Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“RUDY!” The moment that he felt the stinging slap, he hushed and looked at me. “You’re fine. But we need to run, or we won’t be fine for much longer.” I spoke firmly and a little more sternly than I had planned to.
“Y..y..yes. You’re right. I..I’m sorry, Queen Riviana.” He hung his head as if he were embarrassed by what he had just done.
“It’s fine, Rudy, but we need to go. Now.” I pulled him to his feet and then pointed in the direction of the door. “I will make us a path, but you need to run. Run like your life depends on it, Rudy, because it does. We need to get to that door before that beast gets to us.”
“Yes. I understand, Queen Riviana.” He was nodding as he looked at the nonexistent path that I had yet to make for us.
“Don’t worry, Rudy. The path will be there, just trust me and follow me.” I picked up Zachary and held him in my arm. “Help me with the boys and follow me. That’s all you need to do.”
“I understand.” I could still see the fear in his eyes as he nodded at me but there was nothing else for me to do. He took the other two boys and was ready to run. I think he thought that if I was going to have him hold my children while he ran, I would definitely make sure that the bridge was there.
“Let’s go.”
I took off running. The moment that I did, a glittering, barely there, green bridge appeared in front of me. I knew that Rudy would be able to see it as well, even if it wasn’t fully solid at the moment.
The bridge didn’t need to be solid though. It was firm enough to hold us and more if I needed it to. Not to mention, this was a magical bridge that had other magical properties. This bridge here was helping to move us forward as we ran. It was like running on a quickly moving sidewalk. It made me feel like I was moving at hyper speed again. Only, this time, I wasn’t the only one that was going that fast.
With Zachary in my arms, I ran as hard and fast as I could. I heard that Rudy was right there behind me, not struggling nor was he out of breath. He was just running fast as he held the boys in his arms.
We hadn’t taken more than a few dozen steps though, when I heard the snake start to follow us again. The thing’s massive body was scraping across the ground, and I once again heard that scraping noise that had been in the tunnel. I didn’t know what that sound was, but I truly hoped that I would never find out.
The hell snake screeched and I felt a disturbance in the magic behind me as it struck through the bridge. It was aiming for us, but thankfully we were already well ahead of it. We just needed to keep going, we needed to make sure that we got to the door before the snake.
And when we got there, I needed to make sure that Alexio didn’t try to stop us from going through. I didn’t know what I was going to do if he blocked the door, and the snake came up on me from behind.. Yeah, that just wasn’t a good train of thought.
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Riviana
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After several minutes of running full out on the moving bridge that I had made, I could finally see the door in the distance. And, of course, that meant that I could also see the massive Greek warrior that was Alexio.
I know that it was just a trick of the light or my imagination, one of the two, but it almost seemed like Alexio was even larger than he had been before. He looked like a massive, and deadly, giant that was standing guard over his golden goose at the very top of the beanstalk. If he started to talk in rhymes when I got closer to him and spoke about smelling my blood, then I was going to call bullshit on this entire thing. That would just be too off the wall for me right now.
Whether he was straight out of mother goose’s book of tales or not, I needed to get past him and get the golden goose. The golden goose, in this case, being the door out of Purgatory. It shouldn’t be too hard to do that, should it?
“Queen Riviana, I see the door.” Rudy called out to me as if I hadn’t already seen the thing standing off in the distance.
“But it’s surrounded by the big bad monster guard.” Zachary added from his place in my arms. “What are you going to do, Mommy?” He asked me, amazing me again with how much better he and the other two had gotten with their talking.
“I will think of something, baby. Don’t you worry. Mommy will think of something to get us out of here.” I patted him on the back as I spoke. I was trying to calm him down and comfort him as best as I could.
Once we got a little closer to the door, it was very easy for me to see that Alexio had spotted us in the sky. His eyes were trained on the spot that was just in front of me at all times, or that’s what it felt like as his eyes followed me along the path.
Now that the monster of a man knew where I was, where we all were, I could see an evil sneer spread across his face. He was both excited to see me and fight me, but also angry and pissed off because I was ruining the order of the underworld or some stupid shit like that. I had been through so much since I had gotten here, so much that I didn’t even want to think about it all, and it wasn’t even over yet.
“I SEE YOU, SELF-PROCLAIMED GODDESS! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE FROM ALEXIO PTOLEMY!” His bellowed voice was even louder than before. And I heard it perfectly clear from all the way over here.
I chose to ignore him. I didn’t want to respond to him right now because I didn’t want to take my mind off the plan that I was formulating. But also, I didn’t want to dignify his attitude with a response.
The plan that I had was not much of one, but it was all I could think of right now. I didn’t know how else I was going to get past the beast of a man and avoid the beast of a demon monster behind me. And I had to do all that while protecting the four people that were counting on me. There was just way too much for me to deal with right now.
I was going to have the moving wind bridge take us directly to the door. While we ran, the bridge would propel us through his legs and right into the door. I needed to time this perfectly, or it would not work at all.
I had confidence that it would work. Or at least blind optimism that was bordering on insanity. It was all that I could come up with in the limited amount of time that I had. And there truly was a possibility that it might work. Just a little, itty bitty tiny speck of dust sized chance. But that was still a chance, nonetheless.
“Queen Riviana, why is the bridge lowering? Why is it going toward the ground?” I could hear Rudy’s fear and shock as he started to panic behind me. “The bridge is taking us right toward Alexio. Why? What is going on?”
“It’s not taking us to Alexio, it’s taking us to the door behind him. It just so happens that the path to the door is between his feet.” I didn’t want to do this anymore than he did, but I didn’t see any other way to the door. He would get us very easily if we went through the air around him. Going through his feet would throw him off balance and give us a chance.
“I AM GOING TO DESTROY YOU HERE AND NOW, FAKE GODDESS! I AM GOING TO RETURN ORDER TO THIS REALM!” Alexio was still yelling at us while we approached him fast. I didn’t even pay any attention though. I didn’t want to stop listening to the hell snake approaching me from behind. “YOU WILL REGRET THE DAY THAT YOU EVER MESSED WITH ME, ALEXIO PTOLE-!” Alexio faltered and stopped speaking for a moment before he bellowed at me again. “YOU BROUGHT A HELL SNAKE TO BATTLE ME! ARE YOU TOO FRIGHTENED TO FIGHT ME ON YOUR OWN?! YOU ARE PATHETIC, FAKE GODDESS. UTTERLY PATHETIC!”
Wait a minute. Did he just say what I think he said? Did he just tell me that ‘I’ brought the snake to fight ‘him’? Did he seriously just lay the blame on me? And if that were the case, did that mean that he wasn’t the one that sent the monster after me? Well, I guess the only way that I would know for sure would be to ask him for myself.
“ALEXIO!” I screamed his name. “DID YOU NOT SEND THE HELL SNAKE AFTER ME? AND THE HELLHOUND AS WELL? WAS IT NOT YOU THAT SENT THE BEASTS AFTER US TO PUNISH ME FOR THE CRIMES THAT YOU THINK I HAVE COMMITTED?” I spoke as loud and clear as I could. I made sure that he heard everything that I just said.
“WHY WOULD I, ALEXIO PTOLEMY, NEED TO SEND A HELL SNAKE OR A HELLHOUND TO DO MY BIDDING? I AM MORE THAN STRONG ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU ON. I NEED NOT RESORT TO SUCH TRICKERY AND COWARDICE.”
Well, if that were true, then I guess that only left one person, one culprit for who it was that sent these things after me and the others. There was only one other person in all of the underworld that was actively trying to destroy me.
I was pretty sure that there were more than just the two people out to get me. Those two being Hekate and Alexio. I was sure that Solanum and Edmond were here, and possibly the handful of other people who I had executed or killed personally. I was sure that all of them probably wanted a taste of my blood and a piece of my soul for their trophy. I wouldn’t let them have it though. Not them. Not Alexio.. And definitely not Hekate.
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