Her ribs were sore, but the ground beneath her felt as soft as grass. Groggily, Nix looked around for the owner of the voice. The last thing she remembered was…
“Oh shit,” Nix remarked in awe at the Goddess floating above her. The woman wore a long, fiery red dress and glowed orange. What Goddess glowed orange?
The Goddess snorted. “What language.”
“Uh, um, sorry?”
“Do you know where you are, phoenix?”
Nix looked around, but everything was blurry. She appeared to lay on a spot in the forest on the outskirts of Alatus Academy, but the grass, the trees, everything had an orange hue as if Nix wore coral-shaded sunglasses.
“You are in the in-between,” the Goddess informed her.
“The…”
“You are close to passing through the veil.”
“I’mdying?” Nix shot back, reeling from the new information. “No.” She had finally feltpowerful. She had finally felt…like an alpha. She had gotten her revenge. And it had all been taken away from her so easily? “Why?”
The Goddess’s amiable expression cracked as she replied snappily, “I am not a Seer who answers menial questions.”
Nix bit her lip and thought back to igniting the entire bunker and having the ceiling collapse onto her.
“Your mates call for you to live. To return to them.”
“Fuckthem,” Nix snapped.
The Goddess blinked. An amused smirk claimed her red lips as she muttered, “So much like her.”
“Those alphas are not my mates,” Nix added adamantly.
“You question the choices of the gods of fate?”
“Fuck yeah, I do,” Nix replied haughtily. “Theycagedme.”
“They did not know what the cage meant to you. You told them little to nothing about your past. You were also bespelled, and with emotions running high, you posed a threat to the safety of a campus of other shifters.”
Nix’s jaw hung open. “You’re taking their side?”
“How derisible. There are no sides in matehood.”
Irritated, Nix’s skin prickled. “Mates are supposed to be worshipped, yet the men chose to ignore my wishes. I told them not to cage me, and they did it anyway. They valued their opinions over mine—”
“They knew you to be bespelled and volatile.”
“They made a choice—against my will—that led to my death.”
“Honestly, do you think all mates are supposed to be perfect the second they meet?” the Goddess asked in an exhausted and annoyed tone.
“Truly, Phoenix, some men need a lesson once in a while,” she told Nix. “And what better lesson than their wrongful actionsleading to the death of their mate? They will never make that mistake again.”
Nix chewed on her inner cheek as she took a mental note to look up the word “derisible” later. “So…I’m dying.”
“Actively dying. Could go either way.” The Goddess tilted her head as she analyzed Nix. She wore the same expression Elle Oadess did when trying to decide between buying new shoes in one color or multiple colors. “Do you have a preference?”
“I obviously don’t prefer todie,” Nix remarked sarcastically.
“Your droll attitude becomes less amusing with each second, Phoenix. Remember with whom you speak.”
