The scowl he gives me is so fierce that I pull back. “Of course I’m not getting cold feet.”
“Then what is it?” I demand.
“It’s not the right time,” he mutters.
Oh, hell no. Not that again. “Haven’t we been through this? It’s the right time. Never a better time.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he replies snarkily. “I remember you saying that before. But that was different then.”
My eyebrows draw in tight. “How?”
“Because…” His voice trails off, and he doesn’t seem to want to finish.
“Spit it out,” I demand. Because I know Rainey will say yes, so he sure as hell better not be having second thoughts.
“Because I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” he exclaims in a rush of breath.
I rear back. “My feelings?”
His expression says he can’t believe I’d be that obtuse, but then he explains. “Your feelings because of finding out you and Carrick have loved each other for centuries upon centuries, and he’s been snatched away from you now. I know you’re in pain. Rainey knows it, too. It would be too insensitive to shove an engagement in your face right now.”
I’m so stunned by this admission that my jaw drops open. My friend’s thoughtfulness utterly warms part of me, but the other part wants to smack him.
“I’m fine,” I assure him.
“You’re not,” he snaps. “You won’t talk about it to us, you’re moping around, and you look like the world has already ended for you.”
I blink.
Blink again.
Do I really act that way?
Yeah, I don’t talk about it. I mean, I told both Rainey and Myles the full story the day after Carrick was taken. Told them every detail I didn’t tell Zaid, because Zaid knew most of it from first-hand experience.
But since then, I haven’t wanted to talk about it. I don’t want to keep slicing wounds open and letting them bleed for my friends.
We have an earth to save.
“Myles,” I say quietly, but with a tinge of firmness. “Yes, I’ve been through a lot, and, yes, I’m a bit of a mess when it comes to Carrick. But that does not mean I wouldn’t take complete joy in you proposing to Rainey. In fact, I’d say it’s exactly what I need. Some type of refreshing reminder that love is beautiful and still very much alive. Please, please… I’m begging you… do not hold off putting a ring on that woman’s finger because you think my feelings will be hurt. I assure you that will never happen.”
His expression is dubious. “You’re not just saying that because you’re trying to be all brave and shit, are you?”
“Of course I’m trying to be brave and shit,” I say in exasperation. “But I could also use something good and happy right now. So I suggest you get to thinking of something, okay?”
Myles gives me the biggest grin I’ve ever seen on his face, and it truly lifts my spirits. “Feel like brainstorming with me now?”
I snag one of the yellow legal pads and pens. “Let’s do it. I’ll take notes. You tell me your thoughts.”
CHAPTER 4
Carrick
The plume of fire shot through a crack in the stone walkway, catching Carrick in the calf and blistering his skin raw. He ignored it as he continued his journey up the sloping path that reached a flat plateau. On one shoulder, he balanced a small boulder that weighed close to five hundred pounds. It was effortless weight, and, in ordinary circumstances, he could easily balance it, but with the flames shooting out at intermittent intervals, it required intense concentration, too.
For every boulder he dropped, he’d receive twenty lashes at the end of the day.
In all, nothing he couldn’t handle. The burns healed, as did the split skin from the whip.
As did all the other torture devices Rune had been inventing to keep Carrick under his thumb and punished.
Since Rune had snatched him off his patio in Seattle, Carrick had been living in what looked to be a replica of the Underworld, or, at least, the way Finley and Boral had described it. Carrick himself hadn’t been, never having had a reason to go in all his millennia of living.
But he was fairly sure this wasn’t the actual Underworld, rather something that resembled it. It was cavernous and dim, light coming only from pits of fire pocketed in rocky crevices. It was hot and smelled like sulfur. Carrick suspected Rune created this place just to make Carrick uncomfortable, but really… it didn’t matter where he was.
What mattered was where he was not, and that was with Finley.
Carrick raged with fury every time he thought about the look on Finley’s face when she finally realized the truth about herself, then the horror when Rune snatched him away. In an overly dramatic fashion, Rune had actually thrown their bodies off the side of the building, knowing it would freak Finley out.
And it did.
Whenever he thought about the fear in her eyes as they disappeared over the edge, it made him grind his teeth so bad that they were in danger of wearing down to nothing. Of course, Rune merely bent distance as soon as they were in a free-fall and Carrick had ended up here.
Because demi-gods are servants of the gods, they must do as they are bid. As easily as a demi-god had been created, he or she could be uncreated.
Meaning, Carrick had no means to fight against Rune’s imprisonment or protest the hard labor Rune had him doing. For days, he’d been forced to move rocks and boulders from one part of the cavern to another for no apparent reason other than Rune wanted him to work continually.
Carrick was up to the task, having incredible strength and power, but it was the futility of it that started to wear on him. He could take the backbreaking work, the burns from the fires, and the slices of the whip. He could handle any torture Rune thought to bestow upon him, and he could handle them for an eternity if he had to.
What he was having a hard time handling was the maddening unknown of what was going on in the Earth realm with Finley. She was trying to stop a prophecy from fulfilling, and he had pledged to help her do it.
Fuck, he had pledged to love her for eternity, then that asshole Rune took him away before she could even process it. Carrick knew how that beautiful mind worked, and he was sure she was pissed he was gone and feeling a bit lost at the same time.
Another spray of fire shot out between a crack in the stone he walked over, this time catching his bare foot and causing him to hiss. Upon his arrival, Rune had divested Carrick of his clothing and only given him a loincloth to wear.
Which was fine by him because it was an inferno in this place.
Carrick readjusted the boulder slightly as he continued the slog uphill. When he reached the top, he squatted and let it fall from his shoulder to the ground. He took care with unburdening his load because he also got lashes if he broke a boulder.
There was no clock by which to mark the passage of time. Carrick merely worked until he was told to stop. An ordinary day would have some hulking beast that looked like a man with fur all over him and a black executioner’s mask covering his face driving Carrick off the plateau where he had unloaded the boulders. He was pushed down into a small valley—no more than a large crevice among rock formations that was maybe a hundred feet wide, and then to a small cell carved into the cavern wall.