"Don’t eat me," I whispered.
Void replied with a low grunt that echoed around the whole building, rattling my bones.
Mav shook his head, his eyes gleaming with amusement. One of his tentacles stroked up and down my back, making me even weaker. "Not the way you're thinking, firecracker. Just a specific part of you."
I was too freaked out to realise what he meant, staring up at the giant version of Void glaring into the pub. He looked like he was crouching over the building. Just how bigwashe?
"Come on," Mav said, squeezing my waist. "We can talk at—"
I was wrenched out of his hold when the ground shook so hard both of us went flying. His tentacles slipped from around my waist and I sailed halfway across the pub. I knocked into a table hard enough to daze me, and for a moment I just sprawled at the base of it, the world shaking and groaning around me.
What … was happening?
Was this Void's doing?
I tried to squint up at the absent roof, but the ground was quaking so much, I only managed to see a dark blur thatcouldhave been Void or could have been the sky turning to eerie black.
A figure skidded across the floor to me, and I jumped with a shriek. Suddenly, tight arms bound around me and kisses landed on my forehead, my cheek, my chin, my shoulder, and then back up my neck to my jaw, nose, and furrowed brow.
"You're okay, sweet human, you're safe now," a welcome voice assured me, and I slumped against Sang, lifting my own arms to hug him back. "I've got you; nothing bad will happen. If anyone eventhinksabout hurting you—"
"You'll rip their eyeballs out?" I guessed with a shaky laugh.
"Exactly," he agreed, cupping the back of my head with his clawed hand when the ground shuddered again, sending us both crashing to the floor, him on top of me. Shielding me.
My bottom lip wobbled, tears pricking my eyes. I'd only had one other person protect me, and that was so tainted by loss and grief I couldn't remember it sweetly. But this, Sang holding me, kissing every place he could reach and swearing I was safe in his manic voice … it touched a vulnerable part of me.
His tail arched up and brushed the underside of my jaw, tickling me with the fuzzy end, and I couldn't help smiling even as the world crashed down around us. Well, that was just the pub, but itfeltlike the world was ending.
"Someone just knocked out the shields!" Mav shouted across the pub. His familiar voice stood out among the chaos.
"We already knew that!" Sang shouted back, right in my ear.
I winced, moving my head away from his loud mouth as my ears rang.
"Allof them!" Mav yelled back. "Every shieldin the void, Sang!"
"Oh shit," Sang breathed, far quieter than before. His striped arms tightened around me to the point of pain, and I squeaked, stroking his shoulder in an attempt to comfort the upset kitty monster.
"I heard you talking…" I said, my mind whirring in the eerie silence that followed the world stilling. "You said the portals to the void broke?"
Sang nodded, nuzzling his striped cheek against mine, his shaggy black hair like silk on my skin. "The doors collapsed after you came here."
My heart began to pick up, a fast thump behind my ribs. "And nowallthe shields have gone down?"
"Every one in the void," Sang said with obvious worry.
I swallowed, icy cold dripping down my spine. They'd found me—the weapons. The keepers.
I got awkwardly to my feet, Sang refusing to release me even as I stood, and I scanned the surprisingly wrecked pub. Furniture lay in wooden splinters, pint glasses smashed to shards, and the monsters who'd stuck around to fight had all cleared out. It was just me, Sang, Mav, and still looming above, looking evenmoreagitated and murderous, God of the Void.
"You wanted to know where I got the locket?" I said to Mav, my stomach in sickly knots. I wasn't confident I wouldn't actuallybesick. "Go find the people who broke your doors and shields. They know everything that happened that day."
A knot formed between Mav's brows. "Why would they come here?"
"They're looking for her," a deep, raspy voice answered instead of me, and I jumped halfway out of my skin at the sight of Void jumping down from the shattered roof into the pub, back to regular size. "No wonder you were so afraid of us, and so jumpy," he said to me, his black eyes seeing everything I tried to hide. "You're being hunted."
Sang growled so sudden and loud that I flinched. But his strong arms flexed around me, the full length of his body pressing to my back as he kissed my messy silver hair, surrounding me with his scent—blood and sweat and steel.