Red and the guys hurried to catch up.

I waved them away. “Oh my God, you guys, no! I was going to sit down and maybe rest my eyes for a moment. I’m freaking tired. We’ll give Jerry some time to calm down, but we need to have a chat with him before Kieran storms in and undoes all the bridge-building we’ve done.”

“I just wanted to get out of that room. That guy is a buzzkill,” Donovan said.

“I didn’t want to be left alone with him, either,” Thane admitted. “I’m all for a good cry, but not around strangers. That shit makes me uncomfortable.”

I rolled my eyes, my curiosity getting the better of me. “Fine. Let’s have a little peek at how far back these caves go, really quick, and then we’ll chill, okay?”

We traveled through a bedroom with a worn-out mattress on the floor and very little else, beyond a small area with a bucket for a privy and a horrible stink, and into a long rock hallway with the smooth sides and a rounded ceiling customary of Jerry’s rock work. Camping lanterns dotted the way, so far apart they created a very low light, hardly enough for visibility. We supplemented it with our phones, taking the first right we came to into a half-made room with rough walls. Almost like a little dug-out nook. A similar nook led off that, then another long hallway with a slight breeze.

“Did you ever hear back from those rats?” I asked Bria. My voice echoed down the hallway.

“They never came back,” she replied. “I was too preoccupied to keep much of a focus on them.”

“I feel a breeze,” Donovan said.

“Me too,” Thane said.

“I wonder if it’s another way out,” Bria whispered, reducing the echo.

“Or another way in. How can one guy guard two entrances?” Red asked.

“We shall see,” I said.

But we didn’t see. Or we just couldn’t figure out how. The rooms and hallways all seemed to interconnect, twisting and turning and then cutting back on themselves. The inside of the mountain was a labyrinth, created by a bored and listless individual who had nothing to do but exercise his magic. None of the rooms or nooks had anything in them, including bones. Yet camping lanterns dotted the way. He’d need to refresh those pretty regularly.

“He must leave this mountain occasionally, or where do the supplies come from?” Red asked.

It was a good question, but we had bigger concerns. Before long, we were hopelessly lost in the tunnels, the giant not the only danger on this mountain—we didn’t have the sense of direction to get us out of this jam. I doubted Jerry would come to our aid, either. We were on our own.

6

Kieran

“They aren’t scared like they were a couple hours ago,” Henry said as Kieran led them up the narrow road littered with rocks.

“Alexis is worried,” Kieran said, trying to calm the inferno within him.

Alexis and the others were alive—that was the main thing.

“What were they thinking?” he said for the millionth time as he picked his way around the boulders, obviously placed as a warning. They were a damn good warning of the giant’s power. Some of the boulders were massive. “I had a plan for meeting him. I had it worked out.”

Silence answered his words. They all clearly thought Kieran wouldn’t have been able to close the deal. Alexis and the others had put themselves in harm’s way to get the job done. Commendable, but they had no idea what they were getting into.

Kieran had seen this sort of scenario play out before. People as powerful as the giant weren’t allowed to disappear from the magical world. The life of seclusion they envisioned often became a life of harassment. They were sought out, taken against their will more often than not, and put right back into the rat race, bound by a blood oath they hadn’t agreed to or wanted. It was a part of the magical world no one ever talked about. Binding someone against their will was illegal, but once a magical worker was bound, they could be silenced. Without proof, a Demigod wouldn’t be judged for their crimes. Business resumed, the rule breaking swept under the carpet.

Kieran’s father had partaken in the practice. He’d called them “pilgrimages,” and he’d dragged Kieran along on a few.

This giant hadn’t been taken down yet, which meant he would be exceptional in his defense. He’d be ruthless in his execution. And he’d be closed off in his thinking, assuming everyone was out to trap him.

Mostly, of course, he’d be right. That was the angle Kieran had hoped to use. Kieran wasn’t there to trap the giant—he was there to offer him the choice of a new life.

Except he would kill the giant if he had so much as put a finger on Alexis.

“He must be holding them captive,” Henry said as they found an inlet laden with trees. A small path led through a ravine and likely up to the ridge that would take them to the giant’s lair. This route was well documented in the inner circles. Of course, the only people who’d survived to tell the tale hadn’t made it very far. “They are mostly staying in the one area.”

Kieran stepped up onto a boulder and followed the trail out of the trees and up. The path narrowed to the point that he had to hold on to the side and carefully watch his footing.

“If he shakes this mountain, we’ll be thrown off,” Henry said, directly behind him.

“That’s part of his defense. I probably would’ve sent you all back at this point. Gone it alone.”

“He wants to play with his food before he eats it,” Zorn growled, taking up the rear.

Kieran gritted his teeth, remembering the rush of disgust he’d felt from Alexis a while back. One finger. If that giant had laid even one finger on her, Kieran would rip his arm off.

“She’s fine, sir,” Boman said with utter conviction, the only one who had been talking Kieran down. “She is like a misfit whisperer. She has a knack for making people feel understood. She probably learned it with spirits, but she’s done it with all of us. If anyone can charm that giant, it is her. And if she couldn’t, she would’ve ripped his soul out and stuffed it up his newly evacuated body’s ass. Have faith.”

“I’ll have faith when I see her. Right now, I’m running alternative plans through my head.” Kieran took it easy around a particularly tight corner, not bothering to look down. He wouldn’t fall. He couldn’t, not when Alexis needed him.

A slight rumble disturbed the small rocks at Kieran’s feet and made the rock under his palm tremble.

“He knows we’re here,” Kieran said, speeding up. He called down a thick fog, blanketing the sky with it, creating a cocoon for them. He knew the giant could sense them through the rock, but if he had any sort of viewing system set up, the fog would shroud them from view. “Watch your step.”

The sound of stone grinding against stone caught Kieran’s attention.

“Down!” He hunched, compacting into a tight ball. Not a moment later, a boulder launched off the cleft next to them, skimming Kieran’s shoulder as it passed the groove of the path. It crashed down on the slope ten feet below before continuing its descent. “Speed up. Fast as you can.”

They worked along the ledge at a breakneck pace, senses alert for more falling debris. Another boulder came at them a moment later, smaller than the last, skimming past them and carrying on.