Someone else.
A pale man with ice blue eyes is staring down at me. His naked figure is tall and lanky, and his hands and other aspects of him are impossibly large. There’s a deep wound in his left arm, which is dripping with fresh blood. A black rose painted with frost dangles from his even darker hair.
I gaze up at him, and only one word comes to mind.
Winter.
“Now tell me, Paige,” Jasper snarls, advancing on me. “What the hell did you have to go and do that for?”
Chapter Eight
Aidan
I can’t move. I can’t fucking move. My body is frozen in the middle of the street, and Paige’s screams are still echoing in my ears. Jasper has gained too much power. It took him almost no time at all to attack us again. He attempted to freeze Paige first before targeting me instead. And then he opened a portal to the Winter Realm and carried her through like it was nothing.
I thought we had more time to prepare for this. I thought we had more time for a lot of things.
But Jasper didn’t want both of us, did he?
He’s just wanted Paige all along.
With a clap of thunder, the blizzard melts into an onslaught of rain, releasing me from the clutches of winter. My storm has finally arrived, too late to save the day. I impatiently shake myself off and glance upward, searching for the portal in the sky.
It’s gone. Of fucking course.
At this point I don’t know if Jasper wants Paige for her magic or to lure me into some kind of trap. If he knew she was the key to finding The Goddess Codex and resurrecting Gaia, she’d already be dead. He wouldn’t have taken her back to the Winter Realm unless he’s been planning to do something else with her. Something that could easily be worse than death.
I’ve been one step behind him this entire time.
Fuck. This is why I shouldn’t get involved with humans. Especially ones I want to protect. I was so overwhelmed by Paige and her intoxicating presence that I wasn’t able to see this coming. All I did was teach her a basic spell that anyone with magic could speak. Corpus medicatum. Even the simplest human witch could have done it.
But Paige had to use a natural object as a focus, which is a decent way to strengthen a spell but shouldn’t have been necessary. Not with how much magic is in her. It’s something I’ve only ever seen happen to Gaia. It means the human girl might have earthwater inside her, along with the other four types of magic.
Which means she’s far more powerful than I thought.
And in even more danger than I thought.
I should have been more persuasive. What I showed Paige were parlor tricks and mere illusions. When she asked me to turn into a dragon, I should have shown her the raw power that a demigod like Jasper could unleash on the world. On her. I should have convinced her to come with me to the Summer Realm, at least until she learned enough magic to protect herself. Anything other than allow her to be taken to the Winter Realm again.
I can’t stand the thought of Jasper touching her.
I can’t stand the thought of anyone other than me touching her.
I have to get Paige out of Jasper’s claws, literally and metaphorically, and I have to do it now. I can’t even imagine the hell she’s going through at the moment. I hate that I’m responsible for whatever pain she’s going through, and all because I couldn’t control myself around her. Because I couldn’t do what was necessary to protect her.
But I don’t have enough power to enter the Winter Realm without an invitation, which means I’ll have to ask one of the other demigods for help. Unfortunately, my best chance is with someone I didn’t want to see for at least a few more millennia. I never wanted to talk to Tria again, but she’s the only one of us who can open a portal to the Winter Realm.
Unlike Rowan and me, she hasn’t been completely shut out by Jasper.
I fucking wonder why.
The Spring Realm was supposed to be the safest place during the war with Jasper. That was why Gaia hid her glass casket in the highest room of Tria’s stone tower. The ruler of the Spring Realm was as beholden to the goddess as any of us, and we thought we could trust her. Tria kept an invitation open for me to visit whenever I wanted.
But she also kept an invitation open for everyone else as well.
Including Jasper.
Tria thought she knew him better than I did. She lied to me and said his invitation had been rescinded, even though it hadn’t. Her rationale was that if she suddenly closed her realm to Jasper, he’d know where Gaia was. One of our advantages was that he’d keep searching for the goddess on Earth. If he ever figured out Gaia was in the Spring Realm, Tria would simply rescind her invitation while the rest of us redirected our armies.
But she couldn’t. Just like I knew she couldn’t.
By the time Jasper found Gaia, he’d gathered enough power to keep his invitation open forcibly. It took everything Tria had to protect her own realm. At that point I’d been a dragon for so long I barely remembered how to shift back into human form.
By the time I did, Tria’s tower was on fire.
Gaia was burning.
I haven’t set foot in the Spring Realm since then. But like it or not, this is the only way I can reach the Winter Realm. I wasn’t ready to face Tria yet, but failing to save Paige is not an option.
Not even close.
“Veris continuare,” I say darkly.
A portal to the Spring Realm flashes open with a crack of lightstorm. On the other side is a bright interior lit up by sunshine. I can detect birds chirping and water babbling and flowery scents wafting through the clean, pristine air.
This is going to be a fucking pain.
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter.
I duck in through the portal and emerge in Tria’s stone tower. The birds abruptly fall silent as I slam the portal shut behind me. The demigoddess is nowhere to be seen, but I’m in a lush indoor garden that would put Eden itself to shame. No sign of a past fire. No sign of a betrayal.
I stride over to the open window and glance outside. Pink and yellow blossoms are curling around the exterior of the tower, which reaches as high as the clouds. Pastel butterflies are creating mist with their wings, and the landscape is dotted with lush gardens and clear fountains and fruit-bearing saplings.
It’s the most tranquil fucking place I’ve ever seen.
A pink butterfly lands on my nose. I brush it away.
A lilting laugh floats through the air.
“Hello?” I call out.
No answer.
“Tria?” I’m already becoming impatient. I know she can hear me, and I don’t have time for this.
Paige doesn’t have time for this.
“I’ll give you until the count of three,” I say loudly. “One...”
Nothing.
“Two...”
Still nothing. I can’t actually force Tria to appear in her own realm. In mine, I’d already have her bound to the wall with iron chains. But she’ll be too curious to leave me alone for long. The demigoddess won’t be able to resist the temptation of someone so powerful entering her realm.
Or at least that’s what I’m counting on.
I open my mouth again.
“Three,” says a mischievous voice, beating me to it.
The pink butterfly has transformed into a barefoot woman, her expression gentle but impish. She’s wearing a white gown made of fluttering silk that leaves nothing to the imagination. Her impossibly long hair is pale green with spring flowers woven through the strands, and her eyes are translucent pink, like rose quartz.
Mere mortals would kneel before her ethereal beauty without a second thought.
Good thing I’m not mortal.
“Took you long enough,” I say curtly.
She shrugs. “I like to keep you waiting, Aidan. It’s cute when you’re impatient.”
“Don’t flirt with me, Tria.” I’m not the least bit interested. “We’re about to lose the war with Jasper.”
“But we already lost the war,” she murmurs, drawing closer to me. “Or have you forgotten how your lovely Gaia burned?”
“Oh, I remember,” I say in a voice like steel. “But I can resurrect her.”
Tria gives that lilting laugh again. “Are you really still searching for The Goddess Codex? Jasper destroyed the spellbook long ago. You might as well enjoy Earth while it lasts. We’ll all be locked away in our own realms soon enough.”
“I found it, Tria. Or, well, I’m about to.”
Her pink eyes widen. “What? How?”
“Rowan told me where to look.”
“That bastard.” Tria tosses her hair over her shoulders. “I invited him to meet up with me for coffee at the equator last month. He showed up with antlers growing out of his head and wouldn’t tell me a thing. I asked him if he was going to shift into a stag, but all he said was that he didn’t know yet.” She snorts. “As if anyone would rather be a succulent animal than a powerful dragon.”
“You... you haven’t been eating animals while you’re in dragon form, have you?”
“What does it matter?”
“You don’t want to accidentally eat Rowan—”
Tria pounces on me before I can react. We tumble to the stone floor together, fresh flowers and verdant plants springing out of the cracks around us. Pale green vines curl around my limbs like garter snakes, ensnaring me instantly.
As I would have done to her.
“I’ll eat anything I want,” she purrs into my ear.
This might have worked on me millennia ago. When Gaia had been sleeping for longer than any of us imagined. When I felt intensely alone but hadn’t succumbed to my dragon form just yet.
But even though I’ve been alone for some time now, all I can think about is the fact that Paige might have Jasper inside her if I don’t do something. And once he’s done with her, he will rip her apart. Consume every bit of light she has left.
I will fucking die before I let that happen.
An explosion of lightstorm bursts out of me, simultaneously knocking Tria away and shriveling the vines that bind my limbs to the floor. She crouches on all fours, her pink eyes staring up at me as I climb to my feet.
The demigoddess of the Spring Realm has always been the wildest deity. Even Rowan, who actually has reign over wild animals, manages to restrain himself. He’s probably spent the least time as a dragon out of all of us. And Jasper has the most control over his power, which means he can spend an entire century as a dragon and not really be affected.
But Tria, the ruler of the Spring Realm, desperately wants change to happen. She loves opening her jaws and breathing rain across the planet. She loves watching snow melt as her mistgreen pushes budding sprouts through the fresh soil. You can’t change much of anything when you’re in human form.
But as a dragon filled with raw power, you can change everything.
Rowan and I have had to warn Tria repeatedly not to turn into a dragon while in the Earth Realm. She finally stopped doing it after the Middle Ages. She fucking loved toying with those medieval knights and their shining armor. I’m pretty sure she still has one or two in her tower somewhere, kept alive by her magic.
“Why don’t you eat Jasper instead?” I ask her. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate the attention. And he’d probably taste better than those knights.”
Her expression shifts. “If you’re here because of something Jasper did, I can’t help you.”
“You’re still afraid of him?”
“Still?” She gives a harsh laugh. “I’ve always been afraid, Aidan. If he burns down my tower one more time, I don’t think I’ll survive it.”
“I thought it was just the once.”
She looks away, not meeting my gaze. “Every millennium as punishment.”
I don’t often feel for other deities, especially Tria. But this time I do, and it hurts like a knife twisting in my gut. Even if I partially blame her for what happened to Gaia, no one deserves that kind of punishment.
Not even her.
“Tria—”
“He doesn’t do it anymore,” she says hastily. “Not the past few millennia. He knows I won’t survive the next one. But I’m not supposed to work against him anymore.”
“All I need is to use your invitation to get into his realm,” I say. “That’s all.”
She laughs hollowly. “As if that isn’t the very thing that will kill me.”
I drag a hand through my hair in frustration. I won’t be able to convince Tria to work against Jasper. She’s too terrified of him, and I’m not strong enough to protect her. But she’s the only one of us who can open a portal to the Winter Realm. There are underground witch covens and wizarding circles scattered all over the Earth Realm, but even if they all worked together they wouldn’t have enough magic to help me.
Well. Maybe if they all worked together. But that’s never going to happen.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
Tria looks at me with surprise. “You’re here about the girl.”
“What?” How the hell does she know about Paige?
“Jasper was bragging about finding a girl on Earth with hellfrost inside her. He said it was the most he’d ever seen.”
“Are you sure?” I can’t believe it. “He didn’t say anything else about her?”
She nods. “He was talking about wanting a bride. Someone to rule beside him and watch over the Winter Realm while he’s away. Someone with enough power to remove the last trace of Gaia’s binding spell from his blood.” Her voice flattens. “So he can take over everything.”
Holy fuck. This is so much worse than I thought. Jasper isn’t trying to get to me at all. He’s seen Paige’s power and it’s made him want to own her. It’ll be as easy as snapping his fingers. With a few hellfrost spells, he could even kill her and chain her to his throne as one of the undead.
His very own ice zombie queen.
The thought of beautiful Paige staring with blank eyes from Jasper’s side, sentenced to do his bidding for the rest of eternity...
I’ll fucking kill him.
At least Jasper hasn’t seemed to notice Paige has all four types of magic inside her, which is a good thing. He just thinks she has a lot of hellfrost, probably because she does and he’s too blinded by his own power to notice anything else about her. He doesn’t realize she could locate The Goddess Codex and bring about his downfall.
I have to find Paige before he figures it out.
I have to save her.
Tria is still crouching on the floor where she was flung by my lightstorm. Her shoulders are hunched over, and for the first time I notice the flowers in her pale green hair are wilting. She’s already dying. If Jasper takes over everything, nothing will change for the rest of time. The planet will be frozen in an eternal ice age that won’t allow for rain, or flowers, or bees.
Without the promise of change, she’s as good as gone.
“Tria.”
She doesn’t look up at me.
“Tria.”
Her pink eyes slowly lift to mine.
“We can defeat Jasper.”
Tria shakes her head helplessly. She doesn’t believe me.
“That girl he kidnapped? She can find The Goddess Codex. She can help us resurrect Gaia.”
“I already told you,” Tria says tonelessly. “Jasper destroyed the spellbook.”
“So what if he did? If Paige has enough power to remove the binding spell, that means she has enough power to reinforce it. Even if we can’t find the spellbook, we have other ways of defeating Jasper. We just have to work with Rowan to figure out how.”
It’s not a lie. I didn’t realize any trace of the binding spell still existed, but if we can’t find The Goddess Codex and resurrect Gaia, it’s our best shot. Of course, Paige barely even believes in magic. And she’s currently being held prisoner in the Winter Realm. So I don’t know how I’m going to save her, much less convince her to help us defeat Jasper.
But I know she’s strong,
and I know she’s beyond powerful.
She could be the one to save us all.
“Do you promise?” Tria breathes, her eyes suddenly aglow with excitement. “That girl is powerful enough to bind him?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
She laughs again, but this time the sound is like an uplifting breeze on the first day of spring. “There are worse things than death. But there isn’t anything better than life.”
Tria rises to her feet and opens a portal to the Winter Realm. The translucent window shimmers in the air, framed by wild vines and white dandelions and budding pink roses. But a freezing wind is already pushing into the tower, followed by a burst of snow and the putrid scent of evil.
We’re facing a blizzard in the middle of the sky. The portal is so high up that I can’t even see the ground below.
“Sorry, big boy,” Tria says to me. “Jasper restricted my invitation. This is the only way in.”
So I’ll have to enter the Winter Realm as a dragon just to avoid falling to my death on the other side. But the portal isn’t large enough for me to transform beforehand, which means I’ll have to step through as a human before shifting in the middle of the blizzard.
I wasn’t intending to become a dragon ever again. And I certainly shouldn’t be doing it for a human girl I’ve known for almost no time at all. I don’t want to risk being consumed by my own power. I don’t want to risk failing to resurrect Gaia and allowing Jasper to win the war.
But green scales are already stretching over my skin. Bones of leathery wings are pushing out from my shoulder blades as the seductive rush of power claws at my insides, eager for me to become something other than human. It feels invigorating. It feels even better than I remember.
It feels fucking good.
I really should stop my transformation. Just in case I lose control, you know? But it turns out I’ll pay any price to keep Paige from becoming Jasper’s bride. Now and forever.
The question of the hour is whether I still can.
Only one way to find out.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” I mutter, and step into the winter sky.
Chapter Nine
Gaia Awakened Page 7