I strode deeper into the pine-scented woods, my feet padding along the damp ground, completely oblivious to anything but my goal. I stopped and listened for the breathing. I’d heard it for days. Or perhaps I’d simply felt it. Deep, heavy, and guttural, it echoed around me. What would have terrified any other trespasser only fueled my quest. I climbed up rocks, ducked under trees, and jumped over water until I came to a place in the forest that was dark. Unusually dark. Much darker than the surrounding area. It was like a black hole split the trees and opened a portal to another universe.

But I knew better. It was no hole. No portal. It was him. He’d come back for me. To be with me.

I stepped to him, placed my hand on his thick scales as he lay curled inside himself. He grunted, refusing to look at me like an impetuous child. I’d left him out here for days and he was angry, but slipping away from a nephilim and the Angel of Death was not as easy as one might think.

“How did you get out of hell?” I asked.

He stirred, then went back to his pouting, so I ran my hand along the bridge between his closed eyes. He smelled like lightning and soot, and his scales were as cold as an artic wind. His head, twice my height, possibly more, lay on a bed of pine needles. Add his horns, and his head alone was massive. I could only imagine how big the rest of him was. Then again, I didn’t have to. I’d seen him. Twice. Once when I was six and once when I’d released him during the war. He was magnificent. A guardian of the underworld. Not evil, as we’d been led to believe, but guarding those who were evil, who were sent to what amounted to a prison in the afterlife.

“Well,” I said to him, giving him one last chance to acknowledge me, “are you coming or not?”

He stirred and rose at last, his movements slow, labored as he unfolded to his full height. I looked up at him. His head topped the trees and blocked out the moon, which would not make navigating the forest any easier. He bent and ran a razor-sharp claw over my cheek, being careful not to scratch me. The damage that one claw could do was staggering, but it didn’t concern me in the least. Not at the moment.

“I missed you, too,” I said. Taking the claw into my hand, I said, “We better get back before my parents send out a search party.”

He straightened again and followed me, taking one step to my thirty.

“I don’t know how I’m going to explain you to Mom and Dad,” I said as we traipsed back to my place. “Just try not to break anything.”

A tree cracked and fell beside us, and branches sounded like popcorn, his broad shoulders snapping them like twigs as we passed, leaves and pine needles showering down around me.

I groaned aloud. This was not going to end well.