“You’re a god of shifters,” I told him, immediately recognizing the earthy and elemental power that all shifters were blessed with.
Jesse’s eyes, more forest green than ever, widened. “The fuck you say?”
He didn’t know how to react, and I couldn’t blame him. “You’re the god of the shifters. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Where is Maddison?” Rone interrupted, his eyes burning red hot for a beat.
“God of the Underworld,” I muttered. Fucking hell, Maddison. Way to keep it in the family.
My brother’s eyes were filled with a shade of red that was similar to the lava fields below. He opened his mouth, probably to rage at me, but I got in first.
“Maddison found the Hellbringers,” I said, shortly. I’d done my share of losing my shit when she’d first plunged into the lava, thinking that I’d lost her to the burning depths. Now I was in survival mode. Getting Maddison back was the only way I could continue in this life. She was still there, buried deep inside.
Calen slammed his fist into a nearby tree, but instead of it smashing to pieces, new plants blossomed out of the side, hard and thorny, like a weapon made by nature.
“God of fucking nature,” he cursed. “I hate fucking plants.”
It would be humorous if we weren’t in the worst situation that I’d ever known.
Louis pushed forward, face lined with fatigue and desperation. His eyes implored me to have some good news, but I was afraid he was going to be greatly disappointed.
“How do we bring her back?” Axl asked, his hands itching like he wanted his magical pen and paper to take notes. “Maddison … if she has remade all of the gods like that, she must have the Hellbringers. What did they do to her?”
“Is there a way to neutralize her?” a dickhead from the crowd shouted. “Before she destroys us all.”
My power slammed into him, knocking him halfway across the island.
Louis let out a harsh breath before his power burst free and he silenced all of the supernaturals. “It would be a good idea to remember that Asher has the power to destroy you all with little more than a thought. Now is not the time to try him—he’s barely holding on. Let’s not antagonize the angry god further.”
Barely holding on…?I was running on autopilot, my sole objective to save my mate. The rest was white fucking noise.
“Asher, talk to us,” Jesse said. His anger had died down, even though his new powers were still burning through him.
“What happened down there, Ash?” Rone rasped, his eyes red-rimmed.
“What happened?” I said with a dry, fucked-off laugh. “What happened is we fucked up and now Maddison is controlled by the Hellbringers. Or whatever the hell they are. They stripped away her humanity, her softness, and now she’s just power and vengeance. She remade all the gods in a blink of a fucking eye.” I threw my hands up. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I ran a hand through my hair, the urge to smash Atlantis to the ground slapping against me. “This was not the fucking way I thought this would play out. I’d thought we would fight, that we might get hurt, that we might lose people we cared about. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want it to end like that—I hated that might be the worst case—but I was trying to prepare for it. This, though? No one could have prepared for this possibility, because no one knew itwasa fucking possibility.”
My roar of words slammed into the wall of silence that filled the land.
Louis, the only one brave—or stupid—enough, stepped forward. “There must be a way to save Maddison. Do you have any thoughts about how to pull her back to us? She’s stuck in a powerful void right now, but she still exists. The essence of who she was born to be is there. Someone … or something, needs to remind her.”
“Don’t you think I tried?” A growl ripped from my chest, and those in close vicinity were wearing a nice coat of golden energy. I was fucking shedding magic like a fairy. “She didn’t even know who I was.”
Louis shook his head, and I was wondering why I hadn’t ripped it off yet. “She didn’t kill you. She killed everyone else, right? That’s all you need to know.”
Reaching through the bond, I got nothing but white noise and static, like Maddison was no longer operating on the same plane of existence as the rest of us.
What do you need from me, Maddison James? How do I bring you back to me?
There was no existing in this world without my mate. The only positive was that she was pretty much indestructible at the moment. Nothing could hurt her.
More than she’d already been hurt anyway.
When I closed my eyes, all I could see was her skeletal figure, all I could hear were her screams as she plunged into the lava.
“The scales,” I muttered. “The fucking scales saw this coming.”
