Max met Illarion’s gaze and knew the secret the two of them had shared for five thousand years. They weren’t just bound by their mother’s blood. They’d been bound by one prince’s and pantheon’s savage cruelty.
Blaise cleared his throat. “You know… having been raised around the queen bitch of the fey folk and watching the nasty shit she’s pulled on everyone. The backstabbing. The lies. Half-truths, et cetera, I just have to ask one simple question… Has anyone bothered to find out what this spell will actually do once it’s cast?”
Max laughed bitterly. “I have a really good idea since they have Hadyn’s Emerald Tablet.”
Blaise’s eyes bugged at the mention of that. “Combine that with what you guard —”
And your heart, Illarion finished.
“Bishhhh!” Blaise made the sound of an explosion as he flung his hands out.
Seraphina scowled. “I don’t quite understand what you’re saying.”
Max locked gazes with her. “They’re not just planning on destroying this Stryker. They’re planning on releasing the Destroyer, reuniting the gods of Chaos, and reestablishing the old order.”
Blaise nodded. “If they succeed in this, honey, it ain’t just your kids they’ll kill. It’s every creature who has an ounce of light energy in them.”
Illarion let out a silent sigh. Which means all of us and everyone we love, and a few we’re not that fond of, either.
5
“You fed the children to your demons while we were gone? Have you lost your mind?” Completely slack-jawed, Nala stood in the center of the dimly lit room, staring at Kessar. While the red-eyed demon towered over her, she refused to be intimidated by him. Especially right now when she was so furious.
He had fed the children to his demons. She just kept repeating that over and over in her mind, because she couldn’t believe he’d do something so dumb the five minutes she’d left him alone.
This matter was far more serious than he could guess. One didn’t just lightly go for Seraphina’s throat.
One only did so with a huge army.
And he was shy a few thousand demons.
He scoffed at her anger. “You would do well to choose another tone, lest I add you to our menu. Remember, but for my good will, you’d still be collecting bird shit out in an open field where your gods left you to rot.”
“And you’ll find yourself in the middle of a massive shit storm when Seraphina learns of this! She’ll never lead you to her mate now. You can forget ever finding him.”
“She won’t have to. Once we control her spawn, they’ll be able to sniff out their sperm donor for us. It’s a much easier and quicker solution than yours.” A slow, evil smirk twisted his lips. “Besides, she hasn’t returned. I’m thinking she’s already betrayed us.”
Nala struggled not to roll her eyes at the bastard, but given what he’d done to the last member of her tribe who’d made that mistake, she didn’t want to test the demon’s patience. While she might be basilinna and a fierce warrior in her own right, she was no match for the ancient demon and his terrifying skills. And that only pissed her off more.
She and her tribe had once made the gods themselves flee in terror. But the gallu were another entity entirely. And they’d been birthed for no other purpose than to end pantheons and shatter the gods.
Which made them extremely lethal, even to the Scythian Amazons. The only member of her tribe who could stand against them was Seraphina. No one was quite sure why. While Seraphina had always been extremely skilled, something had happened after she’d mated to her dragon that had kicked her abilities up to an entirely new level.
Since then…
It was why Zeus had frozen them in stone. That had been the only way to stop them from defeating the Greek gods they’d fought against.
“My lord?”
They both turned to see Kessar’s second-in-command, Namtar, approaching with a nervousness that didn’t bode well.
Especially not for Namtar. Grateful to get Kessar’s ire off her, Nala let out a relieved breath at the demon’s timing.
Bowing to Kessar, he gulped audibly as a bead of sweat rolled down his dark caramel skin. It was obvious he’d rather be anywhere else in the world than right here, right now.
He cleared his throat and finally spoke to Kessar. “We have a slight problem, my lord.”
The expression on Kessar’s face was one of barely restrained murder. “How so?”
“The children…”
“Turned gallu.”
Namtar shook his head slowly. “No, my lord. They appear to be immune to gallu bites.”
Nala wasn’t sure which of them was the most stunned by that disclosure. “Pardon?” she gasped before she could think better of it.
Namtar cut his handsome gaze in her direction. “They are not completely Greek. Nor can they be completely vrykolakas-kynigos. They appear to be something else. We’re not sure what.”
Now there was a word she hadn’t heard in a long time. It was the original term for her species that the Greeks had used.