AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My head spun, the two very separate stories connecting—the Darkness at the beginning of creation and Erebus, who saved my mate and cared for her until she was able to return to us. She—
"You met a first being?" I demanded, my voice shrill. "What the fuck, Haley?"
"If you know stories about Erebus, maybe you know stories about Cronus too, right? What do you know about the god of time?"
I swallowed, resistant. I didn't want to tarnish the stories my mum told me by connecting them to the cunt who killed my mate.
"Kai," Haley murmured, stroking fingers through my hair and sending a ripple of sensation down my spine.
"He was the ruler of all beings, after he slew the Sky." I groaned and felt like a fucking idiot. "Cronus killed his father Uranus, the god of the Sky. Fuck!" How was this so damn obvious when I said it out loud?
"It's okay," Haley soothed, nothing but calm and love in her storm-grey eyes. "You weren't looking for titans in your stories; of course you wouldn't realise."
I ran through all the stories in my head, my mother's voice so close that my throat closed up, the words choked. "Time was a jealous being, always coveting what others had—land, power, magic, titles, women. He was never satisfied, always yearning for more. And he was brave, strong—able to do what others didn't dare, like killing his father."
My stomach squirmed at badmouthing one of the first beings I’d been taught to respect all my life.
"But he was a good ruler, nothing like the psychopath he is now. I think—either our stories are wrong, and it was never a golden age of peace and prosperity when he ruled, or being imprisoned in Tartarus fucked with him."
"He's jealous and greedy," Haley said, her fingers sifting through my hair. "We can use that. Make him want something we have, spring a trap."
"He's not just the god of time, Haley, he is time. Do you have any idea how much he can fuck with us?"
"According to the ink on my back, we can fuck with him right back. We just need to steal something and gift some seeds."
Her words didn't draw me from my panic so much as the rush of power I felt through her did.
I paused, holding her tighter. "Cronus helped Locke kill us the first time because he wanted to concentrate your power," I said.
"Yup. Fattening me for the slaughter," she said bitterly.
"You just—died again," I said, my heart beating harder.
"I don't feel any different," she replied, reluctant to kill that hope. "But hey, maybe I can grow as massive as Cronus and go all shadow-giant, too."
I nodded absently, stories echoing around and around my head. They were all I could think of: every bedtime tale and fireside story merging into something far more real than simple folklore. They were real—the first beings. And my mate was fated to kill one of them.
I jumped when Haley's hands settled on my shoulders, manhandling me back into the chair I'd been sitting in before she arrived. My ass met the seat hard, and I frowned at her, unsure where the dark gleam in her eye had come from.
"You always tell me I think too hard," she murmured, making my heart stop by dropping to her knees in front of me. "And I need to shut off my mind for a while."
"I do," I agreed, my voice rougher, deeper. She made a pretty picture, her chest bare and her beautiful rosy tits on display for me, her tattoos decorating her arms and stomach, painting her like an artwork as she knelt before me.
But I didn't have time to shut off my mind—we had until tomorrow morning to come up with an ironclad plan to get into a titan's prison and out again safely, without letting him know we were there. Not that I held much faith in the latter part. That's why I needed to keep reading, and why I now needed to sift through every story I'd ever been told, to pour through every legend living in my mind for a hint or detail that would be Cronus's downfall.
And yet … if my mate wanted me to sit here for her, I would sit.
"You're still thinking, Kai," she chided, skimming her hands over my knees and up my thighs. "I can feel your stress, my night."
"We don't have enough time," I said, pushing through the urge to keep my fears locked up tight. She hated when I did that, and relief always bloomed through her soul whenever I confessed what was worrying me. "There's so much we need to do before we're ready to go, so many variables that could go wrong and—"
My tongue flicked out with a hiss when she leaned forward and kissed my bulge, only a few layers of fabric between us. "You're right; we're short on time. Why are we wasting it on panic?"
Anticipation tightened every nerve in my body when Haley reached for the fastening on my trousers, the zip so much faster to get undone than the knotted strings of a hundred years ago.
"You know how it goes," she said, ensnaring me in eye contact as she reached into the gap in my pants and brushed her fingers over my shaft. I went from semi-hard to aching and desperate in a fucking second. "We plan, we examine every possible outcome and angle, we come up with an idea that can't possibly go wrong, we get there, and everything that can go wrong does go wrong."
A laugh puffed out of me. She had a point; I'd lost track of the amount of cock-ups we'd made over the years. Things never went according to plan. Not even according to Em's rigorous planning.
