Page 48 of Vengeance of the Gods

The black, soulless eyes stole her breath, fear festering up her throat. “No,” she gasped, clawing at his arms with her nails.

No matter how far she sank them in or how hard she fought, Chase held strong.

“Bridger!” The darkness in Chase’s eyes glimmered. What the fuck? Chase wouldn’t give her an inch. It was like he knew what her move was going to be before she made it. Almost like he was part of her…

“He can’t save you.” Chase’s voice sounded like that of a serpent’s, every s hissing.

He slipped his hands around Vega’s neck and started to squeeze.

Vega clawed at his wrists, and he punished her by lifting her up by the neck and slamming her back against the floor.

Stars sprinkled across Vega’s vision.

The voice inside her head telling her to keep fighting started to fade. Holy shit, this is how I’m going to die. After everything I’ve been through, this is how it ends.

It felt like the end. It felt different.

The stars in her vision faded to black at the edges.

I’m so sorry, Arlet, Khort…

Bridger.

She’d killed them all, doomed them the day she met them. Hopefully there was an afterlife for them to go to, to pass through the underworld and say goodbye before they withered into whatever happened to gods if they died.

Vega tried to keep hold of consciousness for as long as she could, and just before she lost her fight against death, Vega could have sworn she saw an angel with dark wings blending into the shadows approaching Chase from behind.

Oh, those aren’t wings. Those are the shadows of⁠—

Warm, thick blood coated Vega’s chest, and the bite of air reentering her lungs burned like fire. The metallic taste of blood made her gag as her vision came back. Even through the speckles of black taking their time to disappear, Vega saw who she’d thought was Pluto, coming to take her to the afterlife, pulling Chase’s limp body off her.

But it wasn’t the god of the underworld. It was Bridger.

In his hand, coated in Chase’s blood, was the dagger Vega had made him leave behind in Rome.

Chase, who now lay face up with a blank stare and a six-inch gash across his throat.

Bridger grabbed her face by the cheeks, his dark eyes full of life, so unlike the black abyss Chase’s had been.

“Vega, fuck. Are you okay?” His eyes bounced back and forth between hers before wandering down her exposed body. “Is any of this blood yours? Are you hurt?”

She wasn’t sure.

One hand left her cheek, sliding down her body in search of wounds.

“You killed him.”

Bridger didn’t stop scanning every inch of her. “Of fucking course I did. He was going to kill you. I could feel it. I could feel it down the bond.”

He could what?

“He was going to kill you. Really kill you.”

Vega shook her head, grabbing Bridger by the wrist. “I’m fine.” She was lucky he hadn’t crushed her esophagus and she could still talk—despite how raspy her voice had become. “Where did you get the dagger?”

Bridger helped her up, twisting the dagger in his grasp to slide it between the waistband of his pants. “He had it.”

“We have to go.” Vega, although she’d almost been murdered, again, was thinking one step ahead. She looked down at Chase’s dead body, blood leaking out of the slash in his throat. His eyes were open and had returned to their normal color.