32. Leni

Everything shifts in the blink of an eye.

One moment Cross is abandoning me, cutting me out of his heart, ripping mine out with, and the next he’s barreling toward me with reckless abandon.

Before I can even register the stings on my back, he collides with me, hoisting me effortlessly into his arms. We tumble through the air together, twisting and falling, Cross pouring over me like a shield to absorb the impact of our crash.

Unfamiliar black tile cracks and splinters under his forearms on either side of me as we land, showering us in a cloud of fine gray dust. My ears ring and I taste coppery blood on my lips.

Shaken, guarded, I breathe shallowly, clinging to the spymaster’s shoulder, legs hitched around his back.

Slowly, Cross sets me down on the unforgiving floor and I feel a dozen sharp shards of glass pierce into my skin. Grunting through fragile clenched teeth, I turn my head backward to examine the damage and my heart lurches.

The fury Cross lit in me, the pure magma anger flowing in my veins changes into a numb stillness.

We’ve gone through not just one wall, but two. Dust and plaster fill the air as we lay amidst the destruction, tangled in cords and wires that sing with dangerous electricity. And just a room away, an ominous olive green grenade spins lazily on the floor.

I didn’t feel a thing, which means …

I wiggle, needing to see for myself how badly Cross is hurt.

“Stay beneath me.” His voice hits me in distorted echoes, blotchy and wrong. “It’s too late to run.” He tucks me tighter to him and in a whooshed snap, my hearing returns.

I’m blasted with chaos. Violent blaring alarms, shouts and screams, gunshots.

His grip tightens around me, pulls me closer to him, shielding me from the wreckage. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, breathless, lips against the crown of my head. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.” Regret cloaks him.

Horrified instant regret.

Clarity grips me. Damning and honest and inevitable.

He dove for me. When he should’ve handled the grenade.

Now it’s too late.

There isn’t enough time to run.

Wild, bone-deep horror seizes me by the throat.

“Get away,” I croak, thrashing in a frantic attempt to break free of him. But his hold on me is unbreakable and all I can do is close my eyes and plead. “Let go of me! Please, get back while you still can. You must get away from me—”

A shrill whistle cracks overhead and I turn just in time to witness the fiery trail of a rocket streak through the blown windows. The screech of the explosive blackens my ears as it plummets into the woods outside.

“Hey!” Luke shouts after it, rocket launcher perched on his massive shoulder. “You fuckers lost this!” With a savage grin, he hurls the live grenade out the window.

Relief floods me sharp and quick, shooting air into my blood. Bleeding Gods, we’re—

Before I can finish my thought, a blinding flash and earth-shattering boom erupt. My eyes are forced shut against the bright light and Luke shouts as he’s tossed across the room.

In my ear, Cross is offering his life to Zeus in exchange for my survival.

Through the haze of debris, the rocket finds its target, and a wall of fire explodes upwards. Rocks the entire building. Makes the grenade’s explosion seem like a firecracker.

In a blur of motion, Cross hauls us upright, and drags me through the devastation toward Luke’s prone body. My worst fears are confirmed when Cross immediately searches for a pulse.

In shock, I wrap my hands around my elbows. Ruby red trickles down Luke’s dark chin. “He’s mortal,” I whisper, and it sounds eerily like he’s dead.

Seething, Cross refuses to accept it, pushing on Luke’s carotid as he jerks me to a squat. “There’s a dungeon.” He glances down at my bare feet, swallows. “Take a left out of the east stairwell, then make two right turns. In the last stall—” He seizes my jaw, yanking my attention from Luke’s unmoving chest back to him. “Are you listening?”

Am I? My heart thumps. “Left. Two rights.”

“In the last cell, there’s a safe embedded in the floor. It leads to a stocked bunker. It’s impenetrable, and it locks from the inside. You go there and you don’t leave for three days. No matter what you hear. Three days. The code is eleven”—he shakes me violently when I peer back at Luke—“Listen to me, Leni. Eleven—”

Something wilts inside me under the frantic rasp of Cross’s orders. My last secret. “I can’t be contained,” I protest weakly.

The response drives him into a full-blown fury, a tone he’s never dared use with me. “You will, dammit. I will not lose you.”

The back of my eyes sting. “I really can’t.”

Overwhelmed, frustration pulling his features, Cross stops feeling for Luke’s pulse and slaps across the face with a resounding crack.

Luke’s nose scrunches. “Motherfucker” comes out as a low whimper. He rubs his cheek. “Really?”

“I should kill you myself,” Cross snarls.

Luke shoves the spymaster back. “Assumed you guys were about to drop the L-bomb, sue a guy for playing dead.”

I move instinctively, lunging forward, throwing my arms around the mortal’s massive shoulders. He’s too big to hold, corded with muscle, wide as a tree. Yet so fragile in his mortality.

My calm collected strategic Cross looks ready to kill the both of us as he hauls me to my feet again. “Precious time wasted,” he snarls at Luke.

“Yeah, well …” Luke sighs, almost bored. “Shit. Incoming.”

Grappling hooks claw into the windowsill, shred the last of the glass and pull taut.

A siege. My stomach drops.

The worst is yet to come.

Run.

Cross remains eerily calm, forcefully pushing Luke and me into the hall like naughty children, casting a “fuck” behind him as bodies scale the walls.

The hall, politely put, is a degenerative clusterfuck.

Rocket launchers and near-death experiences are opening moves.

This is check, with mate circling.

Sweaty, and snarling, Sin breaks past us in an all-out sprint, freeing short knives from a band on his waist. “Queensguard’s here,” he greets jovially, hurling his blades with deadly accuracy, bringing down several bodies before he’s tackled to the ground by a creature in head to toe dark green, hood and cowl obscuring their features.

“Stay with Luke,” Cross commands, grasping the mortal’s hand and physically wrapping it around my biceps. He retrieves the gun from Luke’s holster. “She’s everything,” he tells Luke, urgent and intense, as he hands me the oily black weapon. “Everything. Do you read me?”

A stern confirmation from Luke and Cross’s gaze shoots over to me. Those black star eyes are colorless. A hot ache crawls up my throat.

“Eleven, sixteen, forty-five,” he recites, studying me one last time. “Do not die.”

Then he joins the chaos, launching at the body grappling with Sin, protecting his family.

Luke pulls me along, racing through a ransacked gym and a filthy, burnt toast kitchen until we land in an empty bonus room. Without hesitation, he retracts a ladder from the ceiling and practically throws me onto it. “Go.”

I plant my feet, glare up at the mortal three times my size. “We’re not abandoning them. I’m not running or hiding.”

“Of course we’re not,” Luke assures me, hazel eyes dancing. “But they’ve got nine lives and enough fucking ichor to punch through a skull. I want a fair fight.”

“I’ve never been in a fair fight.”

Luke grins. “Then let today be the start of the rest of your life.”

I hurry up the ladder, hands slipping on the aluminum steps, bare feet aching, and reel at the sight above.

The attic is not dusty, cobwebbed, or haunted like it ought to be in a house this old and grand.

It’s a fully stocked armory with weapons lining the walls from floor to ceiling. Guns. Ammunition. Knives. Bows. My eyes must take up half my face as I spot a second rocket launcher among the arsenal. “Sweet Hera.”

“Don’t just stare. Load up.” Luke removes a pair of black harnesses from the wall and fastens them onto his thighs, adds more across his chest, around his biceps. This isn’t his first time gearing up in a rush. Gleaming knives disappear on his person, clips bulge his pockets, he keeps twin handguns in his palms.

I take a shotgun, because it comes with a strap and swing it over my shoulder, grab a holster that matches Cross’s and stuff Luke’s stolen gun into it.

“Is that all?” Luke asks, more metal than man.

It’s more than I’ve ever had. Still, I scrounge a short, chubby knife and shove it into my pocket. “Secret weapon.”

Before I’ve fully accepted what we’re arming up for, we descend the ladder and trace back our steps. The smell of blood tangs the air as we find the center of the fight. The once cozy living room has become a battlefield. Mangled bodies and crushed furniture are strewn across the floor, a pretty geometric rug is soaked through with pink.

Rage boils up inside me, hot and visceral. I reach for my knife.

“Down!” Luke shouts, shoving my shoulder and raising his gun. I duck, covering my ear, but before he gets a shot off, the male charging us careens to the left, collapses.

Cross’s gun smokes across the room. Waves of black roll down his shoulders, pool on the floor, and chase him as he stalks toward us. Me. “I thought I told you to leave.”

Luke just ignores him, so I do too, both of us charging onward, ready, armed.

Cross catches my shoulder—no, he snatches my shotgun. Aims the long barrel at an assailant and shoots.

“I can—” I start.

But Cross is already claiming the weapon for himself. “I don’t want you to. I’ll take the blood.” He hefts the polished black barrel on his shoulder. “You keep the wit.”

He takes my hand, black shadows gluing us together, and then we’re moving.

In the next room, Lev faces off with three males. He’s laughing, shirt in ribbons, suffering brutal punches without so much as wincing. A bulky blonde with Blackguard style—ruthless—crouches under the windowsill, picking off invaders on the lawn with precision.

Andromeda is locked in combat with a male in dark green, trading blows back and forth, so evenly matched, they appear to be dancing.

Luke swears. Cross steps in front of me.

Outside, menacing figures wait in a coordinated row for the first wave of the battle to finish. They wear dark green leathers, and spiked helmets, and when they’re grease smudged eyes find me, they advance.

Cross shoots without hesitation. Swears as the bullets dance off their chests. Bulletproof. A blessing from Hecate, or a gift from Hephaestus.

Either way, we’re screwed.

“Cross,” I choke out, watching them fan out to block potential exits. “This is strategic. They’re cornering us.”

“I know. Fuck.” He flashes me a panicked look. “Got a plan?”

“One.” But it’s never worked before.