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“I’m not the one you need to be worried about, Atlas,” the stranger said.
“You two know each other?” I asked.
Hook shot me a look so filled with fury that I almost missed the fear riding beneath the surface. “This is Nerebis.”
He didn’t have to tell me to move again. I could feel the unspoken request in my bones. But I also wasn’t about to hide behind him. So, I moved to his side and grabbed his hand. When he laced our fingers together and squeezed, I knew I’d made the right choice.
“What do you want?” Hook asked. The hostility in his voice was palpable.
Nerebis shook his head and uttered an amused sigh, his gaze lifting from where our hands were joined to meet Hook’s stare. “Still so young, even after all this time.” He swept his arms out, spreading them wide as a burst of icy air swirled around us. “Has your sentence in this realm robbed you of your manners so soon?”
His choked laugh was dripping with bitterness. “Soon? As if I haven’t been here for millennia?”
“But a moment in the great expanse, dear boy.”
Ooo, that set off all kinds of alarms. I mean, I knew Hook had been around for a minute. It was a fact I was still trying to wrap my head around. But to have his whole, yawning life experience minimized by a dude who looked like he’d barely passed the fifty-year mark?
It was a little unsettling.
I leaned toward Hook. “Is he a primordial?” Emerson and Theloneus had thrown off a similar vibe.
“Not exactly,” Nerebis said, offering me a patient look. The guy almost pulled off the whole genuine thing, but I didn’t miss the condescending note in his voice or the troubling twinkle in his hazel eyes.
Yeah, no. I was so over the cryptic bullshit.
“Are you getting the impression you aren’t welcome here? Because I sure am.” Hook’s hand squeezed mine almost painfully. A sane person would have shut up. Instead, I squeezed back and added, “How about we skip the evasive crap? It’s been a weird couple of days, and I’m not really in the mood to be fucked with.”
His eyebrows twitched. “I see.” Then his lips curved up ever-so-slightly.
I waited for some explanation to follow that reaction, but everyone remained silent.
Nerebis studied me with just a shade too much intensity. Hook and Leo watched him like they wanted to rip his throat out but couldn’t move. And every damned thing about the situation felt wrong.
My skin crawled with anxiety or anticipation; it was impossible to tell which. “Are you here about the pendant? Did I fu—screw something up when I smashed it?”
That, at least, would make sense. There’d been a huge blast of light when I’d destroyed the thing. Maybe releasing that power had, I don’t know, done something?
Maybe it didn’t all find its way back to Hook.
His hand twitched with my question, and Nerebis’s eyes moved lazily to him before sliding back to me. “You have done nothing wrong, child. Aside, perhaps, from your lack of respect.” His gaze shifted back to Hook, sharpening. “You, on the other hand... do you realize what you’ve done?”
That doesn’t sound good.
Hook didn’t answer. He didn’t move. If I hadn’t been standing right next to him, I might have wondered if he was actually breathing.
Nerebis let out a tired sigh and moved to the railing, hiking a hip onto it as he folded his arms over his chest and took Hook’s measure. “You’ve upset the natural order.”
“Of what?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Why? Because I hated it when powerful people felt the need to speak in riddles.
“Life,” Nerebis said flatly.
Cool, not helpful dude. “Could you, maybe, elaborate on that for a lowly human?”
His expression was caught somewhere between irritation and amusement. “You died. Your soul moved on, but Atlas here brought you back. In direct violation of divine law, I might add.”
Wait, what?
An uneasy laugh chirped out of me. “I didn’t die. I might have passed out, but...” My rebuttal fell flat when I looked up and saw the look in Hook’s eyes.
