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  Malik put his backpack on the ground and began to pull out his magical implements. He set up an altar of stones and bones surrounding a small obsidian bowl as he chanted his magical incantation. The group stood around him, watching patiently, while Oksana grumbled and stamped her foot. Kayla looked from the girl to Riddick and into the dark waters of the bowl, not sure whether she wanted to have found her child in this teenager or to know her baby was still lost in the depths of hell.

  "I will now ask for the truth to be revealed," Malik whispered, holding a pendulum over the dark waters. "Is the girl who stands before me Oksana Blackfang, true daughter of Kayla Redclaw?"

  At first the pendulum lay still in his hand, but soon, it began to swing over the dark water. He watched silently and stared into the bowl.

  "The pendulum is giving me confirmation that she is your child. I can see in the waters of my scrying bowl how she grew from babe to child to young woman. If you look closer, you can witness it yourself."

  Kayla looked into the water. A vision of Veronica taking her child to the dark lord filled the water. She walked through the rift long before the shifter armies ever arrived, carried her through the portal to the dark lord's castle, and handed her child directly to him. Oksana had never been at the rift. It had been a trick all along. She had been here in hell since she’d first disappeared from her crib.

  Seeing her daughter grow from a baby to a young woman, tended by the demon hands of the lord of hell, sent a shockwave of despair through Kayla's core. She turned away, gasping and clutching her stomach. Tears streamed from her eyes. Sid reached out to her, and Quinn tried to meet her gaze, but she looked away, unable to face anyone.

  "Just because you gave birth to me doesn't mean I want to be with you. I belong here, and you all know it."

  "Now that we know the truth, the decision is easy. We take her back, close the rift, and put an end to this," Jagger said.

  "I'll never be what you want me to be," Oksana said. "I will always be loyal to my father."

  Riddick made a strangled groan in the back of his throat and turned away from the group, clenching his fists. Kayla knew exactly how he felt. The desperate stranglehold of despair and conflicted emotion was too much to bear.

  "Which way should we go?" Sid asked.

  "We have no way of determining where we are currently located," said Felix. "This dimension doesn't follow any known rules or logic. We could travel for days and get nowhere."

  "And while we're gone, the world is passing us by. Who knows how much time has passed on the outside?"

  "They probably think we’re all dead.” Kayla turned back to the party. "We’ve failed."

  "We haven't failed yet," Sid said. "We're getting out of here."

  "You will never escape." Oksana laughed. "You're powerless here. You have no idea what you're dealing with."

  "I'm pretty sure we do.” Jagger had obviously grown tired of the girl.

  "The only logical course of action is to travel using similar references as on earth.”

  "I can use my divining rod to guide us to an exit," Malik said. "But as we all know, our magic can only be so accurate."

  Agreeing that this was the best idea, they packed up their things and continued through the dark forest. An eerie feeling slithered into Kayla's bones as she walked along the path. She felt as if she was being watched, and she probably was. Oksana was convinced that the dark lord was following them, and Kayla had no reason to doubt her. Try as she might, she couldn't tap into her angelic power. It was so transitory and unreliable that it almost felt more like a distraction than an ability. Her thoughts turned dark and pessimistic, and all she could do was think of all the mistakes she'd ever made.

  They walked all through the day, and as the dim sun was setting, they made camp under the craggy trees. Oksana grumbled and complained the entire time, throwing curses at her family.

  "If she doesn't shut up, I'm going to gag her," Jagger warned.

  "How could you suggest that?" Riddick stood between his brother and daughter.

  "I don't want to listen to her cursing," Jagger said. "It's not helping anything."

  "Go ahead, gag me," Oksana said. "It would be just like people who think they're good to kidnap and gag someone who doesn't want to go with them."

  "Maybe we should just leave her here," Jagger said, and Kayla and Riddick shot him a glare. Jagger threw his hands in the air. "She clearly wants to stay, and if we leave her here, we can close the rift and be done with it."

  "If it hasn't been closed already," Felix said. "We've been gone, theoretically, for years. Anything could have happened in that time."

  "They won't have locked us in here," Jagger said.

  "You don't know that.” Felix stared into the fire Sid had built.

  "The spell couldn’t be completed," Malik said. "They need my abilities to close the rift. Even if it has been years, I don't believe they could have done this without me."

  "It is, however, possible that they were able to find the solutions themselves," Felix said. "We should consider the possibility that we are locked in hell."

  "You're all going to die!" Oksana burst into laughter.

  "Can I shut her up now?" Jagger tugged at the gag he was holding.

  "Jagger," Riddick and Kayla said together.

  "Fine. If you want to listen to threats of murder, be my guest.” Jagger started away from the fire. "I'll gather more wood."

  Kayla stood and went to join him as the others continued discussing the possibility that they were locked in hell forever. She couldn't stand that thought. But it might explain why she could no longer tap into her angelic power. They had been completely cut off from the outside world, surrounded by nothing but darkness. If they were trapped in hell, there was nothing left to do but accept their fates. The idea of losing everything she'd worked for was almost enough to make her want to lie down and die.

  "Do you think we've been locked in here?" she asked, stepping up beside her mate.

  "I hope not. But we don't know. It's possible, I guess."

  "I feel so lost."

  He turned to her and took her in his arms, offering her the comfort of his embrace. "We'll figure it out, just like we always do."

  "I can't feel my angelic power. I haven't been able to since we left the city. Who knows how many years have passed on the outside? Maybe they did close the portal, and that's why I can't feel it."

  "And what if we are locked in here? What then?" he asked. "Do we just give up? Do we allow the dark to steal our souls?"

  "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore," Kayla said.

  "We have to keep trying. We have to keep moving if there is any possibility of getting out of here and going home. We have to try, with or without Oksana."

  "But if we get her out, her soul will be cleansed. She will be released from evil."

  "Kayla, Oksana was raised by the king of darkness. Even if we are able to release her soul, she has still learned everything about who she is and what she believes from the very essence of evil."

  "Maybe there is some hope. Maybe with my light, I can help her."

  "If it's at all possible, then I believe you are the one who could help her become the girl she was always meant to be," Jagger said into the top of her head. "But in the meantime, could we please make her shut up?"

  Kayla backed away with a smirk and a chuckle, grateful that Jagger had somehow found a way to make her laugh. "I think Riddick would cut your arm off if you tried."

  "I don't know how anyone can handle that," he said, nodding back at the party, where Oksana continued to harass and threaten the people who had sacrificed everything to find her.

  Chapter 38

  Kayla and Jagger returned to the campsite and sat down near the fire. Felix watched Kayla's face as she gazed at the girl who was her daughter. He'd never been good at reading emotions. Since he and Kayla had mated, that had changed somewhat. He could now read her. He could feel the despair and confusion stirring inside
her. He wanted more than anything to take away all the pain.

  "We should take turns keeping watch." Jagger went on to arrange the watch schedule for the night.

  Felix decided to take first watch. Kayla slept across the fire from him, and the flames danced on her face, casting flickering lights and shadows. His heart ached for her. The possibility that they had failed their mission hung heavily over all of them.

  He turned his attention to Oksana, the girl who'd replaced the baby they'd all set out to rescue. It was an inconceivable turn of events, so unexpected that he could not quite wrap his head around it. If time moved differently inside this dimension, then it made perfect sense.

  He wondered what would happen to their souls if they died in hell. Would they transcend the darkness and ascend to the afterlife, or would they be stuck? These were questions he could not answer. Nothing in his research had prepared him for this moment.

  Kayla stirred in her bedroll, and her eyes flickered open. She sat up and smiled at Felix, picking up a stick and poking the fire. Sparks flew into the night, and she stared into the flames.

  "Can’t sleep?" he asked.

  "I dreamed that the rift was closed, and we were stuck here. Then I became the servant of the dark lord and lived for eternity as one of his minions."

  "That's never going to happen. You would never do that."

  "I have been offered the opportunity to join him on more than one occasion, and sometimes I wonder why. If my soul is so good and pure, then why would he even offer me the option?"

  "You can't think that way. The dark ones are just messing with you."

  "I don't know. When Jagger said we should leave Oksana and save ourselves, I considered it."

  "You expect far too much of yourself, Kayla. Oksana is not the baby she used to be. She was born in darkness and raised in darkness. There is very little chance that we could ever actually save her."

  “Maybe we don’t even have a right to… but I have to believe she’s still in there, or everything I fought for has been a gigantic mistake."

  "It was never a mistake. It can never be a mistake to love," Felix said, "no matter what it does to you."

  "You seem to be speaking from experience," she said, looking into his eyes.

  "Since we mated, I haven't been the same. I feel and understand things I never could have imagined before. I'm not the same man I was.”

  "What do you mean?" Kayla’s eyes locked on him.

  "These feelings. I never had them before. Not like this. It's almost too much to bear sometimes. I don't know how you handle it, to be honest. I know you and Quinn both feel things more deeply than normal people. Personally, it feels like torture to have feelings like this.”

  "Sometimes it is. Sometimes I wish I could turn it off. Actually, I feel that way a lot of the time." She chuckled.

  "You don't think I'm a horrible person?”

  "Of course not. It's completely natural. If I could give up these feelings, I would. And if you caught Quinn in the right moment, he'd admit that he would too."

  "Even if he couldn't connect to the goddess?" Felix asked.

  "If there was a choice? I don't know. You would have to ask him." Kayla sat silently for several moments, poking the fire, then asked, "You think we're ever getting out of here?"

  "There's no data to base my opinion on, so I can't have one."

  "What does your gut tell you?"

  "That is a question no one has ever asked me." Felix laughed.

  "Well?" she asked, poking the fire again.

  "All I can say is that you deserve your victory. And if for no other reason than that, I will say yes. Yes, we will make it out of here."

  Chapter 39

  Felix went to sleep after his watch, and Kayla was left alone in the dark by the campfire. Her thoughts whirled as she contemplated what to do next. There seemed to be no way forward. No matter where they went or what they did, their lives were all but forfeited. They had taken the lord of darkness's prize, and she was sure that his eyes were upon them even now. It had been foolish to believe they could escape, and perhaps it had been foolish to come in the first place. If they wanted to return to the surface, to the light of day, they would have to go through the dark lord himself.

  In the morning, when she woke to the dim light filtering through the dark forest, she sat up and found her daughter's eyes upon her—eyes full of hate like the dark lord himself. Kayla sighed and stretched. Quinn handed her a cup of tea, which she sipped gingerly.

  "You're wasting your time," Oksana said. "You will never escape. You might as well take me back now and face your death."

  "That's exactly what I intend to do," Kayla said.

  Everyone turned to her with questioning looks on their faces. Kayla was supposed to be the leader, the queen, the daughter of the light, the savior of the world. But she had no answers. All she knew was that she had been brought to this point for a reason, and the only way forward was to face her enemy head-on. Running and hiding was no longer an option.

  "I'm going to take you back to your father. I’m going to face him.”

  "Kayla, you can't be serious," Riddick said.

  "We have no choice, Riddick. I spent all night thinking about it. If we are ever to succeed in our mission—if we're ever to even escape hell—the only way is forward, through him. There is no other way."

  "Maybe you aren't as stupid as you look," Oksana said.

  "I can't listen to this," Jagger said, standing from the fire and walking off into the woods.

  "Will you take us back to him, Oksana?" Kayla asked.

  "Why don't you just let me go?"

  "Because I'd like to face my death head-on, and if the stories of my life ever escape this place, then at least people will know that at the end, I had some bravery."

  "Brave for one with the weakness of the light," Oksana said. "But at least you are making your first decision that isn't completely idiotic."

  "Then you will lead us to him?"

  "I could. Or I could let you flounder around in the forest for all eternity. It really makes no difference. You're going to die anyway."

  "We can't trust her, Kayla," Sid said.

  "We have to do something. We can't just flounder around in this forest, like she said. I'm not going to do it for another day."

  "If it will save me from this idiocy, I will lead you back to my father and my home. I don't enjoy sleeping on the forest floor. But that is the only reason."

  "That's good enough for me," Kayla said, taking a long sip of tea. She stood, poured out the dregs, and began to shove her things into her backpack.

  "Do you really believe this is a good idea?" Quinn asked. “There may be another way out of this. Besides, you will be better equipped to face the dark lord when your angelic power returns."

  "It may never return, Quinn, or it may return exactly when I need it. But I'm tired of running and hiding from my destiny. I'm tired of being a coward. And maybe Oksana has the right to stay with the man she calls Father. It's her life, not mine."

  "How can you even say that?" Quinn asked.

  "Dragging her out of here against her will would be as bad as what my father did to me. I was so caught up in my own beliefs and desires that it didn't even occur to me until last night. Now I realize I can't ask her to go with me. I can't pretend that she is somehow the girl I want her to be. And evil or not, she is free to choose whether to stay or go. If I tried to do it for her, that would be the worst kind of evil."

  "I understand," Quinn said with a sigh. "If that's your choice, I will stand by you."

  "I appreciate that you have all followed me this far, and I understand if you no longer wish to do so," she said as the party readied themselves to leave. She glanced at her mates and Gloria and Malik. There was a long silence as they took in her meaning.

  "We followed you this far, and we will continue to follow you," Malik said.

  Gloria nodded at her husband. "We've come this far. And you're right, Kayla. We hav
e to face the lord of darkness head-on if we want to get out of this place.”

  "I will follow you into the bowels of hell and back," Jagger said. "My sword is yours."

  "As is my hammer," Sid said.

  "And my lance," said Quinn.

  "And my guns.” Felix loaded his pistols.

  “And my daggers.” Riddick stood, gripping the hilts of his weapons.

  "Blah blah blah," Oksana sneered. "Could we just get on with it, please?"

  The group turned to her. "I can see why you want to take her back," Jagger said.

  "If we're ready, let's go," Kayla said, ignoring Jagger's remark.

  Her relationship with Oksana was painful, and she'd resigned herself to the fact that she would never see her baby again. She would never hold her or rock her… she would never feel her soft warm cheek against her skin. It was unbearable. But she could no longer deceive herself into believing the child would come back. Oksana was lost to her forever, and the sooner Kayla accepted that, the easier it would be for her and for everyone.

  "Lead the way, Oksana," Kayla said, cocking her chin at the girl who she no longer thought of as her daughter.

  "It would be much easier if you untied me.”

  "Not a chance. Now, move it.”

  "I'll remember this.” Oksana glared at Jagger.

  "Just think of it as a temporary inconvenience until you lead us back to your father," Kayla said.

  "Fine.”

  They followed the girl deeper into the forest, the air never quite warming in the damp, dim shadows. They treaded carefully through the craggy, sharp branches of tangled trees until the forest broke and a mountain jetted above them.

  "The palace of despair is on the other side of this mountain," Oksana explained. "We will have to traverse it to get there."

  "There's no easier way?" Kayla asked, looking up at the snow-covered peak that disappeared in the low clouds of a dim gray sky.

  "No. This is the most direct route. But it should be no problem for the shifter queen," the girl mocked.

  It was a narrow and rocky path up the mountain, much like the path they'd walked as they descended into hell. They'd been moving for so long that Kayla didn't even know what true rest was anymore. Nor did it matter. Her life consisted of placing one foot in front of the other—despite the gnawing heartache that had become her truth. She'd made the hardest decision of her life—to let her daughter choose for herself. They would put an end to this conquest and accept the outcome no matter what it might be.