle’s face and body is blackened and charred, reminiscent of the black bones I exposed when I first fought her. Her eye on that side is gleaming red, a darker crimson than the eyes of the hellhounds.
Her clothing is split right down the middle, black leather on her charred side—or, as I like to think of it, herdeadside. On her other side, she wears the overly sweet face of an auburn-haired pixie with bright-green eyes and fairy-like features topped off with freckles across that half of her petite nose.
Like Emil, she can change her appearance at will, and she does so now, shifting out of her half-dead-half-pixie form and becoming a regal sight in a pantsuit of deep red with impossibly high heels.
Flowing, brunette hair appears, piled on top of her head and cascading down her sides. Her skin takes on a light-brown huewhile her cheekbones round out softly and her eyes become a deep, dark chocolate.
Trust me, her expression says.
“Veda!” she cries. “You survived!”
She looks almost happy to see me.
Before I went to the church to stealThe Book of Dark Magic, I’d had an unpleasant encounter with Halle. She’d claimed to have been my mother’s ally, but I’m still not entirely sure how much I believe of her story about the days before my pregnant mother was imprisoned.
She told me that if I survived stealing the book, I should come and find her because there is much we need to talk about.
I’m unsettled that Emil acted on Halle’s invitation—especially given that I might not have.
Now, she’s racing toward me, her arms outstretched as if I’m her long-lost daughter, an expression of pure joy on her regal face.
I have to remind myself that she isn’t my friend.
