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My heart skipped a beat. I grabbed his hand before he could run away. “Not this time. I can catch you now.”
A ghost of a smile curved his lips. “Leave.”
“No.” I pulled him back to me. “I’ve come to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.” His gaze softened. “Please, Elle. Don’t do this to me.”
“I have to,” I said slowly. “I can’t leave you here. I need you.”
He hesitated. “Elle.”
“Alexander has my sister.”
His jaw clenched. “What?”
“Yeah, and he took Thalia’s place. If I kill him, I need someone to take over as god or goddess of the dead, and it should be Thalia.”
He released his fingers from mine, his eyes widening. “You came here first, before saving your sister?”
I swallowed hard, trying to remove the lump in my throat. “I wouldn’t kill him and leave your sister unable to come back. I already did it once, by accident.” I pressed my lips together. “Because I care about you.”
“This much? Enough to leave your sister?”
I held my next breath. I felt so stupid, standing there. I cared too much and in doing so had made a huge mistake. His eyebrow flickered, his expression set permanently to surprised. When he said it out loud, it was a lot. Too much for him. Did Edmund, Naomi, and Maddox realize what I was doing? My heart ballooned. My cheeks heated. Fuck. Stupid heart. “I shouldn’t have come.”
He looked over his shoulder, then back at me. “You shouldn’t have.”
The lump in my throat swelled. Tears lingered on the barriers of breaking, and my bottom lip trembled. He looked at me with the same stoic, cold stare he’d shown before he’d left. “I know you don’t mean that.”
A thunderous boom shook the underworld once more. He looked over his shoulder again, fear lacing his eyes. “You need to run back out of here.”
My hands were shaking. “Did it all just mean more to me?”
He opened his mouth to say something, but a loud boom shook the ground. “Fuck, Elle. Yes, it did, okay? So get out of here.” His eyes darkened. “I don’t want you here.”
“I don’t believe you.” A tear trickled, running down my cheek. “You said you would never hurt me.”
He shuffled from one foot to the other, continuously checking over his shoulder. He grabbed my shoulder and moved me back toward the creek. “You’re innocent,” he said quietly. “I don’t hurt innocents, remember?”
I inhaled deeply. “That’s it then.”
“Yes.”
“Then I’ll go. I’ll kill Alexander.”
“Do whatever the fuck you need to do,” he growled and a third, closer boom sounded. “Now leave.”
I swallowed hard. “Fine.”
I sped away to the edge of the creek, not ready to cross it yet. Heaving back a deep sob, I rolled back my shoulders.
I was an idiot for thinking it was any more than sex or friendship. I cried for a minute when the cave trembled. Rocks fell from the ceiling. I shielded them with my hands and ducked under a crevice. The mist thickened. Even if he didn’t want me there, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t just here for him; I was here because I was doing right by Thalia. She’d been good to me. She’d protected me even when she shouldn’t, and I wasn’t going to abandon her because he’d had enough of me. My sister had approximately twenty hours left before Alexander would start getting suspicious.
The ground shook, but this time I stood. I glanced back, watching Raiden stand upon a barren red hill. Lightning struck from the skies, cracking the mud. Aziel appeared atop the hill, and a storm followed. I closed my eyes, steadying myself as the ground shook with more ferocity.
Lucius’s low voice boomed throughout the underworld, reverberating through every piece of it. “Show yourselves.”
Demons slithered in their direction, an army at Lucius’s disposal. They sped out from their habitats and in the direction of Raiden and Aziel.
