The Angelus Brothers Chronicles - The Golden Hind

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Gabriel burst out of the lift closely followed by Marie and Rouge only to be met with the sight of his bride punching a God and that god grabbing and kissing her like a dying man drinking a glass of water. Snarling in anger as his demon went berserk Gabriel began to run towards the soul-destroying sight.

Kaia pulled back and head-butted the God with her golden horns. Momentarily shocked he let go of her just as the enraged vampire was caught by the arms by the much stronger Lucius.

"Gabriel. Stop. He's a god, he'll destroy you." The vampire snarled and thrashed against the demon's grasp.

"She's mine," Gabriel growled in feral rage. Hercules looked at the vampire and then to the doe, a look of pure disgust creeping across his face.

"No. It can't be." He said as he looked at her distended belly then at the vampire again. "You let a vampire touch you? You're a vampire whore?"

"Give me back my bow." She tried to grab her pendant but he caught her hand.

"I thought you were dead and you were with this animal!" Seeing the god's hand on his bride made Gabriel roar in anger and fight even harder against the now red-skinned Lucius. Rouge and Marie ran up to stand beside Lucius and the struggling vampire.

"No! I was in that prison you cursed me to for thousands of years." She spat the words at him like a curse, not a hint of fear entering her voice.

"Hercules. She's pregnant. Let her go." Shouted the witch, her face ashen.

"Rouge? Get away from me. I have no argument with your father."

"Let my friend go, Herc." The witch stepped forward a little but stepped back at his enraged glare.

"No. She's mine!"

"EROS!" Everyone looked around at the enraged, tall, stunningly beautiful strawberry blonde woman who stood behind them, her iridescent butterfly wings fluttering behind her as she folded her arms. "You've hit him with an arrow. I can see your magic around him." Seconds later a blonde man who must have been ten-foot-tall joined her. His huge white feathered wings folded behind him, a guilty look etched on his face.

"Apollo put me up to it. It was meant to be a joke to annoy Artemis." Psyche looked up at the blonde God she was married to and gave him a scolding look.

"Take it off."

"I can't. There's a time limit on these things. It passed thousands of years ago." Hercules bellowed in rage.

"You mean I've worn this trifle," he ripped Kaia's necklace from his neck and threw it to the ground. She squirmed trying to free herself and reach it. "For all these centuries? Mourned her loss for all these centuries? And even now feel the need to love her and possess her because of a joke?" With each word, the God's voice became louder and angrier and his grip on Kaia's arm grew tighter and tighter. She let out a shriek as the bone in her wrist snapped under his grip. Gabriel roared and fought harder to escape Lucius' grasp. At her shriek, Hercules let go of her making her drop to the floor and looked in shock at her rapidly bruising, broken wrist.

"My love. I'm sorry. I..."

"She's not yours." Bellowed the enraged Gabriel, his eyes had turned from blue to black and now red and his skin from white to grey-blue as the full rage of his demon was no longer concealed. The vampire bared his fangs as he snarled and raged to get to his bride. Lucius struggled to keep hold of Gabriel as his demon's full strength came to the fore.

Hercules looked from the vampire to the woman he'd loved and mourned for centuries to the God who'd cursed him for a joke. Cradling her broken wrist against her body, Kaia shuffled back on her backside and reached for her bow that had fallen to the floor. As soon as her fingers touched the chain it grew and reformed into the bow she'd been trying to retrieve since she'd been brought back from the fae realm.

Startled, the god stepped back, nearly knocking over one of his female companions who'd been cowering behind him.

Aiming her bow at the god she let out a frustrated shriek as she realised she couldn't pull the string with her broken limb. Marie launched herself forwards and dropped to the floor beside the hind to take her broken arm in her hands. Before the wolf could speak or examine the break, a clap of thunder filled the room and a flash of light so bright all but the Gods were temporarily blinded.

There in the middle of the room stood the King of the Gods. At ten feet tall he towered over all but the other Gods. His blonde curls framed his handsome tanned face which was half-covered by a well-groomed blonde beard. The loose chiton he wore did nothing to hide his muscled physic as stormed across the room towards them.

"How are you alive?" Bellowed Zeus as he glared at the hind, she tried to shield her belly from him as he advanced on her with a lightning bolt clutched in his huge hand. As the king of the Gods threw his bolt, Hercules, Lucius and Gabriel all collided with him as one. Kaia screamed a sound so pain-filled and terrifyingly animal-like that the whole room went still.

The god's bolt had hit its mark but not where he'd meant. Kaia had tried to roll on her side to protect her baby but the bolt had hit. Her belly was now a smoking charred hole and her unborn child a charred blackened form on the floor. Marie let out a cry as she pulled her charred hands back, she'd tried in vain to shield the mother and her child from the god's lethal bolt. Her trembling hands were now blacked and blistered. Gabriel let out a scream, not unlike the unearthly sound Kaia had made as he dropped to the ground beside her and cradled her gently in his arms.

"Kaia?" Sweat coated her pain-filled face as she looked up at him tears welled in her eyes.

"Our baby?" He let his eyes flick to the unbearable sight of his burnt, dead infant then back to her.

"She's fine. Marie will make it all better." He held her close and rocked her as Lucius, Hercules and everyone else in the room stared in horrified silence at the grizzly scene. Zeus pulled himself free of what was left of the once beautiful bar that he'd been thrown into, and pulled another bolt from behind his back. As he was about to throw it at the prone form of the hind and her vampire a pain-filled shriek filled the room.

"NO!" Artemis formed just before the couple on the ground and took the full force of the bolt. She fell back beside the pair, her chest blackened and charred from the blow. Zeus howled in fury.

"Artemis!" He bellowed in fury as he grew closer. Eros pulled Psyche into his arms and whisked her away from the scene before anything else could happen.

"Coward!" Bellowed Hercules as he barreled into his father again and put himself between the fallen Goddess and his father. Artemis groped for Kaia's hand and grasped it in hers as she gasped for breath and tears flowed from her eyes.

"It must die!" Bellowed Zeus as he threw his son off and again made for the doe.

"No!" Shrieked the Goddess. "I won't let you kill my last child. The last of my heart." Zeus bellowed in fury as he drew another bolt.

"It's an abomination. It must die." Pulling herself up painfully to shield the hind and her lover with her own body, Artemis glared at her father.

"You will have to kill me to kill her." Apollo appeared, his handsome face a mask of horror.

"Sister. Move."

"No! He's not killing my last daughter."

"Daughter?" Apollo shouted the word as he joined his father. "You have no child."

Gabriel was aware of what was happening but he couldn't respond to any of it. All he could do was hold his beloved bride in his arms, blood bubbled in her mouth as she gasped for air.

"I had five, five beautiful, intelligent, daughters. They were my world and he took them all from me but this one. He won't take her from me!"

"No, you didn't. You're the virgin Goddess."

"Yes, the whore did." Spat Zeus venomously.

"What?" Apollo was incredulous. "How? She couldn't have had a child, let alone five without me knowing."