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  Blood Of Gods:

  Sacred Seven, Book 2

  By- Lola StvIl

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE: THE GATE RYE SPEAKS

  CHAPTER TWO: SHE HAD TO

  CHAPTER THREE: TELLTALE DREAM

  CHAPTER FOUR: ABOUT TIME

  CHAPTER FIVE: WHAT DREAMS MAY TELL

  CHAPTER SIX: FAMILY SECRETS

  CHAPTER SEVEN: TWIST OF FATE

  CHAPTER EIGHT: BORN FOR THIS

  CHAPTER NINE: THE BALLOWS

  CHAPTER TEN: INVISIBLE SURPRISE

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: BELLS & WHISTLES

  CHAPTER TWELVE: WHO IS SHE?

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: GIRLS’ DAY OUT SAILOR SPEAKS

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE WEAPON

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: VEN DEMONS

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: CAVERN OF SAND

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: A VISION OF TIME

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: NO SECOND CHANCES

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: YOU’RE ACTING WEIRD

  CHAPTER TWENTY: ANOTHER SOUL GEM

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: INFLUENCE OF WAR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: MISTAKEN IDENTITY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: FAMILY TIES

  EPILOGUE RYE SPEAKS

  CHAPTER ONE: THE GATE RYE SPEAKS

  I have never met anyone, demon, god, or human, with as much power to get on my nerves the way this girl does.

  It’s like she does it on purpose just to get a rise out of me. And it works every damn time. If I say go left, Sailor insists we go right. If I say go up, she wants to go down. If I say go high, guess what she does. Yup. She goes low. Every. Damn. Time. I swear if I said the grass is green she would try to convince me I’m wrong and it’s actually red.

  She tests my patience in every way. And while I would never admit it to her, I kind of like that she tests me. I like that she isn’t some mindless drone who follows orders without using her own instinct to question them. Except when it comes to her safety. It seems the more dangerous something is, the more likely she is to ignore reason and charge right at it.

  So why did I expect this time to be any different? I should have known when Sailor nodded her head that she was just humoring me. It’s not her style to accept anything without an argument and then a million and one questions. I guess I wanted to believe she was learning to trust my judgement, but that turned out to be a joke.

  She told us last night that she kept feeling this pull… something that wanted her to go to Starbucks. Jinx laughed and told her that her caffeine addiction is getting out of hand, but she shook her head and looked at him stone faced and more serious than any of us have ever seen her.

  “I can feel the power.” Her expression was far away, and it almost sounded like the words weren’t even coming from her.

  I told her we’d check it out and made her promise to stay away from there. She smiled and said she would, and like an idiot, I believed her. I let myself believe her because I wanted to believe that she trusted me enough to follow my orders. I still believed she would listen to reason until about thirty seconds ago when she texted me to tell me she was at Starbucks. She said the power surge was not from the café at all, but the alley behind it. I tried to call her and tell her to wait but her phone went straight to voicemail. I texted her back and told her to wait there, but got nothing back.

  At this moment, I don’t know if I’m more angry that she chose to ignore my instructions, that she clearly lied to me when she said she’d stay clear of the area, or if it’s because even now, she’s only bothering to tell me she’s running off into danger because she knew she was for her training session at the cabin.

  I can’t wait for the team. I need to go now. I make a portal and step through it, coming out in the alley behind Starbucks. It’s a risk coming straight into town—we can’t risk giving ourselves away to mortals, but it had to be done. I don’t have time to portal to the edge of town and walk in. Sailor made damn sure of that. It was a calculated risk though.

  I step out into the alley and close the portal quickly, looking around to check I haven’t been spotted. No one is in sight. Not even Sailor, and I feel a pang of worry. Where the hell is she? It’s like the more she learns about demons, the Boundless, and everything else that goes with being the Paradox, the less she takes in. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that this is not a game. She can’t seem to grasp how fucking dangerous it is. I think all those books she reads, the ones where the heroine gets in a few scrapes along the way but always comes out on top at the end, have affected her brain and made her think real life works that way.

  She should have paid more attention to Divergent. Yes, I’ve started to read a few of these books she loves on the sly to see what her fascination with them is. To be honest, I don’t see what all of the fuss is about. Vampires that sparkle? Kids slaughtering each other for entertainment? Just why? I have to admit I kind of liked the Toren series she bangs on about all the time. I would never actually tell her that though. She could’ve taken note from the humans in those books. Although the girl in the first book is just as reckless and I get the frustration her boyfriend feels when she doesn’t listen.

  I look around again, frantically searching for any sign that Sailor has been here. That’s when I spot it. I blink and look again, not knowing quite how I missed it the first time. Between the back of Starbucks and the bookstore next to it is a large wrought iron gate. It looks like something out of the sixteenth century, and that alone makes it out of place, but what really convinces me it’s out of place is the fact it wasn’t there before today.

  I can’t say I’ve spent a lot of time in this alley, but I’ve walked down here before as a short cut, and I know I would have remembered something as out of place as that gate. I take a step toward it and I feel my heart speed up as the worry inside of me intensifies. The gate is slightly open.

  “Sailor?” I shout into the gap.

  Nothing. I have no way of knowing for sure whether she’s in there or not, but I know I have to check. I can’t just walk away in case she is in there and she’s in trouble.

  Goddamn it, Sailor.

  Of course she’s in there, Rye. Why wouldn’t she go into the ominous gate that leads to gods know where?

  She is going to have to learn to follow instructions or I’m going to implant her with a tracking chip like a damn dog.

  I pull the gate open a little bit further, feeling the thick, dusty air from inside coming out in a musty puff to greet me. I have a really bad feeling about this. The whole thing just feels wrong, like we are not supposed to be here. Maybe Sailor felt the same thing and for once in her life did the sensible thing and headed for the cabin.

  I pull my cell phone out and call Sailor, but again it goes straight to voicemail. If she was anywhere but inside of that gate, she’d have taken my call.

  Fuck.

  Before I step through the gate, I send a quick text to Aziza telling her where I am and what I’m doing. I push my cell phone back into my pocket and pull the gate all the way open. I step through it, coughing on the dust I stir up, but after a couple steps, the dust settles and I peer into the darkness. In front of me is a steep spiral stone staircase with bare brick walls on either side of it. The staircase goes down further than my eye can see, and with a sigh, I step onto it.

  “Sailor? Sailor?” I yell.

  My voice echoes back to me and that’s the only response I get. If she’s down here, she must be a long way down not to hear my voice through the eerie stillness. She has a head start, but I’m fast and I’m confident I can close the gap between us. I just hope I’m not too late to stop anything from hurting her before I can catch up.

  That thought pushe
s me on quicker, and I’m almost running down the staircase, my feet making dull thuds on each step, puffing up smaller clouds of dust that don’t reach high enough to get in my throat. All the same, as I descend, I can feel the air getting denser, like it’s closing in on me, and I am finding it harder to breathe with each step. The air around me seems to be getting warmer too, and I reach up and pull my hoody off without breaking stride. I tie it around my waist, wanting to keep my hands free.

  Removing it does nothing for the heat, and the air is so thick here I feel like I am wading through molasses. Each breath I suck in is a struggle, and I don’t feel like I’m getting any air, no matter how much I pant and gasp.

  I am a god and this place is affecting me so much that I am starting to feel light-headed and dizzy. Surely Sailor isn’t down here. She can’t be. There’s no way a mortal could have gotten this far without flaking out. I am on the verge of it myself.

  I slow down for a second, ready to turn back, but then I see Sailor’s face in my mind, her mouth set in determination, her eyes giving me a stubborn refusal.

  Yes, Sailor could have gotten this far.

  She has an almost unearthly determination about her that makes the impossible possible. There’s nothing she wouldn’t do this for this mission, and if that means groping around on a dark staircase, barely able to breathe, then that’s what she would do.

  I keep going, speeding up as fast as my airless lungs will allow me to. I take the steps two at a time now. My hope is that I reach the bottom and find that air is coming in some other way.

  I squint my eyes when I see a dead end in front of me, solid brick blocking my path. I look down at the ground and see the steps keep going, turning around a sharp corner. I push on, and as I turn the corner, I see another wall in front of me. Another sharp bend, and this time, the floor is not clear. A foot lies against the wall.

  Fuck.

  I push myself onwards, fighting every survival instinct in my body that’s telling me to turn back, ignoring the spots of light that dance in front of my eyes. The air is so thick here I am not breathing at all. I stumble blindly down the stairs, willing myself to ignore the burning in my lungs, telling myself I have to get to her. I feel my knees start to give way and my head whirls alarmingly. I bite down on my tongue, hard enough to draw blood, and the sharp sting brings me back to consciousness. It’s not going to last though. Every muscle in my body is shaking and every limb feels like it’s too heavy to move.

  I reach Sailor’s foot and I force myself to bend down. I grab Sailor’s ankle and drag her closer and then I scoop her up in my arms. She feels like she weighs a ton, but I know it’s the lack of oxygen making me feel that way. She’s tiny, and she barely weighs a thing.

  I turn around and drag myself back up the few stairs until I come to the corner. I turn it and look up. The staircase spreads out in front of me, a mission only a crazy person would attempt. Call me crazy because I’m not ready to give up, and I’m as sure as hell not leaving Sailor behind.

  I climb the stairs as quickly as I can. As I climb, I can feel the air thinning out ever so slightly, and although I still can’t get enough air to stop the burning in my lungs, I am getting slightly more than before. Enough to keep me moving.

  I glance down at Sailor and my heart skips a beat when I see her. Her eyes are rolled back in their sockets, showing only the white. She has a gash on her forehead and blood is running down her face. She must have taken one hell of a fall when she succumbed to unconsciousness. Looking at the dust coating her, I think she must have rolled down a good number of stairs after she passed out. It’s just lucky she came to a stop where she did, because another couple minutes down there and we’d both be dead.

  I push on faster, and the air is getting easier to breathe. I can see Sailor’s chest heaving as she gasps in lungfuls of air. Thank God she’s not dead. The thought of her down here alone, unable to breathe, probably not able to see, makes me wince. I should have been here to protect her. I shouldn’t have wasted time at the gate calling her and texting Aziza.

  “Dammit, Sailor, you’re going to be the fucking death of me. Why couldn’t you just wait for me to come to you?” I say, my voice angry.

  I’m not really angry at her. I’m angry at myself. I should have paid more attention when she promised not to do this. I should have known she would. I should have found a way to stop her. Hell, I would have locked her in the cabin if I had to.

  I feel a welcome cool breeze on my face and I look up. I can see light shining up ahead, and I breathe a sigh of relief. We’re almost out of this place. I push myself faster, just wanting to get Sailor out into the fresh air. It’s a mistake. I feel better than I did in the depths where I found Sailor, but I’m still not fully back to normal and my legs start to shake as I push myself too hard, too fast.

  I feel one of my knees giving out, and I start to stumble backwards. I try to catch myself, concentrating on the light in front of me. As I regain my footing, the light goes out and there’s a loud bang. Someone has slammed the gate at the top of the staircase closed. The gate’s slamming echoes down to me, and I feel the ground shake slightly. It throws me off balance again, and I clutch Sailor tightly with one arm, reaching out to steady myself with the other. I find nothing to grip and before I can regain my footing, I am falling backwards into darkness.

  CHAPTER TWO: SHE HAD TO

  I can feel hands touching me, dragging at me. And I can breathe again. I take in a deep lungful of air and try to sit up, but the hands on me push me back down. Everything hurts and I think the wetness I can feel on the back of my head must be blood. I gulp in another breath and then something icy cold washes over my face and I splutter.

  “Was the water really necessary, Jinx? You can see he’s conscious,” I hear Ya-Ya say.

  “Probably not, but it was fun,” Jinx replies.

  Oh thank God. Aziza must have brought the others here after getting my text. I guess we didn’t fall so far that they couldn’t get to us. I open my eyes a crack, and the sunlight blinds me. I’m being lifted and I see the portal shining in front of me.

  “Sailor?” I whisper, my parched throat hurting as I talk.

  A wave of dizziness washes over me again.

  “She’s okay,” Ya-Ya reassures me, putting a cool cloth on my forehead.

  I relax at her words and let unconsciousness take me.

  ***

  My eyes open and the first thing I register is that all my pain is gone. Mel must have worked her magic while I was unconscious. I sit up. I’m on my bed, and Sunday is sitting on a chair in the corner of the room. Sailor is nowhere in sight.

  “Where’s Sailor?” I say, standing up.

  “Good to see you too, Rye,” Sunday says sarcastically. “And you’re welcome by the way.”

  “Fucking hell, Sunday, where is she?” I demand.

  He wouldn’t be joking around if she was seriously hurt, but I need to hear him say it.

  “Relax. She’s fine,” he says. “She’s at home.”

  I sit back down on the edge of the bed.

  “Why isn’t she here?” I ask.

  I feel like I’m missing something important.

  “How long have I been unconscious?” I demand.

  “Not long. An hour or two. But Sailor’s dad called and she answered the call before we had the chance to get her healed. Her dad could tell something was wrong, so she told him she’d slipped taking the trash out and cut her head. She said we would take care of her, but obviously her dad insisted on coming out here. He took her to the hospital, and she got seven stitches in that cut above her eye. She’s been calling to check up on you. Her dad won’t let her out because he wants to keep an eye on her just in case she has a concussion.”

  “Dammit. I can’t believe she went off like that,” I say, shaking my head.

  “Really?” Sunday grins.

  “Alright, yeah, I can believe it. But if anything had happened to her…�
�

  “It didn’t,” Sunday says quickly. “The cut wasn’t very deep; even the human doctor thought it was nothing to worry about.”

  “What the hell happened down there, Sunday?” I ask.

  “I’m not entirely sure. When we found you, you were both unconscious about halfway down the stairs. The air was weird, so we dragged you both out of there. Once the fresh air got to you, it revived you and Sailor, but you had taken a hell of a bashing to the back of your head and you passed out again. I assume you both fell and you broke Sailor’s fall?”

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding. “I found her way further down than that. It was like the lower I got, the less air there was. She flaked out and I was carrying her back up. I was almost at the top and my foot slipped. I regained my balance, but then the gate slammed shut and it was pitch-black. I lost my footing again and down we went.”

  “The gate slammed shut?” Sunday asked.

  I nodded.

  “Probably best to keep that from Sailor. She’ll only end up saying it was Ms. Price and she’s trying to kill her.”

  “You think it could have been that? Not necessarily Ms. Price, but a member of Boundless?”

  “Who knows. Maybe the power didn’t want you to leave.” Sunday shrugs.

  “The power? What do you mean?” I ask.

  “It’s what Sailor said made her go down there. She was on her way here, and she said the pull from the area was so strong and the gem in her chest started glowing and it was burning her. She didn’t really understand it herself, but she said she knew instinctively that the only way to stop the burning was to follow the pull she could feel. That’s when she texted you. She said she hoped we’d be there by the time she got to the alley, but when we weren’t, she leaned back against the wall to wait for us. As soon as she touched the wall, she felt it shifting and jumped back. When she turned around, the gate had appeared.

  “Once the gate appeared, she said she could hear a ringing in her ears, so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. She felt dizzy, and she reached out her hand to steady herself. It touched the gate, and the burning in her chest got worse. She said she tried to pull her hand back, but as she moved it, the gate swung open. She said it felt like she was in a trance and she stepped past the gate and saw the staircase. She wanted to wait for us, but she said the burning in her chest and the ringing in her ears was agony and stepping forward seemed to ease it.