Chapter 17
Fólkvangr, Falls of the Dead – Thule
Pothos slipped into Gefn’s memories. Small blips at first, gaining detail as he moved through time.
He looked on as a small golden-haired Gefn, an angelic little cherub with a brilliant smile, toddled amidst little miniature tornados in a bright room of pink and gold. She rolled and grabbed at the two massive cats easily ten times her size. Her melodic giggles filled the room as a trio of beautiful females beamed down at her. Her priestesses. They were each unique in their beauty and coloring, just like Hroarr’s þrír. He watched as one massive beast lay down to allow the babe to get on its back for a ride. Velspar, the one who’d sat in front of him at the lake. He wasn’t sure where the knowledge came from, but it was there. He didn’t see her powerful Creator parents. Had they already left her world, even though she was so small? Fuck if the sight of her chubby arms didn’t give him thoughts of the tiny baby girls she might give him. His heart thudded against his chest at the idea of her swollen with his child. Their children would have parents. He would be as his father had been with him. He mentally smiled when he considered Hades as a grandfather. The God would be a nightmare with little baby granddaughters.
He was taken from those warm thoughts and thrown decades later. To image after image of death. Years of bloody battles with evil warring siblings. Her cats and priestesses at her side.
And then he was whipped into memories of all the mortal guards she’d befriended through the years. Some dying peacefully in their dreams while others lay in pools of blood on desolate battlefields. Their sightless eyes looked up at her when she slept at night, jolting her from rest. He was given the knowledge of every name, of every fucking life lost to her in a scrolling list of death.
Years passed.
Then he was with her as the ground shook violently, signaling the fact that her evil siblings had started systematically destroying Gods and priestesses to steal their power. Each one rocked Thule, forcing her and the other Gods to calm the tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes that destroyed more lives.
Another flash of time.
He saw Gefn working with Hroarr and Dagur on a confinement chamber for their evil Gods. Then he watched as the Goddess P had never seen with his own eyes, Kara, stepped into the room. The female’s icy gaze burned with tears as she handed over all the scrolls depicting the work of their most reclusive brother, Agnarr. He’d been devising his own prison plans before the male had been killed by Tyr.
Pothos realized his female knew a great deal more about a threat to their world than he and the Guardians knew about the one to Earth. He had a soul-deep feeling that the threats were one and the same. Some cosmic darkness set to descend.
Decades later.
The cats led her and her brothers to a world with special artifacts they needed to complete their God prisons. The desolate dark world had held magical bronze pieces that were the key to finishing the God prisons. The new discovery could allow them to siphon the power of a God into Thule itself. She left Hroarr and Dagur to work on the chambers, with hope after centuries with very little.
Another flash whirled him into a far deeper memory. So deep that he lived it through her eyes.
A furious roar rocked the polished stone of Gefn’s ivy-laden palace.
Instinct had her hands gripping the twin blades sheathed at her back before she knew what was happening. With a rush of power, she called air to sweep her in the direction of her powerful beasts. She came soaring to a halt beside the felines. Their pointed golden ears had flattened against their massive heads, and both heavily muscled animals stalked forward, fur rising as if ready to launch across the entire room of healing pools. Gefn’s gaze flew over the space, not seeing a thing out of place around the sacred waters, but it was silent.
Too silent under the charged air emanating from her mystical beasts. Both of their furious muzzles gaped wide, revealing razor-sharp teeth as they loosed another thunderous roar, sending waves from the depths of the pools.
Time stilled as her gaze flickered to the torchlit flesh of her three stunning priestesses stepping gracefully from the soothing liquid.
“What is it, Gefn?” Togn’s golden eyes flashed as they met Gefn’s. Grior and Skuld were beside her, with water slicking their nude bodies, all three shaded from light to dark. Power flickered over their palms as they readied to battle the invisible threat. The room was no longer filled with the usual mischievous laughter and playfulness of her family. Their tension radiated through the unique bond they’d shared with Gefn since her birth, and she knew they were feeling hers as well.
Gefn was denied the ability to answer as time stilled.
Everything happened in the same moment. Mortal servants scurried out the doors as her kilted guards streamed in, but Gefn’s eyes were caught on the glimmer of sharp glowing blades appearing out of the air directly at the throats of her females. The spelled metal arced in deadly synchronicity as killing slashes cleaved through bone and flesh, sending precious Immortal lifeblood into the crystal pools. The act stole the air from Gefn’s lungs as her females’ bond was torn from her. The grotesque absence nearly forced her to her knees as she gazed helplessly at the only real family she’d ever had. Their jewel-colored eyes dimmed to sightlessness. Horror and agony choked her as their broken bodies spilled into the waters.
A wild cry of rage and pain split her lips as her fingers tightened on the hilts of her glowing blue blades.
Her cats’ fury blasted inside the last and only bond she would ever have. It felt as if a piece of her had been pulled beneath the surface to drown in the bloody waters. As their Goddess, she should have protected them.
She couldn’t even hear the water closing over their lifeless bodies through the pounding of desperate pain and anger thudding in her head.
The beasts roared in renewed fury as she fought through the searing agony tearing at her spirit.
“Greetings, sister.” Tyr, the most evil of her siblings, stalked out of the air with two other Gods. His pale hair fell over sickly cloud-colored skin while half obscuring violent black eyes. The orbs were lit with the same triumph that curled all their lips.
Tyr would soon strike like the poisonous serpent he’d become. They should not have been able to slither through her wards and spells to gain access anywhere near this inner sanctum.
To those closest to her heart.
The three monsters before her had too much power. Tainted strength stolen from the Gods and Immortals they had killed over the past decades.
Her guards rushed to attack, but with the flick of her wrist she sent their bodies tumbling in the winds and out the doors. It was a fight her warriors would not have won, and she refused to see more innocent blood spilled. The second they were through the doorway, she slammed the heavy wood shut, locking her and the cats inside to battle.
Spa and Velspar snarled before rending another ground-shaking roar through the palace. The now crimson waters of the sacred pool spilled over the edges into the path of her brothers as they stalked forward.
She instantly built more power from within, but the blow to her heart, her soul… left her weaker than she should be. A weakness Tyr had obviously counted on.
“Now, I cannot wait to take your beasts’ lives and feel their power in my veins.” Tyr’s sneered threat was filled with covetous hate. His soulless eyes were half directed on her cats. All the Gods had watched and feared the mystical creatures, and the Deities before her were about to feel the full fury of their power. The air in the room crackled with it.
“You will never have their power. Or mine.” Her words were as icy as the steel of her blades.
As much as she detested her choices, opening a portal was her one wise course of action, but using that power took a toll, and she had only just used it returning home with her cats from her brother’s palace. Had the monsters before her been watching and planning this during her absence? How long had they been hiding so easily in her sanctum?
Tyr’s advance stilled for one brief moment as he seemed to take in all the energy in the room. She held her blades at her sides, anticipating an attack.
“So sure of your ability, sister? I’m surprised you have the strength to fight after your females were so easily slaughtered. The scent of their blood fills the air.” He was taunting her, she was aware of his tactic, but that knowledge did little to ease the sick pang in her stomach.
She sucked in a breath, ignoring the metallic scent. Refusing to allow him to split her focus. She would not be so easily taken. She felt power rush through the bond she held with her beasts, strengthening her just as Tyr loosed corrupted flames through the steel of his sword. Spinning, she met them with a blast of icy wind through her own blades. With a breath she stole the air from his burst of flames while watching her icy shots strike his chest with a force of lightning unlike anything she’d ever wielded. His furious roar told her that he hadn’t expected the sheer strength of power she’d unleashed.
Spa and Velspar leapt from the steps with deadly grace and accuracy, counteracting the two remaining Gods’ fetid powers. Shrieks of fury filled the space, shaking the walls and painted ceiling above. Stone crashed around them, sending the violent bloody waters spewing into the air as dirt and rock erupted beneath the ground. The Gods attacking her beasts stood little chance against their might. It mattered little how much power her tainted siblings had stolen from those they had killed.
She couldn’t watch the felines, she had to remain alert to Tyr, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t conscious of their every move as she dodged more fire and the crashing remnants of her once sacred room. The beasts were all that were left to her, and she refused to lose them too.
Retreat was the wisest course, but she could not force herself to leave her family to Tyr. To what he could do with the last shreds of light held within the shells of their bodies.
Sickness and fury fought inside her at the thought of him touching her priestesses’ essence. Their bodies were becoming entombed in the rubble that was crashing into the water, but she could still see the bronzed skin of Togn beneath the bloody waves. The sight was a painful reminder of her failure in protecting those who were closest to her.
She exchanged more power and blows with Tyr and knew she wouldn’t be able to do it all. Not retrieve the bodies and open a portal while fighting Tyr and keeping her beasts with her.
She felt the evil God’s blasts strengthening with each surge of flames, and she fought harder. The dark glint in his eyes indicated how much he was enjoying this.
Her choices were few. If she managed to get to Hroarr’s palace with Spa and Velspar, would he even still be there? She’d only just left. If he wasn’t able to portal back right away, Tyr and the others would surely destroy her warriors with the same brutality they’d used against Togn, Grior and Skuld.
More death.
More suffering.
Would it never end?
“You should have chosen my side instead of Hroarr’s, sister. If you agree to ally with me now, in this moment, I may be generous enough to allow you to live.” Gefn wanted nothing more than to cut the sneer off his lips.
Instead, she taunted, “You are but a pitiful image of your former self, Tyr, and even now you are weak. You could not hope to take me, much less Hroarr.”
The moment the air charged, Gefn braced for another attack.
Instead, furious power blasted the heavy doors from the outside. Wood splintered and shot into the destroyed room as Hroarr’s massive body stepped through. His enraged power flooded the space, and she felt portals opening in the room. The other Gods retreating.
Tyr wasn’t so fortunate as to escape her brother’s wrath. Hroarr had the evil God in his clutches within the blink of an eye, and relief filled her. Legions of Hroarr’s battle-armored warriors came in at his back as Hroarr wrapped power around her evil brother, choking the male in his fury as flames started at Tyr’s feet. His agonized shrieks rending the air was music to her ears.
Pothos was thrown into more memories while he was still furious and shaking at the last.
Gefn, Dagur, Kara and Hroarr used power to lock away their siblings into spherical cylinders of bronze metal etched with glowing runes. The spells held so much power he felt the way it filtered into the dirt and stone of the underground temple. With it came the knowledge that all four Gods infused a fraction of themselves into securing and powering the prisons. He also possessed the knowledge that there were four such prisons scattered to the four points of their world.
The next flash took him into her mind when she saw him for the first time. It was like a gut punch feeling her lust for him after seeing all the darkness of her life.
Then he was thrust into her memories of coming to his world, and the lust of before was replaced with the harsh agony of betrayal when she learned her cats had held the power to open a portal and then to paralyze powerful beings. It had come with the heartrending knowledge that they could have saved Togn, Skuld and Grior. Anger beat at his skull.
It was like mental whiplash when he was brought into her memories of their first time having sex. Fucking hell, he wouldn’t survive any more memories of pain and then blinding pleasure. Of guilt and pain before being slammed with lust.
Her beasts’ betrayal had hurt, yet she still trusted them when it came to Pothos. His female had been lonely. She had only her cats, Laire and her siblings. Two of which she wasn’t all that close to. Laire, though. He was her friend. Another warrior she’d have to watch die. Fuck that. Pothos would find that male an Immortal mate if it killed him. That warrior would live for fucking ever.
He was finally jolted awake in time to breathe her in, his hands shaking from the roller coaster from hell. He gripped her too damned tight, but was having trouble letting go. He felt her soft hands on his chest, her lips on his heated flesh, making him groan.
“Are you okay?” he asked, mentally scanning their surroundings. They were alone.
He was unsure of what she would have seen in his memories. It couldn’t have been good, but hers had definitely been bleak.
“Yes,” she said, but he could feel that she was just as emotionally drained.
“I’m going to try to teleport us out of here,” he said and felt her nod.
He used power, breaking them into pieces until they were combined in the erotic torture. He felt the barrier, but she didn’t bounce off it this time. She pushed through with him, and he could feel her relief mix with his own.
And then they were streaming through air, heading home.
To his home. His bed.