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I looked at Cory again as we waited, taking in his bloodshot eyes, exhaustion, and wobbly standing. “Are you okay, Cory?”
“I’m good. A double dose of wolfsbane left me tired,” his eyes flickered at Nat, who was grumbling next to Helios at his words, but I understood. While I’m sure he was in a fuck ton of pain and exhaustion, he was prioritizing who she expended her energy to heal. If he hadn’t died from the initial double dose of wolfsbane, he was out of the woods, and he would have been in no condition to fight until he rested anyway.
Meanwhile, Helios approached the door while we waited for Evergreen. He put a hand against the door, and his brows furrowed.
“What is it, Helios?” Nat asked.
“There’s someone behind the door. A god or goddess.”
“Bastet,” I whispered, Seb’s face becoming grim as he nodded at my guess.
“What?” Helios asked, looking at me in alarm.
“Nickolas said he left because Tezcatlipoca gave him what he wanted. He wanted Bastet. He was obsessed with her,” Seb explained.
“Are you telling me Bastet’s been in his hands for over three hundred years?” Helios asked, and I nodded. That was what I was beginning to suspect anyway.
“Munchkin!” Evergreen pushed through everyone and took his daughter in his arms, hugging her tightly. “Don’t scare me again,” he warned, and he looked her over for injuries.
“Sorry, Dad,” she said sheepishly. “It was a necessary evil.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.
“She let herself get caught because she knew Zi would find her. It was all part of her plan, which she failed to mention to the rest of us,” Cory explained.
The whole room burst into lectures and comments until Evie whistled to quiet us down.
“Can we leave all of the lectures for when we get home, please? I would like to go home and take a long hot shower.”
I looked around at the others and nodded with a smirk before we all answered, “Yes, Luna.”
I laughed when her face turned tomato red, and she took the tablet from her father with a huff so she could stop looking our way. It was fun to tease her, even in the middle of all this turmoil.
It took her a while, but eventually, there was a beep and the door handle opened. Helios pushed the door open and cursed, prompting me to push into the room with him. There was a dark-skinned woman asleep on the bed. She was covered in dried blood and shackled to the bed frame, radiating a lot of power. I couldn’t see her face from where I was, but I watched Nat walking around the bed to look at her. She brushed the hair away from her face, and the woman stirred.
“Bastet,” Helios confirmed, his hands fisting at his sides.
The woman looked from Nat to the rest of us and then screamed when she saw Helios.
“Whoa, whoa. Bastet, we’re here to free you,” Helios said, putting his hands up in surrender. When everyone else nodded and Nat healed the wound on her head, Bastet calmed down as she took us in.
“Nickolas said you were still hunting me. That you had found a way to extract my power and keep it for yourself. I thought it was a way to lure me to go with him at first, but in all the time I’ve been here, he’s never deviated from the story,” she explained to Helios as a way of apology.
“I didn’t go back for you after our talk, Bastet. I’m not even hunting my siblings down anymore. Now I look for them and help keep them safe from Tezcatlipoca.” Helios was speaking quietly and soothingly as he slowly approached the goddess. When he got near, Bastet’s nose scrunched up, and she sniffed the air.
“You don’t smell the same,” she pointed out, and Helios let out a little chuckle.
“I made up with my sister, and in return, she made me a shifter,” Helios answered, letting Ezequiel push forward to prove his point. When Helios took back the reigns, he asked, “Will you let us help?”
Bastet looked at all of us before she nodded. Evie pushed past Helios and Nat, kneeling down and going to work on the mechanism that was attached to her shackles, which were also different from the ones in the other rooms.
“Only Nickolas can remove them,” Bastet said quietly. Evie smiled lightly at her before she continued to work her magic. Well, at least that’s what all this technology shit felt like to me. I could be alive for another thousand years and not know how all of this coding shit worked. After a few minutes, the mechanism clicked open, and Nat helped Bastet up, wrapping the blanket over her when she saw the state of Bastet’s clothes.
“The buses are here. Everyone’s on board,” Celeste said.
“We can go home,” Seb sighed, pulling me to him by the waist. I leaned against him, glad this was all over.
We made it up the stairs and out of the building, before Cory doubled over with Evie, gasping and crying out.
