Page 71 of A Reign of Storm and Madness

“What happened?” I press.

Regis’ face pales further and he swallows heavily. “On the third day, I saw my opportunity,” he says, voice low. Ominous. “The servant had been with his God for the duration of the night—it was a location I couldn’t get to, not without being noticed. So, I waited outside the building and when he emerged the next morning, I noticed how gray his skin had become. He looked ill. He was stumbling as if he were drunk. I-I assumed he’d been—” Regis makes a choked sound and I find myself at his side in an instant, cupping his shoulder as I crouch before him.

“It’s okay,” I tell him, hoping like fuck that I’m not lying as I say the words. “Keep going.”

“He wasn’t human.” Regis rocks back and forth, head in his hands. “He wasn’t … how … why … he wasn’t human.”

My own mind tries to catch up with his words and their meanings. “Why would they give you this job?” I ask, trying to switch tactics since it appears he’s falling apart.

Regis shudders and when my hand tightens on his shoulder, he lets out a sound of pain. Immediately, I rip my hand away from him. Shit. Standing, I turn away and stride across the small sliver of floor between the wall and the bed. I pause when I reach the wall, turn, and stride back to the bed once more, repeating the process as I speak my thoughts aloud. “You surely didn’t complete it. I mean, how could you? What could Ophelia be think—”

“I did.”

Ice fills my veins at those words. I stop pacing and turn to face my friend. My only friend, I remind myself. Though I do like Niall, Regis is the only one who knows everything. He knows my past, my present, and my hopeful future. Niall doesn’t know my birth or my abilities or my blood-stained past. Regis does. He shares it. And right now, he looks as if he’s swallowed a poison that’s eating him from the inside out. His cheeks are ashen and his lips are nearly white as he chews upon them.

“Regis.”

His chin jerks to the side, but still, he does not look at me. I step towards him and his hands reach for each other, clasping in front of him as they hang between his slightly parted legs.

“Regis, look at me.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t.” He starts rocking again, back and forth as the bed beneath him squeaks. “Kiera, I—” He shakes his head again, jerking it side to side. “I don’t know how I managed it or how it … was so easy.” Droplets fall from his face, little dark wet spots hitting the floor between his booted feet.

“Easy?” Killing a Mortal God has never been easy. Not for me and it certainly should not even be possible for a human like Regis.

If there are three facts in this world, they are these:

The Gods are Cruel.

The Gods are indestructible to those who don’t possess Divinity.

And Mortal Gods are the same.

I crouch before Regis once more, knees hitting the floor and digging in as I take his hands in my own and lift them to my face as I seek out his eyes.

When one does not see terror in a person’s eyes for so long, they start to forget just how strong of an emotion it is. Right now, Regis’ face is full of it. As well as confusion and panic.

“You need to tell me everything,” I say. “How it happened. Who the mission came from. How he died. Don’t leave out a single detail.”

Regis sucks in a shuddering breath and his hands clamp onto mine. His skin is cold, but as I settle my gaze on him, he nods. Then he opens his mouth and what he tells me … is the reality of the impossible.

Chapter 36

Ruen

Ido not trust easily, and even if I do still feel the tendrils of guilt wrap around my throat when I look at the silver-haired vixen that has seduced not just Theos, but both of my brothers, I know I cannot trust her. So, when she tells me the story of her brother disliking Mortal Gods, I let her go. Not because I don’t believe that there are humans in this world that hate my kind and the kind of my sire, but because it’s easier than trying to fight with her.

Three hours. That’s the timeline I give her, but really it’s a ruse because the moment she’s out of the coffee house where she’d tried to leave me, I finish my drink and follow her. Casting an illusion of invisibility over my body the moment I step out into the street, I trail the lingering scent of Kiera Nezerac to an alley just off the street to the side of the building.

I watch her cast a look around before taking a sprinting leap. Her limbs are agile and she’s faster than most humans I’ve met—too fast, my mind suggests—as she climbs the planks of wood lying against the end of the alley. One cracks and then snaps in half under her slight weight, but she’s already catching the lip of the roof and clambering onto the surface. She jumps to her feet and sprints off without even seeming winded.

Suspicion grows as I trail her. She’s a cautious creature, glancing down and back several times as if she knows I’m following, but she never spots me. Once, her cloak hood falls back and the silvery strands of her hair spill out, glinting under the morning light. Just as quickly, though, she lifts it back into place and dives for the next roof.

For several long minutes, I follow the Terra as she leaps from roof to roof, and then finally, she slows down and then drops into an alley. Quickly looking up and down the street, where only a single plump woman with a broom brushes at her front step, Kiera flits across the street and into what looks to me like a shop.

Lifting my head, I sniff at the air. My nose wrinkles automatically. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said her brother lived further into the slums. The stale scent of garbage and urine drenches the area. A curtain flutters in a second-floor window above the shop, catching my eye. I lean closer from my position perched on the roof across from it, narrowing my eyes as I try to catch a glimpse of the figure there.

Brother, I remind myself. Kiera’s papers had said she had family in Riviere. One brother, no parents. There is so much intrigue about this woman, though, that I wonder if her papers are even real. I drop into the alley that Kiera had and stride across the street. My ears prick at the sound of her voice calling out for a man named ‘Regis.’ Something dark curls in my gut at the familiar way she says his name, but I shove the feeling down.

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