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I swallowed thickly. “Why?”
“To cloak myself. I thought you’d all figured that out.”
“Why cloak yourself just to antagonize him in person when you came?”
She cackled, lost in a joke I didn’t understand. I flinched when her nail gripped into my shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to antagonize him. I was trying to lure him away from your coven. He was always so easy to anger, and it worked. He came after me, and here we are.” She brushed a finger against her bottom lip, then pressed her teeth against it. She laughed again, and I saw the glimpse of insanity behind her gaze.
My stomach dipped. If I’d said yes to the keys straight away, this wouldn’t be happening. “He’ll come back.”
“Eventually, but without those keys, he won’t be a match for me. You see…” She stepped back, and I breathed relief. “When Raiden escaped, I was concerned the others may have too. I had to cloak myself. I’m not a match for three gods.” She paced, circling me slowly. “Raiden’s the strongest. It’s what initially attracted me to him, but he does have his weaknesses. He wants to be good, to be revered and appreciated. Because of those ridiculous wants, he won’t kill innocents, although he didn’t always have that problem.”
“It’s not a weakness,” I spat from behind gritted teeth.
She waved her hand dismissively. “While Raiden is strong, I can still evade him. Being goddess of the hunt has its perks. I’m fast, great at tracking and hiding… I can blend in with nature, and I have better hearing and eyesight than him. I just need to stop him from letting those siblings of his out.” Her mouth twisted. “They’ll come for me, and I can’t have that. So you see my dilemma.”
Suddenly the keys felt heavier in my pocket. “You want me to retrieve the keys.”
She stopped in front of me and booped my nose with the tip of her finger. I wanted so badly to punch her. “Good, you’re not completely clueless then, for a mortal.”
“Weren’t you once mortal?”
“A painful lifetime ago, yes.” She shook her head, as if to scatter the memory. “Now, I am going to kill you, obviously.”
My heart skipped a beat. She pressed her hand against my chest, as if she could sense it.
“Don’t panic.” Her tone sweetened. For it, she appeared even more deranged. “I’m not a complete monster. You see, you know too much, but the rest of your little coven doesn’t, so they’re safe, for now.”
“Don’t you dare hurt them.”
She squeezed my arm. “Sweet Elle, you can relax. Their fates rest on your shoulders. If you get me those keys to the prison realms, I’ll let your friends walk away unharmed. You’ll be a hero.” She laughed again, and it tinkled around us in a high-pitched shriek. “Not that anyone will know, but I will. Raiden will be harder to evade with you dead, but hopefully he will be too lost in his grief like the last time.”
“I’ll get you the keys, but you should know you’re wrong. I don’t even care about him, and I can assure you he doesn’t care about me, especially not enough to mourn for me.”
“Then why are you out looking for him?”
“I wasn’t looking for him,” I lied. “I was going for a run. I used to go more, but then I found the body of one of your victims.”
“Ah.” She walked next to me. I wondered why she didn’t run us back like Raiden had with me once, but when I saw her scratched yet quickly healing arms, and heavy breaths, I realized. She was weak. I didn’t know why, but it was an advantage I didn’t plan to let on I knew. I’d have to find a way to stop her before we got to the coven, but nothing was coming to me, yet. In the silence, she sped up, and I matched her pace.
“Why did you kill Leda?” I asked, stopping.
She halted, turning on her heel. “Hasn’t Raiden told you the whole story?” She rubbed her hands together. “You might not think so highly of him once you hear this.”
“Like I said before, I don’t care about him.”
Another lie.
She placed a bony hand on her hip. Dried blood crumbled from her knuckles as she curled them. “I’m not the villain as you believed. I’ve done what I needed to, to survive. Over time, of course, the lure of the dark side certainly has had its perks.” She tilted her head, taking me in. “Kindness is weakness. You’ll learn this in your life. Well…” She laughed, then shrugged. “Perhaps not. Anyway,” she said, dismissing the thought. “Raiden, the so-called brilliant god of creatures, was feared by my village. I grew up in a poor area of Regedam Province, to the east. His beasts would come and tear the people apart. He let them roam. He had certain controls over them, but he allowed them to embrace their savage nature. We called them demon hounds. They belonged in the underworld. He stole them from Lucius.” She moved her gaze to the ground. “The times were different a century ago. Girls like me were married to the best suitor for the family, but my father drank and didn’t make enough dowry for me to find a decent husband. Instead, he would hit my mother, blaming her for our situation. One day, he beat her too hard, and she didn’t make it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, although it was hard to sympathize with someone as awful as her.
Her eyes glittered with insanity as she gazed at me, the moon swallowed by her pupils. “Don’t pity me. I ended up more powerful than any of them in the end.”
I stumbled, not wanting us to move again. The more time I could keep her in the forest, the better. “I know, sorry, so your mother died. What does that have to do with Raiden?”
“It has nothing to do with him, but it did start me on a path I wouldn’t be able to return from. You see, my father’s friends would come, and they would, well…” She paused, briefly lost in a thought of another time. “Regardless, I ended up pregnant.”
I could fill in the blanks. If she wasn’t running around killing people, I might have felt bad for her.
