Chapter One
My family and friends had gone through another epic battle, this time with the Christian God Jerry and his Angels. They stole fey apples, messed with humans, and generally caused mayhem until a whole lot of gods banded together to take them down. Permanently. Jerry was dead at last and Jesus now sat on the throne of Heaven. God is dead. Long live God.
All right, Jesus didn't sit on the throne much or ever wear the crown. But he ruled Heaven now and one of his first acts as king was to establish peace with Hell. For the first time in thousands of years, there was peace in the Christian Pantheon. Now, if only the Human Realm would follow suit. Azrael had done a lot toward peace in the Human Realm, though it took near-total destruction of the previous status quo to get things to where they were. And now that the Faerie God inside him was under control, Az had backed off a bit from world politics. Only a bit. He didn't want Earth to lose all it had gained. And still, there was a long way to go to achieve true peace. Maybe it was impossible. It certainly didn't help that other gods were throwing temper tantrums over Azrael's brash and brutal takeover. Jerry was just the latest among them.
It had been almost eight months since our battle on the grounds of Buckingham Palace, but the humans were still coping with the lies Jerry had spread before he was killed. Not by me, I might add. That honor went to Samael, of all people. Though Abaddon did help, and I stole Jerry's Light beforehand. The Light stealing is particularly interesting since I'd taken such a huge risk to do it. I already had three magics inside me, filling up one of the triangles of my nine-pointed star. In other words, I was full-up. Taking more magic—something only I and my son could do (though he only borrowed)—was risky now. It could have resulted in a literal magical burnout and killed me. But I had lucked out. Jerry's Light was kin to my Moon Magic and had settled in nicely with it. So, what have we learned, class? I can take more magic as long as it's similar to what I've got.
But back to Jerry and his endless lies. That idiot told the humans that he was King Arthur. Yup, that King Arthur. Jerry said he had come back to England in its time of need, as King Arthur had legendarily vowed to. When everything was done and the big fat liar was dead, Azrael met with a group of human reporters to explain what had happened. Our story was that Jerry had in fact been a faerie (because humans don't know about Gods yet and it's not our secret to tell), and Jerry was rebelling against Azrael's new rule on Earth as the Faerie God. For the most part, humans bought the lie and believed that the Angels were Air-Sidhe and Demons Earth-Sidhe, and so on. But, as it was with every slip-up we made, some humans didn't believe our spin doctoring.
More and more anti-Fey groups were popping up all over the world, and we had to increase security at the Golden Citadel. I tried to tell myself that every government had its haters, every celebrity even. And although Azrael was only loosely ruling Earth, he kind of was a government all to himself and definitely was a celebrity.
Just before the last battle with Jerry, I gave birth to my second daughter, Samara. I had spent most of my pregnancy in Faerie, something I wouldn't have been able to do previous to going bad. When I became the Dark Star and viciously rejected my husbands, I cast a spell on Trevor that allowed him to be apart from me without suffering for it. Before then, I wasn't able to stay in Faerie for more than two months. If I did, the Froekn bond between Trevor and me would start to kill him. Of course, I kept my ring on while I was in Faerie, the one that connected me to my husbands, so I'd know if the spell failed and Trevor started to weaken. It never did. I even had Arach mirror every month to make sure. So, that was another good thing that came from going bad. The first being Viper.
But back to Samara. She was now fourteen months old, and this meant I was more comfortable leaving her in Faerie. Not that she was without me for long. My ring of remembrance—a faerie artifact I inherited from my Fey father—would take me back to a mere minute after I last left the realm. I was away from her for longer when I went to use the bathroom.
At least from her perspective. I was still without her and missed her like crazy every time I left. But I didn't want to be parted from my other children—those who lived here in the God Realm—for long either. I just wished I could enjoy myself more with them. I needed to focus on the ones I was with. And missing my Fey children wasn't the only problem.
“Az, I love you,” I said to my husband. “But I've been here a week and you haven't shut up about the problems on Earth. Could you give it a rest, babe? You're stressing me out.”
Azrael, in his Angel guise, scowled, the Angelic script on his cheek crinkling. “Sorry, Carus,” he said, using his special endearment for me. Latin for beloved. Angels. Go figure. “It's been stressful dealing with the futterwacken Arthurian nutsos.”
“Futterwacken,” I repeated. “Is that the dance the Mad Hatter does?”
“Yes,” Az said absently, rubbing his forehead.
In the sky above us, our twin sons flew like a couple of crows. What do two crows mean? One for sorrow, two for mirth. Yeah, that about fit. Sebastian and Dominic were an endless source of mirth these days. They'd gotten bigger and calmer since Samara was born. Thank all that's holy. I hoped they were leaving the terrible twos behind now that they were three, but you never know with those boys. They could get worse now that they were better at communicating. Had I really lamented missing this stage with my shapeshifter children?
“You get extra points for an Alice in Wonderland curse word,” I said. Then I reached over and took Azrael's hand. “Try not to think about it for a while. You don't have to police the world.”
“I think I kinda do. I keep interfering. I've become America.”
“Hey, don't go knocking America,” I said.
“I wasn't. America tried to do what was right. If not always, then often. That's what I'm trying to do as well. But maybe I'm getting too involved. I'll let them police themselves unless they try to war with each other.” Az sighed and looked up at our boys, a soft smile playing across his lips. “I don't want to miss a second of this.”
“Neither do I,” I murmured, my gaze following his.
The twins did look magnificent, soaring above us on their black feathered wings, so proficient at flying, you'd think they had flown out of the womb. They hadn't, of course. Although their birth had been pretty difficult on me, and Azrael being insane at the time hadn't helped. But the Faerie God was under control, and I had my husband back. And myself, for that matter. The Faerie God had transformed me into his mate—the Faerie Goddess. And I was the Trinity Star! When I went dark, I'd nearly destroyed the world. But as the Faerie God, Az had access to the magic of Faerie, including the Great Nine. He had become the male version of me. Okay, maybe a slightly more powerful version of me.
But we got through it, just as we got through our most recent chaos, and I wanted to enjoy our victory a bit longer. So, as much as I sympathized with Az, I left him to his aerial contemplation and looked over at Odin, who sat on my left. We were out on the deck of the Viking longship he had built me, lounging in the sun of our African-esque territory. What a life.
Odin grinned at me from his wooden chaise, then winced when a shriek carried over the railing to us from the lake beyond. Trevor, Kirill, Viper, Fallon, and a few Intare were in the water with Lesya, Vero, and Zariel—Fallon and Samantha's daughter. Sam was smart enough to stay on deck with the rest of us. Mommies had to snatch up their relaxation whenever an opportunity presented itself.
“Remember how I said I wanted more kids, La-La?” Re asked as he slid onto my lounger, his lean hips edging me over to make room.
“Yes?” I asked warily as I took the fruity drink he offered me.
“I've reconsidered,” he drawled and laid back to pull me half across him.
Chuckling, I settled on Re's hard chest, my hand idly stroking his shimmering skin. The gold glimmer tricked the eye, making Re appear fair-skinned. But beneath the Sun God's shine was a dark, Egyptian complexion. This described Re perfectly—an utter contradiction. He was an ex-playboy and current King of the Egyptian Pantheon, who would rather laze his days away beside me on a boat, any boat, than rule. Unlike Az, he knew when to let others deal with their own crap. But he had more experience with it. He wasn't just a king. As the founder of the Egyptian Pantheon, Re was the God of Gods, and he had ruled since the very beginning of organized religion. That's a long time to learn to let go.
“Good,” I said to Re. “Because I'm not ready for more kids. This is getting insane. And now that Samara is here, I can relax knowing that my children who are supposed to be born, have been.”
“That doesn't mean there aren't more who are supposed to be born now that the timeline has shifted back to what it was supposed to be,” Odin said, his amazing peacock-colored eyes shining in the sunlight, shifting from deep blue to ivy to pistachio.
And that jawline. And that Viking physique. And—
“Vervain?” Odin prompted.
