Page 13 of Reaper's Reward

Coming back to the real world was startling. The colors were so bright, they hurt my eyes and made my head ache. I winced as my eyes adjusted. Beside me, Maddox squeezed my hand. I caught the tightness at the corners of his mouth while he stared into the distance. He must have seen the same vision.

What was he thinking? The tight grip on my hand nearly hurt. The vision had shaken him.

I whipped my head back towards Hel. “That’s not Maddox. Don’t you dare insinuate that this is the same situation.”

Hel said nothing. Her impassive expression told me that she was not willing to argue with me. I might be kin, but I was still a mortal and therefore lesser than her. I lifted my free hand to flip her off.

She rolled her eyes at me. “Your willfulness will not change the future. Maddox has no other choice than to become a monster. It is in his nature. He will continue to feed until there is nothing left.”

I shook my head. “No. That’s not how this works. So long as Maddox has me, he’ll have everything he needs. My arcana will keep him fed. If you would stop ripping me away from him, then everything would be fine.”

While Hel and I bickered, Maddox stayed quiet. I feared the worst. He believed her. He saw himself in that vision, just the way that Hel wanted. Even if I wouldn’t listen to her, he would.

I couldn’t win. Neither would hear me out. I could keep all of this from happening. I had more power than anyone I’d ever known. Maddox could have it all, for all I cared. I would gladly give it up just for him. So long as it meant keeping the man I loved.

“Adeline, your bleeding heart will not fix anything.” Hel tilted her head in pity.

I nearly grabbed another kitchen chair, so I could climb onto it and slap the human side of her face. The only thing stopping me was the fact that her big, divine ass blocked my path into the small kitchen behind her.

Maddox

I sawmyself in the wolf man. Of course, I knew that was what Hel wanted.

That voice. I recognized it. Did Hel know that I’d come across her prisoner while searching for Addie? The wolf in the vision had been the same one in the cavern. He’d tried to entice me into aiding him.

I hadn’t, of course. Though I got the feeling that Hel would punish me simply for knowing where he was.

Perhaps I should get comfortable with that part of the afterlife, because I had a feeling that’s where Hel wanted to put me. I was just as much a danger to the world as that wolf had been. The wolf that could topple gods and devour worlds…had the same kind of insatiable hunger that I struggled with.

What had I become?

What kind of monster could I grow into?

Addie stared the goddess down as if that might change the intrinsic truth of the situation. She couldn’t change fate. The wolf and I were almost one and the same. There was no getting around that. Feeding me would be like hitting the snooze button on a ticking time bomb.

“We can prevent this,” Hel said, her voice heavy with the words that would come next.

Before she could even spit them out, Addie jumped on her. “No. The answer is no. We will find another way.”

Hel pressed her lips into a firm, unimpressed line. “You need to listen for once in your life.”

“I have played the safe game my whole life! I’m tired of it. This time, I will get what I want even if it means pissing off the gods. You’re welcome to try, but you can’t stop me.”

“Addie,” I said as I tugged on her hand.

She cut a quick, sidelong glance in my direction. I gave a brusque shake of my head. Her shoulders dropped, almost imperceptibly. I saw it, though. The slight change in her demeanor showed just how much the single word had cost her.

“You can’t consider this! I won’t allow it. This all happened because of me…” She paused and straightened. “No. It happened because another Reaper thought he could defy fate by using others. I won’t let you pay the price of someone else’s hubris.”

“He isn’t paying a price. This isn’t about the balance of justice.” Hel put a bony hand on Addie’s shoulder. “This is a preventative measure. It has nothing to do with Bastien or the ripples of his actions. Maddox will become a world-ending devourer like Fenrir. The wolf needed to be chained to keep the worlds safe.”

The room fell quiet. Addie shook her head. She spun on her heel and stormed out of the room. Her footsteps left heavy echoes that rang in my ears. Once she was gone, I turned back to Hel. I didn’t trust the goddess as far as I could throw her, but I’d met the beast in question.

There was no denying what I’d felt in the underworld.

“What will you do with me? Do I have any time left before you’re going to force me into your prison?”

Hel was quiet for a moment. It wasn’t the silence of contemplation, but of pity. Her eyes were still on the direction that Addie had left. I couldn’t help but wonder if the goddess sympathized with her descendant. Did she see her own hubris in Addie? Would Addie’s actions lead to a similar fight?

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