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Medusa hissed, spinning into an upright position.
I couldn’t move to see him, but my skin crawled with familiar hate.
“Faces I’m sick of seeing,” the deity added. “You’re no better than rock roaches. They can survive anything.” He chuckled to himself.
“I’m going to rip your face off your skull,” Medusa seethed.
“How violent of you,” he retorted. “And how utterly pointless. I’ll only live to see another day.”
My friend hissed again, her ember scales rippling. She put herself between us, a protective wall while I lay out of action.
“Why is our favorite elf in the water?”
He sounded nervous.
“Leave,” Medusa warned.
He perked up again, ignoring her. “How did you like my contingency plan, Silvanus?”
He got no answer from me, but Medusa gave him her most disgusted hiss yet.
Thunder boomed closer than before, a loud reminder of the approaching storm.
“Blaming you for everything is perfection,” he said. “I’m not sure why it took me so long to implement it.” A chuckle. “And what about my other one? Did you enjoy thinking Paris wanted the alpha wolf? Did it churn you up inside? Did it turn you on? You tell me. But you should also be thanking me for giving Paris the little push he needed to make his declaration. We all have our buttons and I understood his. Now he just needs to stab you.” He frowned in the direction of the river. “I’m missing something key here. Oh, well. Let’s remove a player from the board.”
“Gun!” Medusa cried, surging forward.
The weapon fired, the crack deafening. A wave of fury forced my limbs to twitch, bringing strength with it.
“I’ll tear you apart, snake!” Aidan wailed.
With a roar, I pushed through the grief and jumped to my feet. The sudden change in position sent dizziness into my skull, but I remained on my feet.
Golden eyes met mine, Medusa was there, with a gun pointed at his head.
The deity snarled at me. “You will not win this. I will be free of the bond shackling me to the elf. I did not endure in that tower to fail now. I endured to win, to be the one and only. You will see.”
Another death arrived in the Heart of All.
Medusa cocked the gun. “All I see is a wanker.”
His eyes darted to the elf. “What…” Something like genuine surprise twisted his features.
I couldn’t help but look back, annoyed at myself for falling for his games yet again. But that surprise turned out to be genuine, because something moved beneath Paris’s skin, making his cheeks bulge and his chest writhe, as if a bag of worms were desperate to break free.
“Paris?” I called to him, another mighty peal of thunder punctuating the moment.
“I must leave,” Aidan whispered. “I must leave before—”
A hand tore out of Paris’s chest in a spray of blood.
I threw myself into the river, abject panic breaking any self-control I had left.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Paris
My headache came stomping back, finally loosening my tongue. “Welcome…home? Seraphim?”
