Page 45 of Reaper's Reward

Even Paige didn’t like this room. She knew as well as I did that we were about to walk into a prison. I could smell it from here. Fenrir hadn’t been the only one trapped in here. While he was out and about, the others were still trapped here.

“It’s the only choice we have,” Addie declared, her attention dead ahead while her fingers were still buried in my fur.

I lowered myself and let her climb onto my back where she could direct me. If we had to run, then it was better to have her there. Then we would be able to escape together. Addie clung to my fur, and her grip should have stung but it reassured me that she was there.

Together, the three of us stepped into the veil of shadows.

To my surprise, the veil parted quickly. No more than three steps later, we found ourselves on the other side of a dense wall. Before us, a dim cavern sprawled forward. Small pockets dotted the cavern walls. From those pockets came voices, laughter, and growls all trapped behind rocky doors with narrow windows.

It would have been unsettling to be surrounded by so many potential threats—my beast certainly despised the danger potential in this prison—but a figure on the floor distracted us. Hel knelt with her back to the shadowed veil. From this angle, she looked like a nun praying for God’s forgiveness.

I wondered what she could have done to need forgiveness from the god of another pantheon. The chains limp on the floor around her told me everything I needed to know. The metal bindings were thick, the metal of each ring about as thick as my human thigh. They’d been holding a monster unlike any other:

Fenrir.

Addie tried to slip off my back, but I rolled my shoulders and sidestepped to keep her where she belonged. The sound of her frustration came out strangled. Instead of standing here and arguing, I loped towards Hel so that Addie wouldn’t try running off again. I circled around the front of the kneeling goddess.

“Fen?” Hel asked, her voice frail and wispy.

She lifted a shaking skeletal hand in my direction. I recoiled away from her before circling back around, this time with more distance between us.

Hel’s flickering blue eyes steadied. She shook herself and seemed to realize who I really was. Though I understood the confusion, I knew that my pale white pelt could hardly be mistaken for Fenrir’s midnight fur. Also, I noted that Hel had used a pet name for Fenrir.

Why would a goddess call a world-ending threat by a nickname?

Addie asked Hel if she was okay and what was going on, but I was busy putting the clues together. Hel had blamed Addie for Fenrir’s escape. Sure, Addie was powerful, but her summoning circle would not have been enough to unleash Fenrir from these chains. Simple chalk on the kitchen floor wouldn’t have enough power.

I thought back to my first venture down here. These halls were familiar. I knew that I’d strayed a bit too close to this prison because I’d heard Fenrir’s voice before the spirits of the halls had pulled me away. The spirits had quickly shoved me in another direction, so I could find Addie before Hel figured out what we were doing.

Fenrir hadn’t been talking to me that day.

Hel sighed and let her head fall back. I glanced up to see what she was looking at. Gnarled white roots spread out from the ceiling and slithered across the walls like the veins of the earth. They wound around some of the prison doors, locking them behind a layer of tough wood—yet they were rotting.

The roots were pocked with dark blemishes, some of them concave with rot dripping from their wounds. The underworld was dying. That’s why the halls were always shadowed. They should have been lit, the same way that Addie had lit them. Instead, Hel’s fading power left her domain bathed in shadow.

I wished I could have said that my heart went out to her. Instead, a barrier of ice kept my heart from feeling anything for this kneeling goddess.

Hel huffed a laugh. “You look like that couple from a Japanese animated movie. Oh, what was it called? I’ve watched it so many times.”

Hel watched human movies? I think I found it more surprising that she favored Japanese animation over something like horror. I would have assumed that hacker and slasher flicks would have been her favorite…but I was getting off track. That’s what she wanted. Hel brought up this wild fact to keep us from asking why she was here, of all places.

It wasn’t the first time that someone had used that tactic on me. The only problem was that I couldn’t speak with my wolf tongue. If I was going to keep Addie safe, I had to stay in this form. Teeth and claws were our best bet against threats down here.

Addie caught on, though. I brimmed with pride when she ignored Hel’s attempt to sidetrack us.

“What in the seven Hells is going on? Why is the underworld dark? What are you doing on your knees?” Addie barraged Hel with questions, with absolutely no reverence.

Hel sighed. She used her human hand to push her lank hair out of her pale face. I never thought skeletons could look exhausted, but there were bags under both eyes, even the bone socket on the left side of her face.

“Have you found him yet?” Hel asked.

Addie groaned. I could almost feel her rolling her eyes. “No. He keeps finding us. He atehalf of Maddox’s rental car while you were down here having a divine meltdown.”

Hel rose from her knees and a wave of power rolled off her. She towered over us as her divine power rattled the prison. The chorus of voices yelped and hollered. They began to shake the bars of their narrow windows. Some stuck their arms out and waved them—not every arm was human in shape.

“Do not worry yourself over me,” Hel told us.

“I’m going to worry when your denizens barge into my bedroom while I’m sucking cock!”

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