1
FRESH AIR
Coldness had never felt so sweet. The trees shook and the lake shuddered under the assault of the wind. He stood alone atop the hill, eyes closed, letting the breeze, the rain, and the thunder caress him.
Once upon a time, he would have given just about anything to feel the air on his skin again.
Anything but this.
Anything but her.
Eirikr had spent more time locked up in the empty, damp chamber carved in the belly of the mountain than out here in the world. There had been many desperate nights where he’d believed he’d never taste freedom again.
Then she’d appeared, breathing hope, and warmth, and life back into his lungs. His little daughter, Chloe. The youngest of his line, who’d endured despite the odds.
Eirikr didn’t expect another miracle in his lifetime. The Fates simply weren’t that kind. And yet here he was.
Because Greer was dead.
He’d known the second he felt the weight of the power holding him prisoner disappear. There was no other option. The spell keeping him imprisoned was a blood hex, anchored in the Vespian’s lineage. It was designed to endure so long as one of them still breathed.
Which meant that the dark beauty with sorrowful amber eyes was gone.
He inhaled deeply while opening his mind, searching, analyzing every thought and scent until one distinctive mixture of spices and flowers filled his nostrils.
He could smell her. He could feel echoes of the thoughts around her—Chloe’s, her mate’s, the huntsmen, and many of his daughter’s friends.
Not Greer.
He followed the trail leading to the heady, familiar scent until he’d reached the ruins of an ancient keep that hadn’t yet been built when Eirikr had last tasted freedom.
Knowing without any doubt that she was gone should have prepared him. He’d seen so many corpses in his time—and a great many of them due to him. What was one more?
Everything. Nothing at all.
Seeing Greer motionless, already growing cold, her heart silent and still was another kind of prison, another kind of void.
A witch whose name he didn’t bother to recall knelt beside Greer’s body, tears streaking her pretty face. Chloe stood, crying in her mate’s arms. For the first time since the moment he’d first smelled her, Eirikr looked at her with unadulterated fury.
She should have prevented this. She should have protected Greer. She was strong enough.
Chloe wasn’t important right now. No one was, except for Greer.
"Helsing," he called in the stunned silence.
There was no answer, so he repeated the name, demanding.
"Diana's passed out," her brother replied, tilting his head to his left. His sister was slumped over in Mikar’s arms. "Someone broke her neck."
Ironic that she’d suffered the same wound as Greer. She’d wake up in a day or so with nothing more than a bad headache. And Greer was dead.
Permanently so, if the singer of hell couldn’t call Thanatos to negotiate an exchange.
Eirikr recalled the first time he’d caught Greer’s scent, before she’d walked down to his prison. Then, the first sight. The first words she’d spoken to him.
Then the time she’d invited the wrath of her ancestors to let him out of his cage, just to let him say goodbye to Chloe.
Greer was strong. And beautiful. And kind, even to the likes of him.
And gone.
No.
He was Eirikr Primerius, first of his kind, first of his line.
There was a time when he’d respected the will of the fates, but by now Eirikr was intimately familiar with death. He’d cheated it a thousand times and wished for it a thousand more.
He did not bow to fate. He did not cede to death. He wasn’t going to let this stand. That was the end of it.
He needed a plan. A course of action. A direction.
And most of all, he needed time.
"Where's the ice witch?"
"I'm here.” The dark witch was at his side in instants. "It happened so fast. They had her, and we couldn't—"
"I don't care.” Her excuses were pointless and wasting precious seconds. “Freeze her now."
He’d been freed two, three minutes ago at most, which meant that Greer hadn’t been dead for long. If they acted quickly, her body could be preserved by the witch’s magic.
For a time.
As for her soul…
Gwen was quick to comply, and efficient—in less than a heartbeat, Greer’s body was encased in an impenetrable ice coffin. "What now?"
“There’s no point,” Blair murmured, leaning back. She sounded as weary as she looked, nearly dead on her feet. “Her soul is gone.”
Eirikr was on a timeline. He didn’t bother stating the obvious.
He was going to find a way to get her back.
Or he would die trying.
2
THE GREAT NOTHINGNESS
Something was terribly wrong, other than the fact that she was dead.
Greer knew enough of the other worlds to realize that she shouldn’t be here, locked away in darkness.
There were different realms where a soul should go after death, depending on which immortal chose to claim it. Modern-day witches typically headed either to the traditional heaven or hell, but Greer’s bloodline was older than most.
Her family had never bowed to the One Power—the God of a dozen religions. The founder of her line had been empowered by Juno, which made the Vespians pagans, through and through. The Roman and Greek mythologies were both sides of the same coin; they worshiped the same gods, named differently only because the human empires had been in the middle of a pissing contest at the time. That meant her immortal soul should be on its way to the Underworld. Greer had fully expected to wait in line for Charon’s ferry, traveling across the Styx.
She couldn’t deny that she’d felt some fear at the prospect of facing Hades’ judges of the dead. Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus weren’t known for their leniency. But she’d never done anything too bad. She didn’t cheat on tests, didn’t skip lines or ask to speak to the manager when things didn’t go her way.
For all this, Greer knew she was guilty of one sin the ancient kings may not pardon easily.
Rebellion. Time and time again over the last couple of years, she’d defied the will of her matriarch, instead making her own decisions. Anyone reasonable would have argued that, given the fact that the said matriarch was dead, what she wanted was irrelevant. Besides, at twenty-seven, Greer wasn’t a little girl who had to obey without question.
Minos, who’d been betrayed by his own daughter, might not see it that way. Rhadamanthus’s name literally meant showing stern and inflexible judgement. At least he had a tendency to disagree with Minos. Aeacus could go one way or the other. She’d died saving her friends; that might count for something for the old adventurer.
In none of her dreams or nightmares had she ever imagined spending her afterlife confined in darkness.
Greer’s eyes couldn’t discern anything. Wherever she was, there wasn’t any light source nearby.
“Anyone here?” she asked.
The sound reverberated around her, both muffled and faintly echoing.