Descent - Tara Fuller Page 0,19

mine.’ You never claim Anaya’s as your own.”

“I…” I gripped a handful of my hair trying to think back. “I did. Shit…”

Why had I called him mine? Any other day, I would call it a slip of the tongue. But this was so much more. He was in Hell because I’d used the wrong fucking word.

“Couldn’t you feel it?” I asked. “The pull?”

“Sort of…” Scout scratched the back of his head and looked away. “I was…distracted. By the time I had him out, I was just… I assumed he was yours.”

“The angels?” I clenched my teeth. “You couldn’t tell the difference because you were too busy staring at angel ass?”

I fought my instinct to pummel Scout and planted my feet firmly where they stood.

“At least now we know why we’re here.”

I turned toward the steps of the Great Hall, putting a little steel in my spine, preparing for the gigantic ass-chewing Balthazar had called us in for. Who was I kidding? An ass-chewing would be a blessing at this point. This was going to be worse. So much worse. The mirrored walls reflected the echoing emptiness of the Inbetween, and the marble steps crackled with frost beneath the lingering heat of my boots. A wall of fog closed in around us, swallowing up any of the vacant-eyed souls that lingered around the square. Scout fidgeted beside me, twirling his scythe nervously at his side.

“What are you worried about?” he asked, irritated. “This is my fault. I’m the one who carried him over.”

“You think that matters?” I faced him, and he stopped twirling his blade and holstered it. “Between the two of us, we couldn’t get one compliant soul to his rightful place in the afterlife. Besides, he was my responsibility. I…I…fuck…”

I’d promised him.

I’d promised him he’d see her again. I never made promises. I knew better, and still…I’d promised him.

“Any way you slice this…we’re both screwed,” I said.

Scout plowed his fingers through the mass of curls on his head and blew out a frustrated breath. “It wasn’t our fault. The angels distracted us.”

Distracted? That word didn’t even begin to encompass the storm Red had managed to stir up inside me.

“I don’t get distracted,” I said. “Speak for yourself.”

I turned and watched frost crawl up the doors like spiderwebs. He was close. Dread filled my hollow gut like a ball of lead. This wasn’t good. Even when Finn had pushed his limits by breaking reaper law and interacting with a human, Balthazar’s anger didn’t brew this kind of storm. And judging by the dark cloud of doom circling my ankles, I’d say his mood was nothing short of dangerous today.

“Why do you think he’s taking so long?” Scout whispered.

“Maybe he’s trying to decide how he wants to punish us. The possibilities are endless. He could toss us into Umbria, make us a meal for a hungry horde of shadow demons. Send us special delivery to Hell. Almighty knows the kinds of games they’d have planned for us there. Then again, he might just zap us into nothingness. No…that might be too easy. He could always—”

“Will you shut the hell up?” Scout hissed. “He’s probably just trying to scare us.”

“Is it working?”

Lightning sizzled in the fog around us, and Scout flinched, clutching his blade. He swallowed thickly and nodded. “Yeah…it’s working.”

“Good,” I said.

The doors flew open, and a gust of arctic air turned to steam against my skin. Our attention snapped forward while I straightened my spine, preparing for the worst. Balthazar started down the steps, the fog scattering at his feet, clearing a path. His icy blue eyes narrowed at the sight of us, and his nostrils flared.

“And here I thought the last of my trouble had disappeared along with your love-struck counterpart,” Balthazar said. “Apparently stupidity is catching.”

Tension radiated from Scout beside me, and I forced my jaw to clench to keep quiet. This wasn’t the time for words. There were no words to excuse this. We’d lost a soul. We’d compromised the eternity of a pure, un-damned soul. We’d sent him to an unimaginably hellish forever. The demons of the underworld reveled in our making a mistake like this. Scout may not realize the horror of a fate like that, but I’d seen it. Witnessed the very fabric of a soul be torn and shredded and turned into nothing more than another meal for beings that were forever hungry. Letting a soul go for that…it was a waste.

We deserved whatever twisted punishment he’d prepared. After four hundred years working