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Odin reacted without thinking, but by the time it registered that wasn’t a sound coming from Hunter, he’d already spun on his heels.
The man who’d been holding Hunter was blond, but that was the only detail about him Odin was able to pick up because he was also currently on fire.
His screams continued to ring around them, echoing off the tall buildings as he struggled, flailing his arms as the flames engulfed him. The knife he’d been holding only a moment ago had clattered to the ground at Hunter’s feet, but he clearly wasn’t interested in it, or Hunter, any longer.
“Snow!” Hunter darted forward, but Odin reacted at the same time, moving off the side to evade whatever he was being warned of.
He shouldn’t have taken his eyes off Isa.
A ball of ice sailed just past his head, missing its target by less than an inch. It ended up slamming directly into the chest of the burning man, swallowed by the flames just as easily as he had been.
While he moved out of the way, Hunter reacted, forming a fireball in his palm and sending it sailing straight toward Isa. He kept moving toward Odin in the process, slipping up to his side and snatching something from Odin’s belt.
Isa sent a ball of ice to meet the fireball and stop it from hitting him, all of his attention on that task.
Which was why he didn’t see the blaster Hunter lifted.
The shot rang out, zipping through the air faster than a fireball or a ball of ice could, giving him no time to react to it.
Hunter was an excellent marksman, and it hadn’t taken him long at all to dust off those old skills. Odin had seen as much during the attack on the Storeroom. Even still, he was awestruck as he watched the event play out before him, almost as if in slow motion.
By the time Isa put out the flaming ball heading toward him and noticed the blaster, the bullet was already landing its mark. It shot right through the center of his throat and out the other side, causing his body to jerk once before he went still.
Isa’s eyes were wide in shock, his mouth parting. The hole in his neck was clean through, so Odin could make out the golden glow of the street light through it for just a moment before blood welled and blocked it out. It dribbled down at first, staining the color of his white shirt before suddenly it was pouring, a small river gushing from him.
He wavered on his feet, still seemingly astonished as if he couldn’t believe he was actually dying.
“I’ve always thought you talked too much,” Hunter said. Then without another word, he aimed a second time and fired again.
When the bullet hit him in the center of his forehead, Isa’s body finally gave out. He toppled backward right there in the middle of the street, the iceball he’d still been clutching in his right hand instantly snuffing out with his final breath.
Everything seemed to come to a standstill, the hum of the streetlights suddenly the only sound Odin could hear as his mind caught up with the series of events that had just happened before him.
Isa Frost was finally dead.
Chapter 18:
Vetle arrived shortly after, hovercar zooming onto the sidestreet they were standing on, screeching to a halt just before he would have run over Loni who was still sitting in the road.
Odin gave a brief explanation as backup pulled in afterward, sending half of the dozen men Vetle had brought along to secure the area and make sure no more Frost Brumal were hiding nearby. With Isa dead, they wouldn’t have reason to fight against him any longer, but he didn’t want to take his chances.
The remaining soldiers were ordered to clean up the bodies, mostly because they couldn’t leave a barbequed dead guy on the sidewalk, and Corbi deserved better than what she’d gotten. Odin was still angry with her final actions, but that didn’t erase all the years of loyalty she’d given, and he wasn’t going to dishonor her corpse. Once everything was collected, he’d cremate her and give her a proper send off.
Finally, he’d told Vetle to take care of Loni, who was still completely out of it. He drove her back to the club and would call the doctor to have her checked. After what she’d witnessed, it was no wonder she was in a state of shock, and Odin didn’t want to stress her out any more than necessary. Whatever the doctor said she needed, she’d be provided.
With all that settled, he stepped over to where Yule and Hunter stood staring down at Isa Frost’s dead body. The butcher had shown and gone straight to it, staying by Hunter’s side while Odin filled everyone else in and gave out instructions.
All Odin wanted to do was be with his Huntsman, but he’d known he couldn’t just leave the scene of the crime without first handing out tasks.
“How…incredibly anticlimactic of you,” Yule was saying when Odin approached.
Hunter’s shoulders were tense, his body coiled as if about to spring into action at any given moment. It was obvious that he’d yet to really process that it was finally over, even while standing over Isa’s dead body.
Blood had pooled beneath him and Isa’s sightless eyes peered up at the inky black sky. His lips were still slightly parted, his shirt stained crimson, and his hair a mess. He’d never been disheveled in life and would loathe seeing himself like this now.
Odin took a second to pick apart his feelings. Even though this had always been his endgame, he’d never really stopped to worry about how the death of his step-brother might actually affect him. There was no relief of anger over the things Isa had done—he was still pissed when he thought about them—but he wasn’t sad either. He didn’t suddenly miss him and wish things had gone differently or any such bullshit.
If anything, he mostly just felt…indifferent.
