Loki’s eyes heat, and his smile is full of promise as he replies simply, “Fair enough, I can’t argue with that.”
“Me neither,” Mayhem agrees.
The way that they’re both looking at me is not doing anything to help me calm my raging libido, and quite frankly, if they don’t stop, I’m going to insist that we go for round two. The only reason why Ihaven’t suggested that we do that already is that I am aware that the others are most likely aware of what we were doing, and I have no idea how they’re going to react.
I would like to think that they’re going to react the same way that they usually do with this sort of thing and are fine with it.
I stop my thought process where it is as we get to the bottom of the stairs. If I carry on, then I am absolutely going to freak out, and that’s not going to help anyone.
When we walk into the kitchen, I can’t help but smile at the sight in front of me. The guys are all spread out along the table that I could have sworn wasn’t that big when we first arrived. The book has gone, and I’m assuming that one of them, most likely Rival, put it in his bag to keep it safe for when we’ll actually be able to read it.
Actually, now that I think about it, I think the whole place is actually bigger than it was when we first arrived. I would say that’s impossible, but I think that almost everything could be considered impossible when it comes to this realm.
The house shouldn’t look like it does on the outside and then look like this, and be fully functional on the inside, and yet, here we are.
“Hey, guys,” Zev says with a smile that immediately puts me at ease. He gestures to the empty seats. “Have a seat, we managed to make a meat stew.”
“You say that like it was a struggle to find the ingredients,” Hades says as he pats the seat next to him for me and kisses my cheek when I take the seat.
“It wasn’t?” Mayhem asks, reaching for the ladle and dishing himself up some food.
Storm shakes his head, “Surprisingly not. I think that it’s reasonable to say that the house knows what we need and is able to provide us with it.”
“Agreed,” I mumble around a mouthful of food. “This is awesome.”
What can I say? I’m a lady.
The table falls silent as we all continue eating, and once we’re done, I’m more than ready for bed.
Before I can suggest that though, Storm reminds me that there is something else that we need to deal with first.
“Alright, we’re here, we’re safe, and we’re surprisingly comfortable,” Storm starts as he levels Aldrastos with a look. “So, fill us in on what we need to know about these pocket compounds.”
“First, there are only a handful of the pocket compounds left, and ours is the biggest. Most of the other ones have been taken over and absorbed by the criminals and dark souls that once occupied the punishment side of this realm.”
“Does the punishment side still exist?” Rival asks curiously.
Aldrastos nods, “Yes, although no one can get into it.”
“What do you mean?” Kill asks.
“It opened long enough to let almost everything out of it, and then the aeons-old magic kicked in and locked the whole place down, but it locked it down so well that nothing can get in or out, not even the guards, and legend has it that the King couldn’t get in either.”
“And it’s still closed? Even with the realm on the verge of extinction?” Khaos asks.
He nods, “Yes. Which, unfortunately, means that we can’t put anything back in it. Not that anyone has had the inclination to do sobecause everyone has been too busy trying to survive, and the pocket compounds keep us all relatively safe.”
“Why the frown?” Zev asks, with a knowing glint to his eye.
Aldrastos sighs, “Because I wouldn’t exactly call living in the compounds safe.”
Hades' eyebrows rise slightly. “I think it’s best that you start to explain exactly what you mean by that. We need as much information as we can possibly get to ensure that we can do what we came here to do and stop the realm from closing and the balance from being thrown off.”
Fuckers.
He nods and takes a moment to gather his thoughts before he says, “I’m not really sure where to start. I’m not exactly well-liked at the compound. I’m stronger than I should be, and I ask a lot of questions. Questions that no one wants to be asked, let alone answered. So I started poking around myself. I found out that the leaders of the compound have been bartering and meeting with the leaders of the Others. That’s what we called those who escaped from Peanasachadh, the punishment side. There is no reason for that conversation to be happening. No good reason anyway. Before I could look into it any further, I made the mistake of telling someone who I thought I could trust about the situation, and then I found myself in isolation.”
The way that he says isolation makes me think that actually, he wasn’t left alone at all. I would be willing to bet that he was tortured, although if he found out such sensitive information about them, and they were up to no good like he suspects they were, then it makes me wonder why they didn’t kill him.
