Page 36 of Painless
"He was free." I began to understand. "And the gods were set free."
Noelle gave a sad smile, her eyes welling up with tears. "I'd never tell Reaper this, but I think Daren was ready to go. Eithertheytold him it was time or he just couldn't take it anymore. He just sounds so much more at peace now."
"I'm glad." I squeezed her hand.
"The parts of the future he tells me, though," she shivered, "they're scary, Mari. I'm a bitch that can laugh in the face of death, but what he says makes me so worried. The club is about to change, Mari. As a whole, all the way down to the individual people within it. "
The air in the room went cold. Noelle's gaze hovered just over my shoulder, and I had no doubt she saw something, orsomeonethat I couldn't.
"You're going to get your heart broken," she told me in a strained voice. "And not just by one man."
"What? No." The faces of my three men flashed through my mind. It wasn't possible.
"It will tear you apart," Noelle went on. "Make you question everything."
"No," I repeated.
They wouldn't hurt me, not to that degree. My guys made me want to burst from how happy they made me. Reaper was doing so much better. He talked to me when he was frustrated, instead of shutting me out. Jandro never wanted anything except to make me laugh. And Gunner, my sweet beautiful man. Our love story had only just begun.
"But," Noelle's eyes fell on Freyja, who lay stretched out on her bed like she owned it, "the goddess of love will guide you when you feel like you can't trust your own heart. That's what my brother told me." Noelle's green gaze returned to me. "And Daren has never been wrong."
My chest ached, like my heart was already bracing itself for irreparable damage.
"Who's going to do this to me?" I asked, my throat going dry. "And how, other women? Is someone going to..."
I couldn't bring myself to say the word, but my imagination took me there. In my head I saw the shadowy apparition, the figure who called himself Hades, leading a man in an SDMC cut down a hallway to a light at the opposite end.
No, I couldn't lose one of them, or any of them, like that.
"Tell me," I begged in a soft whisper when Noelle didn't answer.
"Hey, there you are."
My head snapped to the doorway, where Gunner's smile shined like the sun. Horus puffed up in a ball of feathers on his shoulder.
"Guess how many supply runs I got today, baby girl?"
"Um," I blinked, trying to act normal. "I don't know."
"None." His grin went sideways in a cocky, adorable way. "Which means I'm taking you out."
"Out?"
"Yeah, for a ride." He glanced up at Noelle. "Unless you're busy."
"Nah, get gone!" Noelle plastered on a smile and flung her hands at me in a shooing motion. "We were just having some girl talk."
"By the look of those bedsheets, I'm sure you hadlotsto talk about," he teased her.
"Pft! I don't even want to know what my brother's bed looks like, now that you're roped in."
"I'm more of a headboard breaker, myself." Gunner's tongue slid along his lower lip as his gaze returned to me.Lord have mercy.I had a feeling he was going to be trouble, in the best way.
"Where are you taking me?" I added a flirtatious tone to my voice as I rose from Noelle's bed, trying to shove down the unsettling feeling from what she just told me. I waited so long to call this man mine. After everything we went through and overcame, would he really hurt me again?
"Somewhere fun and educational," he smirked.
"Meow!"
