Tomb quickly stood up and headbutted the enforcer behind Crow, instantly cracking his skull and exposing brain matter through his concave head.
“You assholes ready to get out of here?” the executioner asked. Wind whipped at his hood, revealing the sly smile of my mate but still concealing his identity from others.
“Risk,” I said in crashing relief as Tomb and Crow hauled me to my feet.
He grinned. “This is fun. Want to kill a few more of these assholes or get out of here?” he asked, looking around. “Damn, it’s like a feast of risk here!” He snapped his fingers, making the flames around us rise even higher and wider, killing more people and bringing more screams. It went up ten feet. Twenty. Fifty. We were in an impenetrable wall of flames. Power laced the air with thick smoke.
I didn’t even care about his cocky words. Risk was here. He was safe and awake and he was fucking here.
“You came back,” I said, a sob choking out of me as I stared at him. I was afraid to blink. I didn’t want this to be a hallucination that would go away.
“Took you long enough, asshole,” Crow yelled.
Risk laughed, showing off his stark white teeth. “I leave for a little bit, and you almost get our mate killed. We really need to talk about your escape skills,” he said before sending another flame toward a group of shielded enforcers that were getting Judge Braxton out of the arena. The boiling heat rolled off of them, but the scrawny judge still escaped through a side tunnel. “Damn. I really wanted to kill that fucker.”
“Get us the fuck out of here, you crazy ass demon,” Tomb growled before wrapping his stone arms around my shoulders and pulling me closer to him.
Crow and Risk bunched together near us as bullets flew past. The crowd was revolting, rushing out of the auditorium while enforcers were coming at us in droves.
“Aw, but I thought they were bringing more enforcers. Five more minutes?” Risk asked with a teasing glint in his eye.
A gust of wind nearly knocked me back, but Tomb’s grip kept me in place. “I swear to gods, if you don’t get us out of here, I’ll send you back to hell,” my gargoyle yelled at him.
Risk breathed in a slow inhale, as if feasting on the risk in the air one last time before leaning forward to kiss me on the cheek and whisper in my ear, “Let’s go home, Wicked Love.”
“Finally,” Crow gritted before sending a few of his birds at an elemental that managed to break through the flames. The birds immediately pecked at his eyes, bloody splatters and screams making me look away from the gruesome sight.
“Hold on,” Risk told us as I clasped my mates’ hands. I felt a charge in the air, and then it felt like we were sucked through a thin straw, yanking us out of this reality and into the next.
I didn’t even mind the painful jarring of traveling through time to get to the Between.
I had my mates. We were okay.
We were okay.
I smiled.
Chapter 36
He built me a house.
It was a beautiful place that somehow seemed to combine all of our personalities into one beautiful home. It stood tall with sharp angles on the roof, mimicking a gothic cathedral, and a wraparound porch with recliners surrounded it. Large, modern windows filled every wall, letting the white light of the Between stream inside. The backyard was a mass of bird houses and trees as far as the eye could see.
“Look at this kitchen!” Crow yelled while opening and closing cabinets, going through it like a kid looking over presents on Christmas morning. I noted that it was stocked with every food imaginable, and my malphas demon was drooling at the sight. The months of prison food and Spector cafeteria lunches had left him salivating for a home cooked meal.
Risk looked on with pride. “How?” I asked him as he wrapped me in a hug and kissed the top of my head. He smelled like smoke and felt like safety.
“I woke up in hell about three weeks ago. Envy was there and told me what was happening. Once I was able to go topside again, I found Stiles, and he helped me slip in as the executioner. It was a little too easy for my tastes,” he said with a tinge of disappointment. “You’d think an arena full of those pretentious assholes would fight a bit harder. I wanted to make them suffer more.”
I shook my head with a smile, still shocked at everything that had just happened. Tomb was silent, sitting at the wood-grained kitchen table and staring at the ground in stoic contemplation. “Are we really safe? Is this real?” he rumbled while rubbing his thighs. My heart sank at his disbelief. Tomb had suffered more than the rest of us. He lived in captivity for so long that I wasn’t sure he could comprehend his freedom yet.
I crouched down to look him in the eye, using my fingers to lift his chin and meet my stare. “We’re free, Tomb. No one will hurt you ever again. No one will hurt me, ever again,” I promised him.
His eyes shone with relieved, unshed tears, but he gave me a single nod.
Risk moved to stand at my back. “We will have to stay here for a while. At least until Judge Braxton is taken care of. We just need to stay low, let some time pass until people forget Spector and the hybrids.”
“You’ll stay with us, though, right? What about your daughter, can you bring her here?” I asked while looking
