Rast glances back at us, his expression grim. “Those are the names of two of the leaders of our compound.”
“You were right,” Ricollio says, his chest rattling. “I’m so sorry.”
Rast looks surprised, but nods, “Thank you. I am sorry too.”
Well, that confirms my distrust was valid, although apparently the soldiers that they send out have no idea.
“Can we heal him?” I ask.
Rast shakes his head. “He’s too far gone, and he has been poisoned too. No supernatural could survive this.”
“His soul is too damaged. I don’t know what they’ve done to him, but even if we were to heal him, it wouldn’t help. He would be in constant pain, and not normal pain either. It would be soul-deep aching pain. He would slowly go insane from it,” Mayhem says, his voice quiet and steady.
He didn’t touch him. He’s not even near him, and I didn’t feel a spike in his magic. Which means this is his very base level of power. It means that he’s always been able to do this, but simply hasn’t mentioned it before, or at least not in front of me.
Hades gapes. “That’s incredible.” Realisation crashes over his expression and presses his lips into a hard line.
You best fucking believe I’m questioning him about that as soon as fucking possible.
“End it,” Ricollio rasps. “Please.”
“Very well,” Rast says simply as his expression shuts down completely.
He draws his sword.
“One of us can do it,” Hades offers immediately.
They may not have gotten on very well, but that doesn’t mean that Rast wants to kill him, and killing someone in a battle or fight where they are trying to kill you is a whole lot different than killing someone who is already down and that you know.
Rast hesitates for half a second and then shakes his head, “No. I will do it. He asked me, and he knows me, and I owe it to him to do this.”
“Thank you,” Ricollio says with such heartfelt relief that I know that Rast is doing the right thing.
Rast nods once and then moves quicker than the eye can see. Ricollio would have felt nothing.
“I can use some of my hellfire, so that no one else comes across his body,” Hades offers as he moves to stand next to Rast.
Rast bows his head and then nods once, taking a step back.
I don’t think. I just follow my instincts.
As Rast turns back to look at us to allow Hades to do his thing, I step in front of him and look up at him. For a brief, heartbreaking moment, his guard is completely down, and that’s enough for me.
I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him tightly.
Wow, he’s even bigger than I thought. My arms don’t even nearly wrap around him, and my head is probably only at his nipple height, if that.
He doesn’t move. I don’t even think that he breathes as he completely freezes.
Usually, I would immediately let go and back off, but something tells me to stay where I am.
“Wait,”a voice whispers on the wind.
That’s got to be the realm.
It’s not one of my guys who said it. I know what they sound like, and it didn’t sound like any of them, so it has to be the realm.
If it can talk to me in actual words now, that’s actually really helpful.
