ZANDER'S POV“Zander! Let him go,” Hazel yelled. I felt her tiny fingers working as a tool to wrench my claws from around Lance's neck. “Do you take me for a fool, ghoul?” Gidian bellowed, ignoring the pleas of our wife. The rotten corpse struggled against my hold, but the more he struggled, the more pieces of his body kept falling to the ground. It tried talking, but my tight grip restricted it from uttering a word.“That's enough!” Isis boomed. I felt my heart rate slowing rapidly and my anger subsiding with it. “Isis, Declan just mind-linked me and told me that Major Skully is with them," I seethed. “So I think this one here might be leading us into a trap.” I released my grip on Lance, sending the rest of him falling to the ground. I was angry as I explained to the others what Declan revealed to me. Hazel placed a hand on mine for comfort. “Let's hear him out before we make such accusations," she told me. But I was tired of this journey. I just wanted to get to the Fae world
ZANDER'S POV We were as quiet as we could be as we followed ghost Carson up the stairs. No one dared make a sound. Even our breathing was kept under control and could barely be heard as we made our way to the second floor. We swerved and swivelled along winded passageways and twisted staircases that seemed to be never-ending. Where is he leading us? I asked myself. The ghost stopped ahead, so we did the same. We waited, and then my ears picked up on scratching sounds coming from one of the many rooms lining the massive corridor we were now in. Carson pointed. “The child's in the room at the far end. Now listen, she is going to ask one of the men a question. I don't know what the question will be, but the answer should be yes." The scratching noises intensified as we travelled down the hallway. Old torches lit the way as we quietly trekked one foot at a time. The scraping noises got louder and more pronounced. “What is that sound?” Isis asked. “Just be quiet, we don't want to
DECLAN'S POV “I don't care what anyone says. The Luna is our mate,” Maddox growled in my head. “She smells so delectable. Why can't she be ours?” He complained. My wolf gets confused every time he was around Hazel. Her intoxicating aroma reminded him so much of our mate that sometimes his mind went haywire, believing that our Luna is our mate. I tried on many occasions, drilling into his stubborn brain that she wasn't for us and that she belongs to our Alpha and friend. This entire ordeal had put a damper on our and Zander's relationship. I remembered there was a time when the Alpha and I would go out on runs together and just bonded over guy stuff. Everyone knew Carson was like a brother to him, and he trusted Carson with his life, but the beta was an idiot a major percent of the time and there were things Zander needed my opinion on. Like his proposal to Luna, the Alpha asked Carson for ideas of how to propose to a woman and Carson's response was to spray whip cream on his dick
HAZEL'S POV My father asked the banshee the question again and the answer was the same, Lucinda, my mother, is the Queen of the Fae World's best friend. So, that was where she was all these years. Living life in the land of the fairies. I wondered if she ever thought about coming to get me. If she could see the past and future so well, shouldn't she have seen that dad went missing around the time of my eighth birthday? Shouldn't she have seen my distress and how heartbroken I was about losing both my parents? Shouldn't she have seen I needed her, that I needed my mother? “Do you know if she's still there?” my father dug some more. “Yes, I should think so. But why is Lucinda important to you guys?" Cedella inquired. “She is not," I answered, steering the focus from the mysteries of my mother. “Let's just hear the rest of what you were telling us earlier. So, when Lucifer kidnapped Lucinda and found out the portal ruby was a decoy, what did he do next." Everyone was silent, and I
Zander strode towards Major Skully, his eyes lost in darkness as his wolf came to the surface. “You're an evil creature and as the banshee said, you will die tonight!” Zander clutched him by his boney neck and lifted him with ease off the ground. He struggled to speak, but Zander didn't care to hear what he had to say.“How old is the child?” We all turned to look at Lance. He and ghost Carson were standing in the corner of the corridor, ensuring not to interfere with our interrogation of Major Skully.Cedella craned her neck to look at him. “My daughter will be 10 in a few days.”“Then the child must leave. If she stays here past her 10th birthday, the town will begin to crumble to pieces until it is no more," Lance explained.“The ghoul is right, Cedella," Carson the ghost agreed.“OK," Cedella sighed. “But I cannot leave this realm, so I will never see my daughter again.”“Never say never," Isis declared. “There are numerous ways of doing things where I'm from.”Cedella sniffled.
The sky bled red as bloody raindrops soaked the ground beneath the angry clouds. The whistling and wailing of the gale force winds sounded like a ravenous wolf that was howling at the full moon, but there was no moon in sight, just angry black clouds that spat large crimson droplets.“What's happening? Why is it raining blood?" Zander asked Lance. “I don't know," he answered as he lifted his head to the sky. Bolts of heavy lightning, devastating thunders, and unpredictable rhythms of the merciless torrential rainfall unleashed an evil force that opened the black gates of hell. The wicked rainstorm continuously exerted its intense attack on the town of Dead Man's Cave and its inhabitants. The group stood on the top of the hill and stared as far as their eyes could see. The rock-like raindrops were pounding and hammering against every surface they hit with a vigorous rhythm of rumbling thunders, replicating the perpetual pounding sounds of a Japanese Taiko drum concert. Water level
ISIS' POV There is a scream of the mouth and lungs, and then there is a scream of the eyes and soul. But these damn banshees were screaming with their every might. It was the kind of scream that bypassed the ears, so it could speak right to the heart.Their piercing howls of death almost blew a hole in my chest with an ice-cold magnum. The searing agony caused my vision to blur. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move, and my head was spinning, threatening to shut down altogether. My ears popped with a crack so loud it echoed through me, sending more ripples of pain to my already bleeding brain. My head spun violently now, and I tried to move. I opened my eyes just in time to see Zander fighting off two of the banshees. I looked up, and I saw the other four ghastly figures encircling me, like sharks circling their prey. One of them hovered closer to me, with her eyes gouging out and bloodied from crying. She had a sickening grin plastered over her face. “We're just messengers. This
???'s POV I watched the chosen one and his friends follow Charon to the river. He was rude to them, but you couldn't blame him. He was overworked and underpaid. Working for the most powerful God would make anyone tired and frustrated. And Charon was more than that. He was lonely and grumpy. He hated his job. They walked for a couple of minutes until they came upon a boat. It was bigger than they thought it'd be. “Welcome to my Soul Boat," Charon spoke with a sound emitting from him that resembled a cackle. It was made up of different pieces of old boats. Boards of all textures and realms joined together to make up the body of the floating device. “Will that stay afloat?” Carson asked. “It looked like it was shipwrecked and left out in the sun too long.”“Who said that?” Charon bellowed. “No one," Zander answered. “But I won't lie. I am also concerned. Will it be able to take us safely across the river?"“Yes. Just pay me, so I can get you across. I'm getting tired of seeing you