We are not called that. That’s the name given to us from the mortals. We are Setra, the source of life. We make the Mother of All.
I understood it all now. Every aspect from before and still to come. The Mother of All was not a god in the way supernatural beings knew them. She was a vessel for the Setra. That was the true power behind her creation.
Do we need this creature?I asked, for some reason hesitating to destroy him as I had all the others.
The original energy was quiet. Together, we searched through the past and the future to find the importance of this one.
Keep him. He has merit.
I released my hold on the golden god. He caught himself before he plunged into the lava below. In a flash, I disappeared from the world below, emerging on the land above.
There was a lot of work to be done here. I needed to start now.
Asher
Despite the futility of my actions, I couldn’t stop reaching for Maddison through our bond. I knew she was gone. Nothing left of her but a glowing, murderous skeletal figure, filled with darkness and fueled by the Hellbringers.
She was scary as fuck. Yet somehow still beautiful. Her power wrapped around her, gold as my own, but it was not the same. Only a fool would think we were even in the same league…
Was I fool to keep hoping that my Maddison existed within her still?
Her soul was blocked from me, but I had to believe it was still there. That belief was the one fucking thing keeping me functioning.
She spared me.
I was the only god she spared. That had to mean there was still some of my Maddison left, trapped by the power of those dark souls pushing against her. Turning away from the lava, I was maneuvering myself up behind her when she snapped out of existence, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
“Fuck!” I shouted, frustration slapping against my face. Maddison might be nothing more than a set of murderous gold and black-speckled bones, flames dancing in the orbs of the eyes and a tongue of fire, but at least when she was close I could keep an eye on her, know where she was and what she was doing. Now she was out in the world, controlled by fucking darkness, and lacking her kindness and compassion.
The Hellbringers … I’d had a terrible feeling about them. How the fuck were we going to fix this?
Gliding across the now-empty cavern, I entered the stone tunnel that led to the exit, to Atlantis. Scorch marks and gouges littered the walls, evidence of where the gods had been smashing against their prison. All of those gods were gone now. Maddison’s parents. Mine. The others who had teamed up with them.
The entire supernatural pantheon had just been remade, and there was nothing anyone could do to change what Maddison had created. She was the only being with the power to remake the world. And right now she wasn’t exactly taking suggestions.
We’d all better fucking hope she didn’t decide the entire world was a complete lost cause and raze it back to two single cells bumping together.
Asher!
Voices slammed into my head when I powered out of the prison, all of them loud and demanding, except the one I needed to hear more than anything.
My brothers raced toward me.
“What happened?” Axl demanded, his voice a snap of elemental power that not very long ago wouldn’t have been possible for him.
“Where is Maddison?” Jesse demanded.
I paused, my gaze taking in the glowing quality to his skin now, the surge of energy crashing inside his chest. “What the fuck happened to you?” I asked him.
His expression was shuttered. “I’m a god now. What sort of god, I have no fucking idea, but all of us were hit with a burst of power. None of us are Atlanteans now.”
Maddison.
“She killed the gods,” I breathed. “She sent their fucking power out into the universe and she somehow selected you all to be worthy of it.”
I touched my brother’s arm, our powers crashing together.
“You’re a god of shifters,” I told him, immediately recognizing the earthy and elemental power that all shifters were blessed with.
