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I tilted my head. That’s not what’d been happening when the ghost paid us a visit. Addie was trying to use shock value to catch Hel off guard. If she could do that, then she would find an opening into the goddess’s icy exterior.
“Go home, child. You are not needed here right now.”
This time, Addie leapt off my back before I could stop her. She flung her arm wide, gesturing to the domain around us. “Don’t lie to my face! You’re hiding something. It’s not a coincidence that we found you here, of all places.”
“Addie,” Paige warned.
It was no use to tell Paige that Addie wasn’t going to back down. She was one of the four fate-defying women from Lakesedge. Nothing stood in their way, not even gods.
“I’m going to go home and ward both houses against you until you can tell me what’s going on.” Addie turned her back to Hel.
With her face towards me, I could see the tears gathering in Addie’s eyes. She wanted someone she could trust in. Gods should have been benevolent, but it seemed that Hel had her own secrets.
Addie buried her face in my fur. “Take me home.”
I didn’t wait for anyone to give us permission. We didn’t need it. We were the pilots of our own lives. I opened a portal between the underworld and the world of the living while Addie climbed onto my back.
The prisoners must have been able to smell the mortal world because their riotous chorus grew louder and more chaotic while we slipped away. The sounds of their hunger for freedom faded as the portal closed behind us, leaving us alone in Addie’s bedroom.
Potato leapt up onto the bed and yowled at us like we’d left her without food for a week. The cat wasn’t even alive. She didn’t need food.
But I did.
My stomach growled so loud that the sound echoed off the walls. Addie lifted her head and turned to stare in surprise. The expression fell a heartbeat later like she didn’t have the energy to keep it up.
Potato turned tail and leapt off the bed to vanish out of sight. I huffed. It was funny that she thought I would eat her. The dead cat would hardly provide any sustenance. I craved a whole roast, a buffet of steak, an entire cow all to myself.
There it was, that insatiable hunger. I hadn’t felt it while we were making love. It hadn’t even been a thought in the back of my mind while we were in the underworld. Though the reasons had to be different, both had held back my hunger. The only problem was that it came rushing back, pinching my stomach tighter than ever with a hunger that I’d only been avoiding.
I rushed to the door, so I could bound downstairs and raid Addie’s kitchen, but my broad wolf shoulders didn’t fit in the door. Behind me, Addie cackled. It was the first sound of delight that I’d heard from her since the ghost found his way into my bedroom. For a moment, that laugh was enough to sustain me.
I wanted for nothing so long as my wife was happy, and it was a glorious sensation.
But her laughter faded when she threw herself onto the bed, and the hunger came rushing back. I couldn’t rely on Addie to sustain me. I had to learn to be self-sufficient, or else I would ask too much of my wife and drain her completely.
I refused to do that to her, even if it meant suffering on my own.
