Goddess Of The Underworld (Sheridan Hartin) novel Chapter 123

Chapter 123

Envy

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Later that evening we kept the living room soft on purpose, lamps down, hearth banked to a low, steady glow. The Underworld doesn’t do “evening” the way the topside does, but tonight the palace obliged us with shadows that felt like dusk. Layah sprawled at the threshold, head on her paws, the picture of casual until you noticed her ears, forward,. listening. Elliot came in fresh from washing up, hair damp, paper crown forgotten on the.. table where he’d left it after the tower adventure. He clocked the four of them on the couch, Xavier, Haiden, Noah, Levi and then me in the armchair opposite. His shoulders did a little lift–and–set that told me he felt the weight in the room but wasn’t spooked by

1. it.

“Am I in trouble?” he asked, careful but not scared.

“No,” I said, patting the cushion beside me. “You’re in the loop.”

He climbed up, knees folded under him, and leaned into my side until I tucked an arm around him. He smelled like our soap and a smear of honey he’d missed near his jaw. Fergus sat on the table between us, dignified and ready to take minutes.

Xavier took the start, voice even, hands open on his knees. “We’re going to tell you everything we know,” he said. “No secrets, no scary surprises. If it gets too much, you say ‘pause‘ and we reset. Deal?”

“Deal,” Elliot said, eyes moving from face to face. “Is this about the sniff?”

“In a way,” Noah said. “The thing that sniffed is part of a bigger pattern.”

Levi laced his fingers, patient as a book waiting to be opened. “You already know the word for what you are,” he said, not unkind. “Soul Eater. That’s a name other people gave the species you belong to. It doesn’t define you; it describes a kind of magic you can do. It also means there are others like you, somewhere.”

Elliot went very still, then tipped his head, thinking. “Okay.”

Haiden leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. “We think some of those ‘others‘ heard a rumor. The rumor says one of their own lives with us. They’re trying to find out if it’s

true.”

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Chapter 123

“How?” Elliot asked.

“Two ways,” Levi said. “First, by riding rogues, controlling them from a distance to test our fences and see how we move. That’s the ugly, loud way. Second, with a quieter kind of magic that follows a soulprint.” He lifted a hand and drew a small curve in the air; a faint shimmer answered over the coffee table, the echo of what he’d caught earlier. “A seeker- weave. It doesn’t break doors. It sniffs for a particular signature. Twice today it used the same word when it thought it found you: kin. A smaller one said child.”

Elliot’s mouth tugged to the side. “Kin means family.”

“It can,” I said. I smoothed my palm over his back when his breath hitched. “It can also be a word you use because you want someone to open a door.”

His eyes flicked to me, then to the shimmer. “Did you answer it?”

“We answered in our way,” Noah said. “We didn’t open our door. Levi made a fake door down the corridor. If they want to talk, they talk to that.”

Levi nodded. “I listened through it. I told them we have rules. That if any lawful envoy wants to speak to us, they can do it under our conditions, one person, unarmed, no magic that rides or pulls, in daylight, on neutral ground. Otherwise the answer is no.”

“Lake Narra sandbar,” Haiden added, because he can’t resist adding color. “We’ll put iron and holy water under the sand and surround it with bored–looking warriors. Aleisha gets

to sit on a rock and nose out lies.‘

“”

Elliot’s mouth quirked despite himself. Then he sobered. “Are they my… family?”

The word caught. My throat did too. “They’re your species,” I said carefully. “They might be kind. They might be cruel. They might be both. What we know is they’re looking. What

we’re telling you is this: they don’t get to take you. Ever. You choose where you belong. We’re choosing to protect you while we find out what they want.”

He breathed once, deep. “Okay.”

Xavier reached across the table and tapped the bear’s ear, like he’d do with any anxious pup. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he said. “Nothing changes about who you are to us. You’re ours because you’re you, not because of what you can do.”

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“No,” Noah said, gentle but unarguable. “You don’t meet strangers who use threads to

knock on doors. But you do get a voice. If you want us to ask questions on your behalf, we ask them. If you want us to say no to certain things, we say no.”

believes you.”

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