Reena pulled back, her sympathy morphing into celestial confidence.
“Because I’m sending you back to change the ending.”
She raised her palm to Cassandra’s chest.
And pushed her into the pool.
The moment Tristan’slips met Cassandra’s, they heated. Not the normal, intimate warmth of two mouths meeting, but something hotter. Something glowing.
Something divine.
The only time Tristan had felt anything remotely like this was when Ione had kissed him beneath the Imperial palace in Delos. But this was infinitely stronger.
He continued to press his lips against Cassandra’s, but popped his eyes open.
Iridescent light shimmered across her body—whether it was coming from inside her, from inside him, or from somewhere else, he couldn’t tell.
He pulled back, awe stealing his breath as Cassandra’s bruises and breaks disappeared, her body instantly healing itself.
“Cass?” he whispered.
A drop of water plinked onto his hand and when he looked down, more droplets splattered. He touched his face, found wetness beaded there. It wasn’t tears.
He was summoning water.
Beyond the wards of Tartarus.
A temporary gift from the Goddess due to the connection he shared with the female beneath him.
A rush of wind burst from the floor and Cassandra sat upright, placing a hand on Tristan’s cheek. “Don’t destroy Tartarus.”
Tristan hugged her to his chest. “What?”
She snaked her hands under his armpits and clung to his shoulders, shuddering with fear. She pushed back and cuppedhis face. “Reena told me that we need to do it differently this time.”
“Daredevil,” he said, running a thumb across her blissfully intact jaw, “what the fuck are you talking about?”
Before he could interrogate her further, she pushed to standing, swiveling her gaze across the amazed crowd. Who’d just watched her rise from death.
Over at the cage, the Brethren holding Ronin, Mireille, and Silas had dropped their daggers.
Cassandra strode for the Koenig and reached out her hand. “Give me the hammer.”
The hall was so silent Tristan swore he could hear pebbles rattling outside in the courtyard.
The Koenig cocked his head, signed something and Wormwood approached to help translate.
“He wants to know why he should give it to you,” Wormwood said.
Lightning crackled through the throne room, snapping between the columns and arcing from floor to ceiling. Several Brethren screamed as a bolt cracked into Wormwood’s chest and the male crumpled to the ground.
Dead.
“That was for Ana, you weaselly little prick,” Cass whispered before turning to the Koenig and putting on a fake-sweet voice. “Oops. I slipped. I’m a bit new at this.” She blasted an untamed gust of wind that blew back Aedelmar’s hair. “Hand over the hammer.Now.”
There was a powerful echo in her voice. As if it had multiplied a million times over.
And High Gods, it was a thousand kinds of untimely, but all Tristan could think was how much he wanted her to use that voice while she stripped him naked and rode him into oblivion.
