The Last Hunter: Collected Edition (Antarktos Saga #1-5)

Nephil reaches out, struggling to leave the confines of Ninnis’s body. One by one, we shout in pain, feeling his dark touch. But Nephil finds a united front and a cage of unwilling hosts.

And then, we arrive. We drop through the cavern’s ceiling. It takes a supreme effort to slow us before we strike the ground, but I manage. Nephil realizes where we are before the others do and he explodes with fury, screaming, “No!” through Ninnis.

The darkness swirls out of Ninnis, striking Kainda, Kat, Mira and Em away. They sprawl across the cavern floor.

The tentacles quickly fade again, reeled in by Ninnis. “Quickly, Solomon!” He looks over his shoulder to the gates of Tartarus, which oddly enough, already lie open.

I throw his arm around my shoulder and we hobble together toward the gates. As we walk, Ninnis speaks through grinding teeth. “Solomon. I cannot thank you enough. You have saved me.”

“And now you, us,” I say. “We’re even.”

“Not remotely,” he says, grunting in pain. “My daughter. You will care for her?”

“She is my wife,” I tell him, and he manages a pain-filled laugh. He places his forehead against mine and whispers, “Son.”

Despite all of the horrible things Ninnis has done, all of the people he has killed and the anguish he has caused, I find it in my heart to forgive him again. “Father,” I whisper.

He barks loudly, and I can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a sob, but it transforms into a shout of pain. “Gah!”

I’m thrown away by a curtain of black.

Nephil has taken control again. He turns to face me, just a foot away from the gaping blackness of the open gate.

I catch myself with a cushion of air.

Ninnis’s eyes appear for a moment, filled with concern, not for entering the gate, but that Nephil might yet escape.

I summon a wind, throwing it at Ninnis. Black tendrils shoot out, embedding themselves in the floor. Hurricane force winds slam into Nephil, but he resists, rooted like some ancient tree. He’s shouting at me, but his words are lost in the wind.

Unfortunately, Nephil is fueled by rage, anger and hatred. Exhausted from the battle, and our journey through the center of the Earth that would boggle Jules Verne, I am growing weaker. Fast.

I fall to my knees, urging the wind to grow stronger, but I can feel its force ebbing along with my reserves. On my hands and knees, I can now hear Nephil laughing, fully possessing Ninnis once more. I turn my head up and look at him. I’m sickened by his smile, by the look of victory in his eyes.

So close, I think, we were so close.

Tears roll down my cheeks.

The world is lost. Nephil has w—

A pair of arms slip out of the darkness behind Nephil. They’re human, but strong. Before Nephil can react, the arms wrap around Ninnis’s throat and lock together in a perfect chokehold. The black tendrils flare wildly, but they cannot assail their attacker. To do so would mean passing through the gate!

The darkness grips the cavern floor like an angry squid, but while Nephil is spirit, Ninnis is human, and his beet-red face, now turning purple reveals a desperate need for oxygen. As Ninnis’s eyes flutter, the tendrils lose their power and one by one, they slide free from the rock.

Then, all at once, Ninnis falls back and is yanked through the gates of Tartarus, taking Nephil with him.

I sit up, staring at the gates, unbelieving. That’s it? We’ve won?

I look around, finding Em, Kainda, Mira and Kat, all climbing back to their feet, staring at the gate with the same look of disbelief frozen on their faces.

Em looks at me and laughs.

A smile creeps onto my face despite the pain waging a war on my body.

“We did it...” Mira says, sounding relieved.

When I turn to Kainda, I’m surprised to find tears in her eyes. Then I remember that it was Ninnis, her father, who ultimately saved us. Returned to his true self, he became the man I always knew he was, and probably the man that Kainda always wanted him to be.

It’s Kat’s reaction that really catches me off guard. She walks toward the open gates. Then she runs.

“Kat!” I shout to her. She doesn’t know what lies on the other side. She doesn’t—

She shouts, and I flinch at the word. “Steve!” She shouts again, desperate. “Steve!”

Just as she’s about to dive through the gates, the arms emerge again, and then the body they belong to. Kat shouts her husband’s name again and dives into his arms, nearly tackling them both back through the gates.

“Wright!” I shout, and I’m on my feet and running. When I reach the pair, I wrap my arms around them both. “You’re alive!”

He laughs and pats my shoulder. “I’m not easy to kill.”

“But the hunters,” I say, remembering the dire situation we left him in.

“Were only interested in you,” he says. “They left me to die, but I found my way here, to the gates.”

“But how did you open them?” I ask.

“I didn’t,” he says.

“I did,” says a booming voice from above. Cronus drops through the hole in the ceiling, his wings unfurling to stop his fall.