Tears rolled from my eyes. My Héctor had become a mortal.
I darted a gaze between Zak and Héctor, and the truth dawned on me.
Héctor had vowed to me that he could bring me back from the dead in the Dreaming, but he had never said it would cost him his demigod power and immortality.
My heart bled.
“What matters is we’re all together now,” Héctor said gently, his large hand caressing my cheek, his thumb wiping away my tears.
“I sealed the portal,” I said, trying to be strong for them. “How did you sift in?”
“We tracked you,” Zak said, swaying on his feet, as he was still recovering. Judging by his joyful exuberance, he didn’t seem to know about Héctor’s sacrifice—that his cousin had become a mortal for him. “We followed the mating bond.” He grinned at me. “If we’d been a nanosecond slower, the portal’s door would have ground us to dust.”
I blinked in horror, my heart pounding.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—I was trying to—”
I’d been trying to spare them by preventing them from coming after me. And in doing so, I’d almost killed them.
“You can never get rid of us, Cookie,” Axel said with a smile, exuding sexiness. My pulse picked up. This never got old. “We go where you go. We’ll never let you be alone again.”
“We’ll never let you get lost, love,” Paxton said.
They all pressed in to embrace me. I could no longer tell whose arms were around me, whose hands were all over me, whose solid chest I leaned my head against, and whose lips I kissed while I stood up on tiptoe.
A beast whimpered and growled beside us. I twisted my torso amid my mates to see what was going on.
My hellhound was trying to brush my possessive men aside to get a piece of me.
Somehow, he’d hitched a ride with my mates.
How had that happened?
“Angel!” I shrieked in delight, and he barked in response, raising his heads outside the walls created by my mates’ embrace, baring his fangs, and grinning at me.
He was no longer Loki’s. He was mine, through and through.
His ears suddenly pricked up
The valley shook under our feet; the surrounding mountains rumbled.
“What the fu—?”
Before I finished my curse, Ares and Lucifer emerged at the other end of the valley and shot toward us like menacing arrows.
My mates immediately formed a protective half-ring around me, roaring and raising their blades.
Overbearing alpha males!
I stepped between Axel and Héctor, my demon sword drawn, my legs bracing apart like theirs.
The god and the devil sprang past us as if their tails were on fire, not even sparing us a glance, fear bleeding through their eyes.
Who would terrify even them?
Inhuman howls rose from the depths of the mountains, echoing in the valley and chilling my bones.
My hellhound yowled back in challenge, but his singular voice sounded thin and weak compared to the bellows of an armada of beasts.
Paxton’s violet eyes flashed dark light. Even he was worried.
“The legends say the beasts in the Void specialize in eating gods and immortals as if we’re candy,” the Demigod of Sky told us grimly. “I think we’re in the Valley of the Monsters and the City of Cannibals.”
Great. Just great!
The valley rattled again, and monsters of all shapes—kinds we’d never seen before on Earth or in Hell—emerged from the peaks of the mountains all around.
“Run!” Héctor roared.
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