As Darkness Falls by Riley Storm

Chapter Twenty-Five

Ilooked back and forth between my companions.

“So, we’re all thinking the same thing,” I asked. “Right?”

Neither of them agreed with me.

“I’m not the only crazy one here. I know that. You’re both thinking it, too,” I said. “I know you are.”

“Thinking what?” Vir asked, leaning back, his knees poking into the seat in front of him rather hard.

“Can you not do that?” Aaron grumbled, shifting in the chair.

“No, I’m cramped,” Vir muttered.

“Children. You’re just a bunch of children,” I moaned. “My parents are doomed.”

Both of them shut up. Good. If I needed to guilt them into remembering that lives were at stake here, then so be it. I would do it. There wasn’t much I was ruling out just now. I’d do anything to get my parents back. We had so much to talk about. There were so many questions I had to ask of them. Answers that I desperately craved.

“What is it you’re thinking, Dani?” Vir asked, subdued as he sat up in the chair to pull his knees out from Aaron’s back.

“It’s simple, really,” I said. “We have to rob Hades.”

“What?” Aaron exploded. “No. Absolutely not. No way. Nuh uh. Not happening.”

“It really is a terrible idea,” Vir added in slow, measured words. “Horrible. Hades is, well, grouchy doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

“So very true,” Aaron grumbled.

“But I don’t see how we have any other choice,” Vir added.

Aaron exploded. “What? You can’t be serious!”

“You were the one who gave him the Idol, you fool,” Vir pointed out tiredly. “Of course, we have to get it back from him. We can’t let something as valuable as that stay in his possession. That is simply unacceptable.”

I sat back and listened as they argued. It was clear that they respected one another, though there was also a level of dislike present there as well. I wonder what had happened to create the relationship between them that I was witnessing.

Is that because of me? Is this just a testosterone thing?

Although I certainly wasn’t ready to confront the situation, there was an undeniable chemistry between Aaron and me. I’d felt it that very first night when he’d sat down next to me at the bar after my fight. Every day and night since, it had been there. I kept myself from giving in because the time had never been right, but that wasn’t the same as it not existing. Because it most certainly did.

Then, there was Vir. He was a god, which alone would have brought with it a whole new set of issues when it came to sexual tension. Unfortunately for me, I wasn’t just attracted to him. I was Soulbound to him. A very real linking of our two selves. I still wasn’t ready to unpack that baggage, mostly because I had yet to figure out how the hell an immortal being could be Soulbound to anyone. Let alone me. Maybe later, after we had rescued my parents, I could pause and try to deal with that.

But I wasn’t counting on it. I was pretty good at avoiding confronting my problems.

As I refocused on the two of them, a particular memory returned to me. I was back in the minor temple of Terrano in Shuldar, tied to a sacrificial altar, with Vir next to me, also bound.

Aaron had shown up then, without warning, to rescue us. And as I remembered it now, the two of them had acted like they knew one another then.

Except Vir has spent the past millennia in the Direen, the realm of the Shifter Gods. So, they couldn’t know one another, not unless—

I stared at Aaron. Was it possible he was over a thousand years old? He certainly didn’t look like it, but then again, he was a vampire. What did that mean? How did they age? Did they age? There was so much I didn’t know about vampires. I paused, realizing I didn’t know anything about vampires besides their existence.

Just another thing in my life that was all questions and no answers.

Even as I contemplated Aaron’s advanced age and idly wondered at what point a vampire became a geriatric, I felt a warm, fuzzy pulsing envelope my chest, slowly trying to drag my attention back to Vir.

Sometimes, I hated the Soulbond. It certainly made me resent Vir more than I normally would, even if I knew deep down that he hadn’t orchestrated our binding. It was an accident. In fact, he’d been trying to save me from Johnathan. I doubt he was any less surprised than me by what had happened.

“Gentleman,” I said as their bickering became more heated. “Need I remind you that I’m still mortal, so first off, no fighting in the car. Otherwise, I’ll have to take control, turn it around, and dump you both off on Lars’s doorstep. How does that sound?”

They both looked at me in sullen silence.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said with a false smile. “Secondly, we’re going. It wasn’t a discussion. It was a statement. This is happening. We’re going to get that Idol back, because without it, my parents will continue to suffer at Lars’s hands, and we’re simply not going to let that happen. Got it?”

Vir nodded. Once. Even he was upset. But as long as he understood what we were going to do, I didn’t care.

Aaron, however, licked his lips, then shook his head. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m not going.”

“You’re under contract still,” I reminded him.

Which was true. Sort of. It expired at the end of the day. Which is why I intended to set out immediately.

“Not for that, I’m not,” Aaron said. “We signed on to deliver Johnathan back home. We never signed anything about not returning with someone as well, but I let you get away with it. It was close enough, and Lars is an ass anyway. But this? No way, this is much bigger. Not to mention infinitely more dangerous. There’s a reason you don’t hear about people who cross Hades.”

“Aaron,” I started to say, but he cut me off with a curt shake of his head.

“No, Dani, I’m sorry. You don’t know what you’re asking me to do here. My current contract is nowhere near good enough for that.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. “Fine. You do your thing.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah,” I muttered, wondering if I could convince Vir to part with more treasure to bring him along. Probably not. It had already cost him a lot of gold to pay Aaron to help us rescue Jo.

Vir sat still in his chair, looking unhappy.

“Just you and me then, I suppose,” I said, looking at him. “We’ll get this done, and then we can get my parents back.”

“No,” Vir said, slowly shaking his head. “We can’t.”

“What? Are you backing out on me now, too?” I snapped, anger coming over me in a flash. “Just because your bestest buddy here isn’t coming, you aren’t either? Is that it?”

Vir leveled his gaze at me, and I shut up. Sometimes, I forgot he was a god. Other times, he looked at me with the power of the divine, and I was reminded of just how small I was in the grand scheme of the universe. It was humbling and more than a little embarrassing.

“It’s not that,” Vir said in a patient tone that bordered on condescending. “I will go with you, but we cannot do it without him.”

“Fine,” I said. “Then I guess you’re going to have to fork over the gold necessary to get him and his team to come with us.”

Vir opened his mouth to protest but subsided at the glare I shot him. I wasn’t backing down. Not now, not from this. I was getting my parents back even if I had to go and rob Hades all by my lonesome.

“So, Aaron,” I said, focusing on the vampire driving the truck. “Why don’t you go ahead and tell us why we need your help so badly.”

Aaron worked his jaw back and forth. “Because,” he said, just before I was about to prompt him to hurry up and spit it out, “you can’t get to the Underworld, and thus Tartarus, where Hades will be, from Earth. Not anymore, at least.”

I frowned. “Okay. That’s a bit of a problem, I’ll admit. But what does that have to do with you? Can you get us there?”

Aaron nodded.

“Okay, fine. Then, how do we get there?”

“You must go through another realm first,” he said, closing his eyes with a sigh.

“Right. Okay. Which one?”

Aaron looked over at me, his gaze as cold as stone. “Mine.”