Page 8 of Death God

Then a flock of two dozen birds flew overhead, raining down poop mercilessly. The soldiers took cover, but many of them got hit. Going-gray got one on his shoulder.

The birds made a U-turn toward the soldiers for a second round. Going-gray dashed toward our van, yanked open the door to the front passenger seat, and darted inside.

The other soldiers, however, weren’t privileged like him, so they had to stand their ground while trying their best to duck the rain of poop.

“Fucking hell,” Going-gray yelled. “Whenever Pip girl is around, shit hits the fan!”

As if on cue, two poops splashed across the windshield on his side. He jerked. The birds then turned and departed, chirping and crying in victory.

The Alpha King glanced at me, his expression unreadable.

Wrinkling his nose in displeasure, Going-gray dragged out a handkerchief and frantically wiped the poop from his shoulder. After he was done, he tossed the handkerchief out of the window and uttered a string of curses.

“Is it legal to litter, Commander GG?” I asked.

He glared at me.

I chuckled. This was only the beginning. The Alpha King might believe that he could subdue me, but he had no idea what he had truly brought to his base.

CHAPTER 3

The vehicles with tire issues were left behind, and the rest of the jeeps and vans sped along the tree-lined road. A guard had cleaned up the windshield of our dented van, so no poop blocked Going-gray’s sight. A win for him then.

During the whole trip, he grew even tenser and stole a few angry peeks at me through the rearview mirror, as if he feared that I’d sprout two heads. Maybe I would, just for the fun of it. He didn’t know how to relax. But one time when he nearly dozed off, I shouted a loud “boo,” and he jumped out of the seat, his head hitting the ceiling of the van.

He didn’t take it kindly, especially when I remarked about people napping a lot in old age.

I bet that I wasn’t the only one who stressed him out. He acted differently than before around the Alpha King. He appeared more reverent toward his boss but way more cautious as well. I could smell his wariness and also his carefully concealed fear.

Maybe I could work on him and the other shifters, revealing to them that their Alpha King was no longer their beloved Jared. The horseman of war, who had once devastated the whole Earth and crippled our civilization, lurked inside the man and called the shots. If I could open the shifters’ eyes, I could start a revolution from the inside.

So much to do, so little time.

I schemed hard, running my tongue over my teeth as the fleet of enemy vehicles, with me in one of them, cruised along the Columbia River.

Mountains and hills rolled by. Oregon had fewer trees than Washington State but was greener than Nevada.

Then fields of tulips appeared ahead, miles of the blossoms, splashes of flaming red and violet. I narrowed my eyes, watching the fleet of vehicles cut through the path between rows of tulips until a chasm at least seventy feet wide was suddenly revealed in front of us.

The fleet stopped as one. On the other side of the chasm was an array of black mountains that spewed lava into the burning sky, like a landscape from Hell. Maybe we’d arrived at Hell’s gate.

Even inside the van, I could sense dark spells in the area, thick in the air, surrounding us.

“Where are we exactly?” I asked, an icy, dark feeling haunting me. “Why are we stopping here?”

“Salem,” the Alpha King answered. “Your new home.” He paused for a second and gave me a meaningful look. “In fact, it’s always been your home, Pip.”

Chills slithered up my spine, but I fought to stay calm.

At least, I took some comfort in the fact that the alpha hadn’t blindfolded me during the journey. He was confident that I was a fly caught in his net. I’d let him keep thinking that way. Men had big egos. Blindfolding me would only show that he was weak and that he considered me a threat in front of his men.

“This is the strongest fortress in the world, and not even a fly can get in without my permission,” he bragged.

My heart sank deeper as I realized that the horseman’s portal was here.

I might have sensed its existence, but most people couldn’t. I doubted that Marlowe could get through the portal here even with the powerful light mages’ aid. And who would’ve thought that Spartoi’s base was hidden between a field of tulips and a range of volcanic mountains?

My mate might never find me if our mage allies couldn’t see through the invisible magical disguise. That was why the Vampire God hadn’t been able to locate me for a century. Mostly, I’d been locked up on the other side of the portal to be experimented on, though I hadn’t gathered solid memories about the worst part of my past life since I’d been drugged. The glimpses I’d had into the tangle of nightmares already haunted me.

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