Page 110 of Season Warriors & Wolves

“They want you to go alone,” Mal noted. “Golgotha might be a fallen god, but his pride still remains. He won’t want to give audience to us, only you. An equal.”

Kilian was not going to let go, and considering I had to leave him behind, I was not going to let him go either. To my surprise, his fingers slowly unwrapped from mine and he pulled me before him. He kissed my brow and cupped my face. “Make no bargains. Fall for no temptation he might offer.”

“You’re letting me do this?”

A little smile grazed his lips. “I would have kneeled before you the second you would have batted those lashes at me.”

“I wouldn’t have gone.”

“And you would have ended up resenting yourself for not doing it.”

My mouth parted open. “Oh.”

He kissed me. “Mhm. Oh.” His finger went under my chin to lift my gaze to his. “I can’t live knowing that.”

“I love you,” I said, backing away. “Say it back.”

“When you return to me. Be careful.”

Dagger in hand, I followed after the four-legged thing with the skin covered in tar and pustules filled with something that stank. The city was oddly full of life, creatures roamed around, unbothered by my presence at all.

Metallic gates of the castle-like fortress creaked open before we’d even neared, making the hinges shake and groan as if they were struggling to open. The dark and wide corridor walls were crawling with barnacles and seaweed, dripping water all over us and echoing a sound that was about to pop my eardrums out from frustration, but it was lit with an ashy looking fire, almost like the black flames that lit around Kilian sometimes—they oozed a sense of doom.

The thing stopped when we arrived at an open chamber and luckily I did, too, before crashing into it.

More luminescent grey flamed torches lined the empty massive cave with a tall bone dais in its centre looking almost like a theatre podium.

I’d marvel, but the dripping water sounds that echoed around were driving me absolutely insane.

“A word would have been nice,” a gritty, dark voice called behind me and I spun round to face the tall half-naked man standing not even two feet from me. His long, black hair was streaked with white and fell down to his unclothed chest. He was young but not so young at the same time—old in a sense that I was sure only some could feel. And surprisingly handsome. “Don’t humans do that anymore?” he asked, walking to his dais made of odd bones and rock, looking more god than human despite the deceiving skin he wore. “Send word and then I supposedly welcome you into my home.” He leaned back in his seat, narrowing his black eyes on me. “It’s not polite to kill my servants.”

“It’s not like they can talk and you’re sort of missing a letter box.”

He flashed me a crooked grin. “We’ve lived amongst you for many lifetimes and not once have you been curious to learn our way of communicating.”

“Should be grateful for our disrespect,” I said. “We tend to deface and vandalise what we deem curious in nature. Even worse, your creatures would have been mocked. Used. Played with. Pointed at. Made a caricature of evil only to disguise true monsters. What looks like a monster is not nearly as close to being one up there.”

“You would know, wouldn’t you?” he asked, studying the whole of me. “I’ve not sensed this much chaos in such a small body in some time.”

“You flatter me, God of Demons. To be acknowledged by you is a privilege.”

He grunted, tilting his head to observe the whole of me. “Is there something you seek from this visit?”

“Answers.”

“Good,” he sighed, stretching in his seat. “I’ve got no food you’d like if you had come to wine and dine with me.”

Gods and dry humour went hand in hand. “Urinthia has been taken by my father.”

He perked a little in his seat. “Has she now?”

“So you know.”

His smirk was crooked. “My women don’t go missing.”

“How brilliant,” I said, stepping closer. “Then lead me to her. I’d like a word.” Before I unburden her shoulders from the weight of her head.

He raised both hands. “I am a prisoner in these waters. A man with no land in a no man’s land. I gave her permission to enter my old realm whenever she pleases. I, on the other hand, am denied to return. The land permits me not after I could not feed it what it needed to stay alive—power.”