Green magic exploded, lighting up the entire room, and Harley and I had to avert our eyes to keep from being blinded.
If Harley or I killed Apollyon, would we also die? Is that what he just said? Knowing that Apollyon had built in a cursed kill switch made me sick.
Okay, it was time to get out of here. We’d seen enough. I wasn’t sure either of us could handle any more information.
I pulled for my power and opened a portal back to the Lumen Academy prison level where we’d left the life book. I spotted Drea right away, pacing in front of Harley’s and my comatose bodies. We were standing there like zombies, staring at the book. Drea’s eyes went wide as she waved her hand in front of our expressionless faces.
I stumbled through the portal and my soul knocked into my body. Harley followed. Reunited with myself, I snapped the book shut and shook my head. It was always a little disorienting re-merging my soul and body after a trip into the life book.
Drea sighed in visible relief. “Are you okay?” she asked. “I was worried sick. If you hadn’t told me about that weird book I would have called the healers.”
I nodded, and Drea pulled me in for a hug. Giving her a good squeeze, I leaned back with a smile. “We’re fine.” I looked over my shoulder at my sister. “Harley, this is my bestie Dre—”
My sister had opened a portal to her apartment in LA and already had one foot inside of it.
When she turned to look at me, tears streaked down her face. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
She took another step, closed the portal behind her and was gone.
CHAPTERNINE
The next two weeks slipped by quickly, too quickly, and suddenly it was the day of the full moon. Dash had fully healed, as Skye said he would, and we’d returned Apollyon’s life book back to the Hall of Angelic Records. The Shades never did end up retaliating for Arthur’s death, and things had fallen back to normal… until today.
Today was the day my boyfriend would be forced into his hellhound form and sucked into a portal to the Netherworld.
Aurelia had done everything she could over the last couple of weeks to try to find a relic that would stop his shifting or break the hold Apollyon now had over him, but she and the Lumens working on it had come up empty.
We knew frustratingly little about hellhounds. Gage could only remember snippets of his last full moon, and the things he did remember were brutal and bloody. From piecing together what we did know from Dash, my mother, and Gage’s fractured memories, it seemed like on the full moon hellhounds battled for dominance in the Netherworld, being forced by instinct to seek out and attack each other. Who even knew how many times Gage had come close to losing his life during the last full moon? That thought terrified me.
Even though Apollyon had complete control over Gage, he’d not forced him to shift since the night of our date. I was on pins and needles constantly waiting for Gage to transform and attack someone. Gage was too afraid to be alone with me, and I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. It’s like my father was messing with me, making it seem all normal until he took him tonight.
The closer we’d gotten to the day of the full moon, the more desperate I became. I’d even suggested sedating Gage so we could keep him locked somewhere for the day, but Dash informed me that wouldn’t stop him from getting pulled to the Netherworld, and then he’d be completely defenseless.
On top of everything, I hadn’t heard from Harley since she portaled back to LA, and so I’d come to terms with the fact that I’d have to take on Apollyon without her. I tried to convince myself I still had a chance against the powerful fallen angel, but Skye’s premonition kept floating through my head, telling me I couldn’t defeat him without my sister’s help.
The sun had just set. I paced back and forth in the courtyard, just waiting for it all to go down. Gage was leaning against the wall of the sanctuary, looking deceptively calm as he watched me freak out, but I knew him well enough now to recognize when he was putting up a front. With Gage, the quieter he got, the more he was stuffing emotions deep down inside of him. Something I’m sure he’d learned growing up with Arthur as a father.
So yeah, life was rough right now and I was at my breaking point. My emotions frayed a little more every hour that ticked by.
“Are you sure you don’t want to take some weapons with you?” I asked for at least the third time.
Gage shook his head. “You know it won’t do me any good. They’ll just fall off when I shift.”
“But your hands are more claws than paws as a hellhound, so you could probably still hold a weapon,” I argued. There was no such thing as being overly armed for a battle.
Gage pushed off the wall and closed the distance between us. He grabbed me gently by the upper arms to stop my pacing and turned me toward him. “You know I won’t need any extra weapons,” he said. “I’llbea weapon.”
I dropped my face in my shaking hands. “I know,” I said. “It’s just that… there has to be something we can do. This isn’t fair.”
My throat tightened and I couldn’t get another word out. Gage tugged me forward and I fell into his embrace. Enfolded in his arms, he smoothed a palm up and down my back.
He shouldn’t be comforting me.Ishould be comfortinghim.
I shimmied my arms out from between us and wrapped them around his neck, pressing my face into the space between his chin and chest. I took in a lungful of air, breathing in Gage’s cedar and spice scent, committing it and the way it felt to be in his arms to memory.
“We’re going to get through this, Tate. We’ve been through too much to let a little hiccup like me being a hellhound that’s controlled by your psycho father keep us apart.”
A half-laugh forced its way out of me. “Yeah, that’s such a minor detail I don’t even think it’s worth mentioning,” I joked with him.
