The guys are betting that I can rescue them.
She turns, searching for me. I’m so close to her now that I can look up at her searching for me, her gaze sweeping the grass beyond me.
Van throws the spear at her, and she knocks it aside, the movement almost desultory.
“When you see my sister in hell, make sure she knows I sent her there,” she calls.
“Tell her yourself,” he says, just as she blasts him with her strange magic.
Just as I explode up.
Van throws me his sword, and I catch the hilt. I slice out with it, focused solely on the box.
The blade crashes through the metal box, fragmenting it into a thousand shards that seem to rain in slow motion across the grass.
The woman screams.
The next second, my men are all standing where they fell. They keep moving, still trying to fight, only to realize suddenly that they’re back in their bodies.
“What happened?” Reid asks.
“Izzy saved us,” Wilder says, right before he catches me around the waist and pulls me in close for a deep kiss.
Chapter Thirty-One
Van
“Save that for later!” I shout.
The strange woman might have been staring in shock, but her shock wouldn’t last long. And then there were the damn godslayers to deal with. They might have let her do all the dirty work before, but the second we escape, everything seems to change.
They don’t look nearly as cocky.
“Come on, Man Bun,” I say to Trevor, mocking his little golden ball of fur at the back of his head.
The godslayer’s eyes narrow, and he draws his own weapon as I call my sword back to my hand. “This ends today, god.”
“Yes, it does.”
The woman beside him says, “No,” so quietly I almost don’t hear her.
We’re all facing them now, ready for battle.
“No, what?” I say.
“We can’t take them all on now,” she tells Trevor more than me.
“We have to,” Trevor says. “I want to get back to my old life! To my friends! To my girlfriend!”
Her strangely familiar face is blank as she says, “Your life has never mattered.”
And then she shimmers, and she’s gone.
“It looks like your ace in the hole abandoned you,” I say, far too smugly.
“We should’ve known better than to trust a god,” he says.
A god? Was she really another god? But I don’t have time to process his words, because the damn godslayer launches toward me.
His sword meets mine with a familiar sound, one that rings through my soul and the soul of the god inside of me. For a second I think of that dark place. I think of the god inside of me bellowing about how we’d failed, and then my thoughts snap back to the fight as Trevor dances back from me.
We circle each other, and I hear the sounds of my friends fighting the other godslayers. Any time a blast of golden light comes, we all seem to instinctively leap away. We know damn well that we can take them, as long as they can’t use that unique power against us.
The problem? They know it too.
And then, time stands still. The gods that live within us shimmer into existence behind the godslayers like sinister shadows. My mouth curls into a warning to the others, but we all see them.
“What is this?” I ask.
Tyr answers me. “You saw the dark prison that awaits us all. Let us out. Let us take control, and we can end this. We can be sure that none of us has to return there again.”
Thor stands beside Tyr, his golden hair streaming around him. “Let us end this. Their powers aren’t like the box. The box was temporary. If they defeat you with their powers, there is no escape.”
Izzy’s deep eyes lock onto mine, then her gaze slides to Wilder, Aiden, and Reid. Her voice comes out strong and certain, speaking for us all. “No.”
“No?” It’s Loki who speaks now, his dark eyes locked onto her. “I will not let you risk our life!”
“It’s not your life, it’s mine!” Fire erupts over her body, and Loki vanishes.
I look at Tyr. Before he can process what I’m about to do, I throw my sword. It slices into him, or more so through him, and his image fades. Aiden leaps, slamming his hammer down into Thor, and the giant blond disappears. Hel moves to Reid, and he gives her a sad look before she simply fades away. At last, Odin comes to stand face-to-face with Wilder.
Fear makes my chest ache. Once upon a time Wilder let this wise, old god take control. He thought the god deserved it, and that he wasn’t good enough to be a god. Would he make the same choice now?
I want to speak. I want to tell him what to do, but I bite back my words, knowing this is one demon Wilder needs to face alone.
Izzy reaches for him, but stops herself.
We all hold our breath.
And Wilder sends his spear through the chest of the old man, his words no louder than a whisper. “Never again.”
Time speeds back up, and the godslayers look confused for a brief moment before we’re back to fighting. Golden light explodes from hands. Weapons meet weapons. A spear pierces the chest of a godslayer, and the man hits the ground with a sound like an explosion.
The life is gone from his eyes before Wilder calls his weapon back.
Trevor’s blade flies from his hand, and I’ve got my sword to his throat before he can regain it. I stare down at him, willing myself not to see him as a person. Willing myself to accept that these men will never stop until we’re dead. And then, I close my eyes and swing.
I don’t need to see his severed head hit the ground to know he’s dead.
Behind me, not a single godslayer remains. Just bodies, and my friends, splattered in blood.
“Is it over?” Izzy asks, and there’s a frightened note to her voice that makes my heart clutch.
I move to her, sheathing my sword, and wrap her in my arms. The others are around us, holding Izzy together, but also holding each other. None of us were meant to be gods. None of us were meant to be killers. But somehow that’s what we’d become.
“We didn’t let the gods in,” Izzy says softly, her voice filled with unshed tears.
No, we didn’t. Inside of myself, I feel for Tyr.
I’m surprised to find him there, and yet, he’s not nearly as strong. Not nearly as overwhelming.
“Do your gods feel different?” I ask.
Everyone is silent for a minute, and then they all nod.
What does this mean?
Suddenly, we hear a slow clapping behind us. I jerk back from the others and turn to see Mr. Time standing not far from us.
My sword is in my hand in an instant. “You--”
“No,” Izzy cuts me off. “He’s on our side.”
Somehow, I find that hard to believe.
A sad smile touches his lips. “I didn’t know who would survive, but I prayed that in the end you wouldn’t give into the gods, no matter how bad things got.”
“We didn’t,” Izzy tells him, tilting her chin up.
He nods. “I know.” Then, he turns and starts to walk away.
“Wait!” Izzy shouts. “What the hell does this all mean?”
He freezes but doesn’t look back at us. “It means…it means that one enemy has been destroyed but a more powerful one has emerged.”