Page 57 of Surrendering Hope (The Hope Legacy)

A round of chuckling echoes against the damp walls. I smirk as his jaw ticks. “Maybe you need some anger management therapy?”

“What I need is for you to do your job, then disappear.”

I blink. “That’s not nice.”

“I’m not nice.”

“Explain why I have to be the one to save Archan.”

His jaw moves left to right. God’s must have incredible teeth and jaw strength if he’s spent several thousand years doing that. “The Jar is yours.”

“The Jar is Zeus’.”

He shakes his head. “No, he had the Jar made, but it was gifted to you. Therefore, you and only you command it.” It doesn’t escape my notice that this is the same point I made to Ty, which means I’m being difficult on purpose. Don’t judge me, we all have someone in our lives we love to antagonize.

Nathan steps back from the middle door and turns to stare at me. “What he’s not saying is that because of who Ty and Archan are, we cannot kill them.”

“There will be no killing,” Zac mutters, glaring at me.

I shrug. “If the opportunity to kill Ty presents itself, I’ll take it.”

My braid whooshes over my shoulder as my back hits the wall. Zac looms over me, his hand around my neck. He’s so close I can taste his breath. His hand tightens around my throat. Zee tries to knock his arm off. I stare into frozen, stormy eyes. “You made a vow, Natia. You will save Archan. Damn the consequences.”

“So the world can burn, so long as he lives?” I choke out.

He grunts as someone slams into his back. “There is more than this world. If it burns, we will relocate.”

My eyes widen. “You will relocate seven billion people.”

He shakes his head. “No, Natia. We, as in the gods of old, will leave this world to burn.”

Anger to rival his own burns in my veins. “You’d abandon us?”

He gives a sharp nod. “If need be.”

Fire leaps from my hands and I clasp his forearms. The masochist grins. “I’m the father of fire, Natia. It can no more hurt me than it can hurt you, the woman forged in it.”

Fire might not hurt him, but I have more in my arsenal. Sharp rocks split from the wall behind me and catch his shirt at the top of his arms. Instead of jolting back like a normal person, he grunts and allows the shards to pass through the shirt, leaving twin holes.

He tilts his head, his jaw loosening. “You don’t want to hurt me?”

“Debatable. But at this moment in time, I want our energies focused on getting into this temple alive, getting the three hundred people back and figuring out what is happening in there and how it links to Ty’s plans.”

He blinks as he lessens his hold and drops his hand. He takes a step back and stares at me for a silent beat, nods and turns to Duncan, Nathan and Zee, who are glaring at him.

“Which door?” he asks them, as if he hadn’t a second ago been strangling the life out of me.

Nathan looks past him to me. “You okay?”

I rub my neck, it’s not sore though. I nod.

Duncan’s hands fist at his sides. “Put your hands on her again, Ares, and I will introduce you to what my bloodline really means.”

Zac studies Duncan like he’s dissecting him by his DNA code. “That’s something we shall discuss later,” Zac concludes.

Duncan scoffs. “Unlikely, War.”

I roll my eyes. Although if I’m honest, I want to discover what the hell he’s talking about. Four years of friendship and I know next to nothing about my best friend.

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