Read Online Blackhearted Betrayal by Kasey Mackenzie - Free Book Online

the ensuing time since until, just recently, portals between the Underworld and the Divine Realm began shutting down as well.”
     
    The
supposedly
lesser god they wanted us to investigate not only had enough power to pledge other lesser gods to himself, he had enough juice to cut off
other
Death Lords from his part of the Underworld?
And
had enough spare power to start closing off those areas from the greater gods? Jeez. Us. Forget the
Titanic
and moon-sized meteors; we were onto supernova scales of disaster already.
     
    Mom clenched her hands and looked as displeased as I felt. “And may we hear the name of this—lesser god?” The pause in her voice came through loud and clear, butshe kept her tone a lot more smooth than I could have managed.
     
    Ala and Epona both focused their gazes upon my face as Kamanu opened his mouth to reply. I had no clue why until his unwelcome words reached my ears. “Anubis the Jackal-Headed, Egyptian Lord of the Underworld.”
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    SHOCK STABBED STRAIGHT TO MY BELLY , making me distinctly weak in the knees.
They think bloody freaking
Anubis,
the god who hates me because grief and Rage made me bitch him out in front of his priesthood, is plotting an immortal coup and believe Mom and I are Their best hope for thwarting it? The two of us barely-even-demigoddesses up against a lesser god who drummed up enough power to challenge every other Death Lord—and win? Who now has enough power to command other immortals who should be his equals? What the hell kind of drug are They smoking—and, more importantly, where can I get me some?
    My penchant for sarcasm in the face of danger helped me straighten my spine and stare at the Triad with every bit of incredulity pulsing through my body. Mom knewme all too well, despite our twenty-year separation, so she grabbed my hand in a viselike grip and mouthed the words
Calm down!
as if they had a prayer in hell of working. Hell. Exactly where these out-of-Their-minds Deities wanted to send us on a suicide mission.
     
    Rage at Their seeming callousness toward two Furies who had already sacrificed plenty—like, say, twenty years of a mother-daughter relationship we could never get back—quickly caught up to and beat the snot out of former shock. Nemesis and Nike hissed in response to the white-hot flood of anger they could feel as strongly as I did. They probably saved me from certain doom because settling
them
down distracted me long enough that I missed my chance to immortally offend the Triad.
     
    Mom spoke up while my attention was diverted. “Just to be sure we understand, Your Graces …Not only has Anubis sworn both other lesser gods and a faction of the Sisterhood to his personal service, but you believe he has closed off most of the Underworld to other Death Lords and now to the Divine Realm? And you want the two of
us
to find proof of his crimes where the other Death Lords have fa—been thwarted?”
     
    Ha. That showed Mom’s greater gift for diplomacy clearly enough. I would have just spat out the word
failed
to two of said Death Lords without bothering to pretty it up. Because, dammit, that’s exactly what Epona and Ala had done—screwed the ever-living-heck out of the pun-so-intended pooch, in the form of Anubis. Also known as the god who told me if I ever set foot in his domain again, he’d rip my entrails out and eat them in front of me with a side of fava beans and Chianti. And he hadn’t been kidding.
     
    Any other Deity would have taken into considerationthe fact that I’d been consumed with Rage and grief over Vanessa when I’d, um,
requested
help in figuring out whether she really
had
been murdered, but not Mr. Jackal Face. He and Mercy were not only strangers to each other, but I was willing to bet he couldn’t even spell her name,
with
a dictionary.
     
    What sucked even more hard-core was the fact my lover, Scott Murphy, and the entire Murphy clan considered Anubis their personal protector in addition