Asher’s heat slammed into me. He was furious, practically vibrating at my side. Sonaris finally stole those brilliant, icy blue eyes away from me. “You can’t have her, half-blood,” he said softly.
“Maddi is mine,” Asher growled, and the ground started to rumble as his powers licked across our skin. Sonaris’s eyes widened then, and he almost looked impressed.
“Who is your god sire?” he asked Asher, turning his head to the side.
“I am!” Galindra shouted, diving from the sky and swooping down.
Chaos exploded, because she wasn’t the only one. Dozens of gods followed her, some dressed in gold robes and others with huge golden wings. Asher wrapped his arms around me and hauled me close before he turned and sprinted away.
“Maddison!” Sonaris roared. It felt like it cut right through me and into the ocean around us as the storms grew overhead.
“What are you doing?” I screamed at Asher. “We can’t leave our friends.”
He didn’t answer immediately, and I started to struggle, but he was too freaking strong.
“He wants you, Maddison,” Asher gritted out. “You don’t need to worry about the others.”
“No!” I screamed, energy bursting from me. “He’ll use them against me. I have plenty of weaknesses to exploit.”
He might think my life was more important than anyone else’s, but I didn’t. Thankfully, he slowed that frantic run, and I panted, trying to catch my breath. I hadn’t been running, but the unrestrained panic felt a lot like running, with all the adrenaline pouring through me. “Let’s save our friends,” he murmured, his lips touching mine.
This was why I loved Asher—he was as mindless as all males were when their mates were in danger, but he cared enough about me to stop.
I kissed him back, relished in the spark of power between us. There was a clear bond there.
“Sonaris is wrong,” I told him as he set me on my feet. “He’s either lying or just mistaken. Either way, we will figure it out, but for now we stick together.”
Asher nodded and grabbed my hand. We turned and sprinted back to where the fighting was going on. I was relieved to see my friends had taken shelter under some of the seating in the round theatre. Louis had erected a barrier around them, which he dropped briefly for us to duck under.
“What’s happening?” I asked, hoping someone had some answers. “What’s with the god throwdown?”
Louis, who was keeping an eye on the fight, answered. “As far as I can tell, this is the same fight that sank Atlantis originally. Two warring sides.”
“So the Sonaris and Lotus side … they want these Hellbringers?” I said. “They want someone to open the underworld?”
“Yes,” Louis replied shortly. “I read a history book many years ago that said there was a doorway between this world and the underworld. And unlike Faerie, which has a million doorways, the underworld only has one. One single doorway that can be used.”
“The doorway is here, somewhere in Atlantis,” Axl said, his hand racing frantically across the page. “I read the same history book. It noted the energy that the underworld would hold.”
He was clearly calculating the energy and had found it here.
Louis nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. It’s why Atlantis was always so powerful. That doorway would have powered this world … and the supes that called it home.”
The noise of the fighting grew, and Louis’s attention was back on the gods. Squished between Asher and Ilia, I couldn’t see much, but I could hear the screams. I could feel the power crashing around us. It was stirring my blood. Stirring my energy.
“How did they expect to control the Hellbringers?” I asked. “Do they have something that could do this?”
No one answered as Louis blasted more energy into the shield. A moment later I knew why.
Lotus appeared in front of the barrier, her face all banged up, dark golden blood pouring from a cut across her cheek. Yep, you heard that right … gold. They probably shit gold bricks too. Bastards.
“You can stop all this,” she said to me. “You were meant to be by our side. We were going to do this together. You would have understood our cause if she hadn’t interfered. But for now, I need you to trust that we only have your best interests at heart. We’re your parents. We care about you.”
“The mother of all ruined your plans before they even started,” Louis said, face determined as he strengthened the shield again.
Lotus nodded. I could see she was trying to win us over the old-fashioned way, since fear and manipulation hadn’t worked. “Yes. Our babies, the ones we needed to be born from both worlds, are the only ones that can open the doorway and control the Hellbringers. But the day they were born, when we were celebrating, she cast most of the Atlanteans into the hell realm—some managed to escape, but not all—and sealed the door permanently. She then did the only thing she could to contain us, sinking Atlantis with us and our babies in a stasis that should not have been broken.”
All I could hear was Axl’s magic pen scratching across the page. “How was it broken?” I asked.
