Hunter: The Reckoning

Chapter 10

I found Kara sitting on a yoga mat in the garden. It was one of the more remote sections and once I awkwardly managed to get on the ground beside her, she peeked open one eye and smiled.

"You're back."

"Miss me?"

"Always." She breathed in as she raised her hands up above her head and slowly exhaled.

I set up cushions and got comfortable beside her, tempted to nap in the shade and as my eyes closed, a slightly sweaty Kara was suddenly joining me. She squeezed into the space beside my pillow fort, adding a couple of her own.

"Alright, speak."

"Cain proposed and I fucked it all up." I confessed

"I meant about Gaia but, we can start with that." She stopped herself from taking a drink of water to look at me. "Like, marry me, proposed?"

"Somehow, he still managed to put this on my finger. Dad gave it to him. It's a family heirloom and so pretty." I held up my hand which was promptly snatched to be held in front of her face. "It was the worst. Me. I was the worst. I just froze and first responded with no but I meant like no, no way this was happening and then we almost got into a fight about his next girlfriend."

Kara dropped my hand and fell backwards laughing. Tears ran down her cheeks as she held her stomach and throwing the nearest pillow at her only made her laugh harder.

"Not funny." I snapped.

"It's a bit funny and clearly has a happy ending. Congratulations!" She took a few deep breaths and managed to sit back up before shaking her head. "Next girlfriend?"

"Don't ask."

"Noted. You don't seem happy though, I mean, Blueberry aside, you didn't have to say yes? Nothing about you two is exactly normal and I spent enough time in your realm to know how marriage is and the expectations along with it. I also hate to sound repetitive or negative but you are young. Penny and Colton, despite who they know, are still Hunters and their life will move at a different pace to yours."

"It's nothing like that. I just never saw it happening. It would be something we did at some point probably to get Mum off our backs and maybe my mortality is showing because I do like the idea of it all. We're happy in our relationship and will focus on us later, when we can so when it happened, I just froze. We've got so much going on, good things happening terrify me. Not only that, what if he was doing it to keep my parents happy, thinking he had to? Blueberry is intense enough, nevermind formalising til death do you part."

"You deserve to focus on yourself and each other despite the crazy. I'm glad he did it. Besides, mortals have also normalised divorce, so I doubt your immortal life will be greatly impacted by a piece of paper you signed before you were even thirty years old, young and in love."

"Helpful. Considering we went from friends, to a year apart, fighting each other to taking it slow before we're suddenly twin flames, expecting a baby while facing primordial-"

"Twin flame? Back it up a bit Elise."

I didn't just tell Kara about Gaia and the Nieve ultimatum. I told her about everything, not skipping over anything now and by the time I was done, the afternoon sky was getting dark.

"Wow. Well, a trip to Tartarus, dealing with Gaia, everything, explains the brain freeze. He gets it, Elise and that's why he did it. And why you said yes." Kara looked around, possibly for the quickest escape route to get as far away from me as possible yet I found myself doing the same thing. Something felt - wrong. "I miss the days when our biggest issue was what to watch for movie sundays while we felt like dying after too much mead the night before. All of that aside, what do you need? What do we do next? We can send Art's huntresses out to locate Nieve. For all her flaws, they know how to track down practically anything. I am worried about Hecate though, something I never thought I'd say. Athena should be back tomorrow hopefully with the Valkyrie, possibly with Ares if he survived the trip and or the Valkyrie."