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Bastien had been there for me after I’d found out about Paige’s boyfriend. She’d been cheating on me for months because I’d been lost in my work. I’d blamed myself, but Bastien had been there to assure me Paige had made her own choices, and they weren’t inherently my fault.
My world had come crashing down around my head when I found out that Bastien had been behind those murders. Catching him trying to kill Addie to fuel his power-hungry madness had ripped out a bit of my heart.
Addie had killed him in self-defense. Hell, it’d been in the defense of every Reaper he would have hunted for more power. Addie had done the right thing, yet she’d still taken one of my dearest friends.
Maybe I needed better friends. There were people in this world who wouldn’t betray me like Paige or Bastien. I didn’t know how to tell them apart from anyone else, though. Could I trust Ryder? Or would he be my friend until it no longer served him, too?
I stared up into the dragon man’s glowing eyes. He raised a questioning brow, to which I tilted my head in a gesture that could only be described as a wolfish shrug. Ryder laughed in response.
“I knew you had it in you,” Ryder said. He leaned back, relief pouring off him in waves. “You’re a stubborn bastard, and those are usually the ones who survive the change. It was just a matter of getting you past the transitional period. I’m looking forward to calling you a friend, man.”
Head cleared, I dropped down and let my muscles unclench. The room outside my cage wasn’t as bleak as I’d expected. This wasn’t a basement. If anything, it looked like the room doubled at Ryder’s gaming station. There was a beaten couch with cupholders that still had beer cans in them.
Ryder had pulled the storage ottoman up to my crate earlier, making the controllers inside it rattle. In here, the world seemed full of hope and joy.
Until Hel dropped by. The goddess appeared out of the corner of my eye. She had to bend her neck in the human-sized room. A look of derision twisted her lips before she turned her blue-flame eyes on me.
My stomach lurched.
Hel only came to me when Addie was in trouble.
The goddess reached her skeletal hand towards me only to jerk back at the silver wire. She growled and shook her hand like the bone could feel. “I can’t reach you, mutt.”
I pulled my lips back in a snarl that confused Ryder. He couldn’t see the bitch of a goddess standing right behind him. If it weren’t for the silver, I would have asked him to let me out. Then again, I wouldn’t have needed human words were it not for the silver.
“My descendant cannot handle the soul-torn on her own. She needs you once more.”
Panic stabbed through my heart. I looked to Ryder. He wore an expression of confusion and glanced behind him, though when he turned back to me, I could tell he saw nothing. This wasn’t going to work. I needed out.
Addie needed me.
No cage could hold me back if Addie was in trouble.
Ignoring the sting of silver on my tongue, I bit at the kennel’s wire walls. Ryder shot to his feet and started yelling. I had no time to explain, nor did I have the means. The silver seared my tongue. It filled my mouth with the taste of blood and pain, but I couldn’t stop. I jerked my head back and forth to tear an opening in the thick wire.
Ryder ripped open the kennel door to reach for me. I saw the opening and took it, darting under Ryder’s outstretched hand. He was faster than I expected. Ryder twisted and grasped the fur at the back of my neck.
But I was out of the silver kennel. My beast came rushing back with a fury. The creature inside me saw Hel and immediately knew what was going on. For once, we were in agreement. I wanted to thank Ryder for what he’d done for me, how he’d help me come to terms with my beast. There wasn’t time, though.
Hel stepped forward and drove her skeletal hand into the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead. She cut through it like a knife before reaching for me. When she yanked me, I let her take me.
However…I didn’t mean for her to pull Ryder with me, too.
