Gaia Awakened

by Cassie Thorne

  Paige

  I stare up at the man who’s also a winter dragon named Jasper, my heart pounding in terror. Why didn’t I trust Aidan when he said I was in danger? He tried to teach me how to defend myself in this exact situation, and I acted like he was my enemy.

  But if I ever needed proof that magic exists, it’s standing right in front of me.

  And it’s really, really pissed off.

  “I’m waiting for an answer,” Jasper says icily, crouching down before me as the wound in his arm freezes over. He’s so close I can actually feel the cold emanating from his pale skin. “Why in the name of hell did you stab me, Paige?”

  My mind is screaming at me to run, but I can’t seem to look away from his ice blue eyes. A paralyzing chill is creeping through my veins, as if a force more powerful than I could ever imagine is keeping me where I am. I want to speak the spells Aidan taught me. I want to do anything other than lie here without moving.

  But this is the Winter Realm.

  I don’t know how to use magic.

  And Aidan isn’t here. At least not anymore.

  Jasper leans down to me, close enough that I can feel his frigid breath on my face. He’s sharply handsome, with chiseled features and black hair that glitters with frost and snowflakes, but something about him terrifies me. His presence feels jarring and deeply wrong, as if he’s the anomaly in my existence the animals at the zoo warned me about long ago.

  I instinctively cling to my memories of Summer, to the warmth I always felt when we were together. But when I try to remember his face, I just find myself picturing Aidan instead. Summer’s image has become so faded in my mind that I’m no longer sure if he was real.

  I was so scared when I forgot the color of his eyes, as if that somehow meant he was never alive, and look where I am now.

  A world where Summer never existed.

  A world where I never have to feel pain again. At least not that kind of pain, the emotional one, the one that digs its claws deep into your heart and never lets go.

  Out here on a barren castle made of ice, it’s already gone.

  “I won’t ask you again, Paige.” Jasper’s tone makes it clear that he’s going to start hurting me if I don’t respond. His fingers are itching near my wrist, as if preparing to pin me down. “Why did you stab me? How were you even able to obtain a sword?”

  Something about his tone jolts me out of my paralysis. I’m not going to just let some creep intimidate me like this. “I stabbed you because you were trying to kill me. And you have Aidan to thank for the sword.”

  “You should be more grateful,” Jasper says, smirking down at me. “I was saving your life. Do you understand how much effort it’s taken to release you from Aidan’s clutches? You’re welcome.”

  “If that was saving my life, I’d rather die,” I spit out. But as soon as the words leave my lips, I know I’ve made a terrible mistake.

  “Would you now?” His eyes are glittering with sudden interest.

  I swallow hard, painfully aware that I have no idea who or what I’m dealing with. Willow always says I shouldn’t make eye contact with creeps or respond to what they say, no matter how badly they try to get my attention. Not for the first time, I wish I’d followed her advice.

  “Never mind,” I say quickly.

  Jasper is gazing at me with cruel fascination, as if he’s imagining all the various ways he could kill me. “I’ve been searching for you for a long time, Paige. Do you understand how much hellfrost is trapped inside your body? You burn brighter than anyone else in all the realms. It’s exhilarating.”

  “I don’t care about hellfrost.” I hate that my voice is shaking. “I just want to go home.”

  He laughs, a chilling sound that makes me instinctively shiver. “Didn’t I tell you, Paige? This is your home now.”

  Jasper unfurls his hand to reveal a black rose where there wasn’t one before. Nestled at the center of the frosted petals is something that would be breathtakingly gorgeous in any other context.

  But here, now, it fills me with unrestrained fear.

  A diamond ring.

  What the hell?

  “My home is on Earth,” I say bravely.

  “Your home was on Earth,” Jasper corrects me. “You should be thankful that I found you, Paige. I’ve been able to sense your presence for some time now. But a pesky wildwind spell has always prevented me from touching you with magic or... other things. By the time I figured out how to remove it, Aidan had gotten to you. But you don’t want to be with him, do you? What you really want is to be with me.”

  “You have no idea what I want—”

  Jasper places a finger against my lips, silencing me.

  His gaze roves across my chest.

  Even though I’m fully clothed, I feel like he’s seeing right through me.

  His smirk widens ever so slightly.

  “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Paige,” he says. “You’re just like me. You embrace winter and hold death close to your heart. To you, the world is hollow and colorless, and so it is to me.”

  He’s describing the way I felt after Summer’s death so accurately it terrifies me.

  Exactly how long has he been watching me?

  “I have a proposal for you,” Jasper continues. “As the ruler of the Winter Realm, I’ve never shared my throne with anyone else. But your beauty and hellfrost have managed to overcome even my most selfish tendencies. Help me seize the power that is rightfully mine. Take your destined place by my side. After you join me in marriage, we can rule all the realms together.”

  I stare at Jasper, fighting the suicidal urge to laugh. He’s serious. He’s actually serious. A demigod who’s been stalking me just kidnapped me because he wants a bride, which is so insane I don’t even know how to respond to it.

  What kind of answer is he expecting?

  The only man I would ever marry died in a fire.

  I wasn’t going to date anyone ever again.

  And I’m certainly not going to accept a proposal from a demigod who’s trying to take over the world.

  Jasper’s eyes narrow as he observes my expression. “Aidan already sank his claws into you, didn’t he?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about—”

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about,” Jasper mimics, his tone cutting. “I can taste his sickening odor all over you. This poses a grave problem for our wedding night, Paige. How many times did you let Aidan fuck you?”

  The question makes me flinch, because that’s not what happened. Maybe it’s true that I wanted Aidan to be Summer at first. When I kissed him, I imagined he was the man who used to love me with all his heart. I would have let him do anything to me.

  But something changed when he was inside me, filling my body with his warmth. At that moment he wasn’t Aidan, or a replacement for Summer, or an attractive stranger searching for The Goddess Codex.

  He was the only thing that felt right in the world.

  “I would never let anyone fuck me,” I say coldly. “Least of all you.”

  Jasper wraps his fingers around my throat and shoves my head back, his eyes flashing with amused rage. His touch is making my heart feel numb, as if he’s freezing my body from the inside out.

  I think he’s trying to decide whether to kill me.

  “There’s the winter I was looking for,” he breathes. “By the time I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me to fuck you.”

  What he says triggers an instinctive reaction from inside me.

  It’s not a positive one.

  Without thinking, I haul my head back and spit into his face.

  My saliva freezes in midair before dropping to the ice between us, shattering into tiny pieces.

  Oh God.

  Time seems to slow to a halt as Jasper tightens his hand around my throat and lifts me into the air. Despite his proposal of marriage, I’m getting the vibe that he’s not exactly the kind of guy who needs to be in a relationship. He co
uld just as easily kill me as marry me.

  For all I know, a wedding in the Winter Realm is no different than a funeral.

  I’m slowly suffocating.

  I used to wonder what eternity must feel like. As a child, I thought it was the amount of time it took the stars to burn out in the loneliness of space. As an adult, I thought it was the amount of time it took the apartment building to burn with Summer still inside. I waited so long for him to reappear, even after the fire engines had departed and everyone else had gone home.

  But now I think eternity is the amount of time it takes death to release you from his cold, hard grasp.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying, Paige?” Jasper removes his grip and I crumple against a battlement, gasping for air. “I saved you from Aidan. He would have smothered all that glorious hellfrost in here.”

  He touches a finger to my forehead.

  “And here.”

  His finger traces down to my lips.

  “And here.”

  His finger sears an icy hot path down to my sternum.

  “And here.”

  A piercing chill slides into my heart like a dagger, making me shiver uncontrollably. If not for my blouse, I’m certain his touch would be scarring me right now.

  But even though Jasper thinks he has absolute power over me, he doesn’t know I have a secret weapon. I’ve had it all along.

  I’m not afraid of death.

  I don’t think I’ve been afraid of it ever since Summer died.

  It’s like I’ve led two separate lives. The normal one with Summer before the fire, and the empty one after everything burned. Willow did her best to help me with the transition to a post-Summer world, but nothing could fill the gaping black hole that had fractured at the center of my heart.

  The closest I’ve ever gotten to filling that hole is whatever happened with Aidan in the Dragon’s Tale.

  “You and I are perfect for each other,” says Jasper, oblivious to my reaction. “The hellfrost in your blood is almost as strong as mine. In time, you’ll come to love me more than life itself. Accept my proposal, Paige.”

  My throat is in too much pain to form coherent words, or else I’d tell him exactly what I think of his proposal.

  Jasper hisses out an irritated puff of snow and yanks me around, forcing my head over the edge of the battlement. “If you choose to accept my proposal, everything the snow touches will be yours.”

  I gaze down at a barren landscape blanketed in white, nausea rising in my stomach. We’re so high up that even just seeing the distance to the ground below is giving me vertigo. The snow extends as far as the eye can see, but there’s nothing else at all.

  Everything in this world is cold and dead.

  I don’t want to end up the same.

  “Keep it,” I say, my teeth clenched. “I don’t want anything you’re offering me.”

  Jasper yanks me away from the battlement and forces me around, his naked body pressing unpleasantly against mine. “Is that right? You should think more carefully about what you want, Paige.”

  The rest of his words are unspoken.

  Or else.

  Before I can pull away, Jasper presses his lips against my mouth with a cruel firmness I didn’t even know was possible before now. I stiffen against him, but there’s nowhere left to retreat. His icy kiss burns with cold ferocity.

  I don’t want this.

  I don’t want any of this.

  If I fight back, it will be so easy for him to snap my neck, like a strong gust of wind extinguishing a tiny flame in the darkness of night.

  But I’ve been this close to death before. Not just during the fire, but afterward as well. This isn’t an unfamiliar feeling for me. After Summer died, I’d lie on the mattress in my new apartment, feeling lifeless and numb. Nothing felt right. Nothing felt real. If only I could wake up, I’d be able to see Summer and everything would be fine again.

  When I finally realized he wasn’t coming back, I swallowed an entire bottle of pills. Not because I wanted to kill myself, but because I no longer wanted to know he was dead. And the only way to not know that was to stop existing in this world.

  If I couldn’t bring Summer back, I had to join him.

  Even if that meant in death.

  But Willow found me in my apartment and called for help. My best friend saved my life. She was there for me when I got out of the hospital, when I had to fight to see the world as a place that wouldn’t always be cold and dark. It was the hardest thing I have ever done, but I finally managed to see the world as a place that could eventually be warm again.

  Even without Summer.

  Maybe I still feel empty sometimes. Maybe I still can’t even fathom dating anyone else. But I’m not going to give up on my own life, the one I fought so hard to get back, just because some creep thinks we’re soulmates.

  And I am never, ever going to betray Summer.

  Jasper slides his icy tongue into my mouth and I can’t stand it anymore. I can’t spit at him this time, because his mouth is all over mine and I can’t pull my lips away.

  My fingers curl into a fist instead.

  I punch his injured arm as hard as I can.

  His wound is still frozen over, which means it probably hurts me more than it hurts him.

  But sometimes it really is the thought that counts.

  Jasper flinches away as if I’ve stabbed him with a sword again. An expression of discomfort flashes momentarily across his face, but then his features quickly settle into a satisfied smirk.

  “See, Paige? This is why we should be together. I love it when you hurt me. Vinum videre.” He conjures an ice goblet out of thin air. It’s filled to the brim with spiced red wine, richly scented and steaming hot. “Drink this. Until your bedchamber is prepared, it will keep you... calm.”

  But something happened when I punched Jasper just now. A symphony of electricity and nectar and wildness and frost began to surge through my blood, just like when I confronted Aidan outside the bookstore. It’s magic, more powerful than I can understand right now, and Jasper doesn’t even seem to be aware of it.

  I turned a blade of grass into a sword.

  I can do it again.

  I reluctantly accept the goblet and swallow a few mouthfuls of wine. It immediately begins to thaw me from the inside out, as if I’m sitting beside a warm fireplace.

  When I try to lower the goblet, Jasper’s fingers close around mine.

  “It is discourteous to refuse a gift from your lover,” he says, tipping the remaining wine toward my mouth. “Drink it all.”

  But the magic is sparking through my veins even more intensely than before, along with a primal urge. Not to kiss Jasper, but to do anything I can to get away from him. And this time there’s something else, too. Whatever has been locked inside my heart is releasing the faintest whisper of desire. It wants to live. It wants to experience love and laughter and loss.

  It wants to be free.

  I know what to do now.

  With all my strength, I yank the goblet from Jasper’s grasp. It’s not a weapon, but it’s made of solid ice.

  And ice is straight out of nature.

  “Telum creare!”

  The goblet instantly expands into a baseball bat made of ice, spilling red wine across the castle. It reminds me of when Summer and I went to a batting cage on our second date. He stood behind me, his hands covering mine, and taught me how to swing a bat just like this one.

  “You’re not my lover,” I say, and slam the baseball bat into Jasper’s skull.

  A sickening crack shatters the silence around us. For a terrifying second I’m not sure whether I’m able to harm a demigod.

  But then, as if in slow motion, Jasper crashes to the ice at my feet.

  He’s unconscious. Not moving.

  Oh God.

  I don’t think I hit Jasper hard enough to kill him. But I don’t know how long I have before he wakes up, and I won’t be able to surprise him like this again. Why the hel
l didn’t I pay more attention when Aidan tried to teach me magic?

  I start to run along the battlements of the ice castle, searching for a way out. But a bitter wind laced with snow is chasing me, tugging at my long hair and fluttering skirt, as if trying to slow me down. I have the bad feeling Jasper is already awake and stalking me across the castle.

  I really don’t want to look behind me.

  A flash of lightning makes me look up instead.

  Another dragon is flying toward me in the wintry sky. He has green scales that shine as if they’re made of emeralds. Leathery wings that crackle with electricity with every movement. Red roses that cling to thorny vines wrapped around a spiky tail. I’ve never seen him in this form before, but I’d recognize those green eyes anywhere and I don’t know whether to smile or cry.

  Aidan turned into a dragon.

  For me.

  Chapter Ten

  Aidan

  I found Paige. I finally found her. After entering the Winter Realm, I plummeted through the blizzard for a humiliatingly long time before getting my shit together and sprouting wings from my back. The rest of it wasn’t too hard after that. My skeleton elongated into dragon form as my skin hardened into green scales to protect my flesh like armor. The visceral power of raw lightstorm flooded my body as I lost the ability to speak. But even without any spells, I’m more powerful than I’ve been in millennia.

  After all this time, being a dragon is even better than I remembered. It feels so good I’m not sure if I want to go back to being human.

  I’m getting drunk off this much power.

  But drunk is what fucks everything up. Drunk is what got Gaia killed. I can’t let myself lose control again.

  Not until Paige is safe.

  Right now I’m trying to reach her before Jasper does. The human girl is just a tiny dot far below, but I recognize Paige’s scent and I know it’s her. She’s running away from him as if she finally understands her life depends on it.

  She has to know it’s me, right?

  I flap my wings with newfound strength, swooping even closer to Jasper’s ice castle. He’s also in dragon form, which is inconvenient to say the least. But there’s something off about the way he’s moving. His gait is erratic and he’s limping.