by Eve, Jaymin
Maddison James.
The voice again. He wouldn’t leave me alone.
Impossible, my love. There’s no alone when you have a true mate. I will give you space when you need it, but you’re never truly alone.
Get out of my head! I screamed, sending power with the command.
I felt his flinch. I’d hurt him … badly. But he didn’t leave me.
Maddison James.
That fucking name again.
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.
“Maddison is not strong enough to fight their power on her own,” Axl said, sounding like he was cataloguing that information in his super brain. “Yes. That makes sense. It needed to be the three of yo—”
Power slammed into Atlantis, sending shockwaves through it. Louis turned, eyes drifting up to the sky. The tension in his body told me everything, but I already knew she was close. Her power was literally simmering in the air, visible to all.
“She’s almost here,” the sorcerer said, reaching for his mate, holding her close. Neither of them looked afraid though, facing this challenge with a stoic strength that was mirrored on most of the faces around me.
Come on, baby girl. Don’t waste all of this life.
Maddison loved a lot of the people here deep in her soul, where those spirits couldn’t touch.
I just had to hope she found her way to that place in time.
Chapter 36
I could have appeared on the island in an instant. I knew where the voice was, I knew where everything was.
He was waiting for me on Atlantis, along with thousands of supernaturals, and a few gods.
For the first time since becoming the Mother of All, I felt an urge to gather my thoughts … to pull myself together.
There was also a brief urge to return my skin, cover the bones of my power with the vessel they all wore.
I didn’t, because it felt like a weakness, and someone with the task I had been assigned, could not be weak.
Sending power ahead of me, I had them focused on that approach while I snuck in from behind, wanting to observe them secretly, as I had done with the fishing boats, with the smugglers and mining moguls.
Giving them a chance to prove me wrong.
So far none had, but everyone deserved a chance.
One single shot at proving they shouldn’t be wiped from existence.
“...children to Faerie.”
; They were discussing their children. One wanted to stay with them if this was the end, and another was grateful they might survive it all.
More heat stirred. That was surprisingly altruistic, and brave. Both of them could have been in Faerie too—if they’d had time to send their children there. It wouldn’t have saved them, but they didn’t know that. Instead they were here, with friends and family, ready to stand against the threat.
I was the threat, of course, and none could stand against me.
That in itself made them even braver.
Girl gang.
That asinine name ran through my mind and I wondered at the familiarity of their faces. There were so many scattered around, original Atlanteans, their energy ancient and slightly different to the current breed of supernaturals that populated the world today.
I recognized the new gods as possessing the energy I’d shared out into the world, and as I examined each of their faces, I felt more stirrings of heat in the place where a heart should sit, phantom emotions from an organ long gone.
I drifted closer as my false trail of energy got stronger, sending them all on alert. They faced the way they expected me to arrive, allowing me to approach from the side.
A puddle of fluid caught my attention, the blood darker than normal, tinged with blue and black … and gold. Standing in the middle of it, staring straight at me, was a man.
A familiar man.
The man I’d spared in the underworld.
Somehow he knew my other trail of power was a distraction. He knew I was here, the one strong enough to break through my protections and speak to me.
His skin was bronze, his hair dark with steaks of light, his eyes were green and gold. Original magic infused his essence, born from the daughter of the original Mother of All. There was something about him that stayed my hand, even though I wanted to strike him from the Earth at the same time.
He crooked a finger at me, calling me closer, and I almost lost control and went to him.
Memories flashed at me, faded broken memories.
Swimming, family dinners, movie nights.
This man, he’d been part of my life … before. He’d been important and special.
You’re no longer that being.
The spirits had been quiet, but they started to stir now.
Any that distract should be eliminated.
It caught my attention, because they had been without much opinion until now. No real direction from them, just their powers guiding my vision. But maybe I’d been relying too heavily on their guidance, not realizing that was the same thing as an opinion.
Did they show me truth, or just their warped version of it?
Always truth. Truth is truth. No matter what.
Right. That was right. But … if black was black and white was white … what was gray?
Because there were shades of all three in truth. I’d learned that through so many of my life’s battles and journeys.
Moments I was just starting to remember.
Removing the cloak from around me, I appeared in the air, visible.
The male had never taken his eyes from me, and wasn’t remotely surprised. But the others, they jumped swinging in my direction, their various powers ready and waiting should I attack.
They didn’t strike first though, and I found that … interesting.
“You all know who I am?” I said, my voice thundering because that’s what it did now. Too much power to be quiet.
The man … the man I could not tear my eyes from … stepped forward, almost protectively standing before the mass. “You’re Maddison James. You’re my mate.”
“Our family,” another, dark-skinned man said. He had green eyes, piercing in their intensity, and he carried a cloak of shifter energy around him. Another of my newly reformed gods.
“My friend,” a third man said, with arresting violet eyes and an ancient, restless energy. He was unique, and … kind. He had helped me. I remembered him. I remembered them all.
“Hey, girl!” A fourth. This time a woman with jet black hair, stunning, aristocratic features, and sky-blue eyes. “You wouldn’t kill your girl gang, right?”
Girl-gang. Again. That was why it had crossed my mind, because these people were my friends.
The spirits stirred again. Not your friends. Maddison’s friends. You are no longer her. You are the Mother of All.
Energy swirled and crashed around me, my own turning the seas that surrounded this land into a mass of tropical storms. “The world is corrupt,” I told them. Why I was explaining myself, I would never know, but I … I wanted them to understand. “I’ve tried to remake small parts of it, but … it never ends. I can’t find a reason to save it.”
They pushed closer to me, none of them concerned by the force of the power surrounding me. They were brave. Or stupid.
Or both.
“There is so much good here,” someone said, and I didn’t know this person, but they faced me with kindness in their eyes. “Your vision is shrouded … maybe you need to step into the light.”
The spirits stirred harder, fighting to cloud my judgement again, but here, surrounded by all of this power, they couldn’t quite achieve what they wanted.
“Show me,” I said suddenly, deciding this was it. The last chance.
The final song.
Chapter 37
One by one, the supernatural beings on this island stepped forward and allowed me to touch their skin. This gave me the most direct access to their energy, and through that energy I could see their past and future. I could see lifetimes lived through multiple worlds.
Some of them had been through so much. Fought to save the world. Fought to save each other. Loyal and just and kind.
I hadn’t seen this side of humanity since absorbing the spirits. But there it was.
A reason.
I released Jessa and she winked at me. “Like your new look. Very … skeleton chic.”
None of them had flinched away from me, and I’d seen no disgust in their faces. The ones who considered me family … my appearance did not change anything for them.
Maybe it was time to bring my skin back. To close the gap between the two states of mind I inhabited now.
NO!
It was a single command, and my power surged as the spirits locked around me, tightly.
Release me! I told them. You need me. You have no control here otherwise.
“Fight them, Maddi,” Asher said, eyes flaring gold as he stepped closer. “They’re controlling you. Manipulating you.”
“Shut up!” I shouted, cutting him off before he could say anything else. That didn’t stop him though. He wrapped his arms around me, hauling me into his body. I’d stopped him from speaking but I hadn’t stopped his movements. I’d never have guessed he’d be comfortable with hugging a skeletal mass of darkness and spirits.
He hadn’t even hesitated.
Needing to hear his words, my power released its hold on his tongue.
He wasted no time.
“You are mine, Maddison James. I’m going to say your name until you remember. I’m going to love you forever, no matter what you look like. If this is the only way I can have you, then I will embrace it. Just … don’t let them take everything. I want the funny smartass of a girl who fears nothing and cares too much. I want her back. I need her back.” His voice got low. “You’re my light, Maddison James. My. fucking. Light.”
It hurt. His words physically hurt me, reminding me of the lava burning through my skin to what lay below. I didn’t have skin to burn any longer. I thought the softer side was gone, but he managed to dig into my bones. Into my essence.
“NOOOO!” I screamed, throwing my head back, blasting them all away from me.
Bodies went flying, but the gods amongst them managed to reach and save most of them.
I was too far gone to care though.
You have a job. Remake the world.
The spirits pulsed, restless, inside of me. Pushing and pushing.
Forcing their will back into me.
We slept for too long. The world is corrupt.
My power flickered weakly against theirs, my perceived strength mostly from their abilities.
No, there is good too. Look at these people. Look at them! You saw what I did, and there is good. I can’t remake beings like this. They deserve better for everything they did and sacrificed.
I saw it coming and I was already running. I just didn’t know if I’d get there in time.
My body zapped out of existence, back into the underworld. It didn’t come from my own knowledge, but I understood there was only one way to save the rest of the world. I had to get the spirits back into the lava from which they came. I had to return them to their resting place, because there they were mostly harmless. Barely a blip. Waiting for one who would be strong enough to wield them.
There would be no more though. Asher, me, Connor. We were the only ones. So if I could return them, the world would be safe. But I had seconds, because they were grasping for my power, my control, my soul.
Slowly. Piece by piece.
They were going to take away my free will.
The lava was right before me, and I was almost part of it, when my body was jerked away, inches from the molten red. I’d taken too long—the spirits had enough control now.
Let it end… I was all but begging, the faces of everyone I cared about flashing across my mind. They allowed my memories back, and my soul screamed at everything I’d done. Everything I’d almost lost.
If we go back in the original source, you will have to stay too.
Deal.
Deal.
I didn’t even have to think twice.
A shadow flashed over the top of me just as I was dropping into the red heat. A familiar face.
Connor.
“I got you, sis,” he said. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
He landed on top of me, power and body weight sending the pair of us—spirits included—tumbling into the fire below.