There’s my girl. Not hearing you curse six ways to Sunday is probably the weirdest part of it all.
In my new fury, I released my hold on the world, everything lurching back to life in a plethora of sights and sounds. Energy crashed into me, into the void I’d been deliberately holding over all life.
When I find you,I warned the man,you’re going to wish you never meddled in my energy.
His laughter was short, deep and rich, and if I had skin to still get goosebumps on, I would be covered.Find me…
Those last two words sounded labored, and I wondered if I’d hurt him even worse than I thought with my last blast. For some inexplicable reason, that bothered me, and I found myself wanting to discover who he was. Before it was too late.
Asher
My body dropped to the ground. I groaned as Jesse caught me before I could sprawl like some uncoordinated newbie fuck. My girl packed a mean punch when she wanted to. Not to mention I’d had to literally bleed to get the connection through.
Louis’s mate, Elizabeth, was a powerful sorceress. She’d done some quick research while we were in the underworld rescuing the Atlanteans, and had discovered a way to break through the protection of the spirits.
“We had it all wrong,” she told me. “The Hellbringers are not actually creatures that can kill the gods, they’re literally spirits of the original Mother of All. They are the creators. They just need a vessel to wield their power.” She was protectively cradling her tiny baby bump, and I found it hard to believe she was due to give birth any day. What the hell did I know about babies or gestation?
“You should leave now, Tee,” Louis argued with her, off to the side, but she stubbornly crossed her arms.
“The literal goddess of creation is crossing the world as we speak,” she shot back. “She might decide that no one here deserves to survive, and in that case I’d like to end this all at your side.”
There was agony in the sorcerer’s eyes, one of his hands pressed to her stomach while the other pulled her closer. “You’re going to be the fucking death of me, Elizabeth Teresa Montgomery.”
He kissed her, softly, and I closed my eyes because I couldn’t watch.
I focused on Maddison—she was coming back to me. Whether to kill me, we’d soon find out. Either way, I was ready to fight for her. For us.
If I could just find the energy to stand on my fucking own. I didn’t want to be leaning on Jesse when she arrived. That was not how this would go down.
Atlanteans surrounded us on all sides, and I felt some satisfaction that at least I’d done that for her. It had been important to Maddison that we save them, and despite it taking me a while to figure out that the trident could part the veils, it hadn’t been too hard. My brothers, stumbling over their new powers, had helped too.
We’d found Jessa and the others, pissed off and cursing in the shifter section of this world. For the first time in ten thousand years, no living being remained in the world meant only for the dead.
“At least Josephina and Rayge took the children to Faerie,” Jessa said, crossing her arms. “If Maddison remakes this world, they might just survive it all.”
“I think we should have gone too,” Mischa said, her voice wavering even if her eyes were dry. “It would have been better that way.”
Jessa’s face crumpled and I waited for her to fall into her mate, take his support. But she didn’t. She stood tall and pulled herself together. She was strong. Just like Mischa. Just like my Maddison.
We were the fucking lucky ones to have them.
Braxton went to her, holding her the same way I would have killed to hold Maddison. Sometimes I wondered if we were the ones who needed them just that little bit more. Women were so strong and resilient. Without their strength, we’d just be over here smashing fucking walls and fighting each other. Maddison tempered my base instincts, while also bringing them strongly to the forefront when needed.
It was a contradiction. But it worked.
“You okay, bro?” Jesse asked, concern lining his face. He still had one hand under my arm, half keeping me up. The newly-formed god of the shifters was falling into his power with ease, and I was glad to finally have my best friend back, the tension between us gone.
“Been better,” I grunted, managing to get my feet back under me. Jesse let me go when my legs were steady.
Closing my eyes, I felt for Maddison’s energy, but the spell was gone; she was blocked from me again. The puddle of my blood under my boots had already cooled. I didn’t have the strength to access that sort of magic again. The original magic within her was too strong, and it was actively working to block Maddison from remembering her other life.
“I still don’t understand how blood got you through to her,” Calen said, looking a little green around the edges, starting to take on the hue of the plants he hated so much.
Axl made a frustrated sound. “It makes sense and doesn’t at the same time. Maddison is, for all intent and purposes, the new Mother of All. The original creator. She holds energy that was here when the worlds were first formed, and it takes a sacrifice to communicate with her. But it shouldn’t be like this. The original mother was not a swirl of darkness and insanity. Why is it affecting Maddison so badly?”
“Because it should have been all three of us,” I said, admitting out loud what I’d known for a while. “Everyone warned us that we needed to form a solid bond and we ignored them all.”
My eyes drifted to Connor, who was sprawled out on the ground, seemingly passed out. Useless fuck. So much of the blame lay with him, but I wasn’t blameless, so I wouldn’t kill him today.
