Gaia Awakened

by Cassie Thorne

  I stand up and start to back away, but snow is rapidly piling up around my boots. I’m shivering so violently I don’t know how I haven’t tripped and fallen yet. But somehow, finally, I manage to reach the hallway.

  The instant I step over the threshold, I begin to thaw.

  I’m expecting Aidan to remove any sign of winter immediately. But when I turn back, he hasn’t moved at all. He’s just kneeling on the floor, remaining motionless as he slowly transforms into a frozen statue. The three blue orbs are circling around his head in midair, as if controlled by invisible strings.

  Something about the pain in his eyes makes me understand what’s happening.

  He’s giving his life in exchange for mine.

  Aidan must think I’ve been bait this entire time. That I was kidnapped so he would enter the Winter Realm and make himself vulnerable to attack. He doesn’t know about the marriage proposal on the ice castle. From his perspective, if he allows himself to be taken or killed, Jasper will lose interest in me.

  But that doesn’t make any sense. Jasper has already shown more than enough interest in me. And Aidan would never sacrifice his own life, not while he still has to find The Goddess Codex. He was so intent on resurrecting Gaia when we were in the bookstore, as if nothing else mattered, not even my desire to be left alone. If you’d told me an hour ago that he’d be trading her life for mine, I would have laughed until I cried.

  But as I watch Aidan freezing to death in his own castle, I realize it’s happening anyway.

  A demigod is dying for me.

  This is so not okay.

  I plunge back into the frigid room without hesitation, making my way back to the kneeling figure. Maybe I’m just too numb to feel cold anymore, but this time I’m barely shivering at all. Being with Aidan seems to be the only thing on my mind right now.

  The feeling of him inside me.

  The warmth of him against my skin.

  Everything about him keeping me going without even having to try.

  When I reach Aidan, I crouch down before him and frame his face with my hands.

  His blue eyes stare blankly into mine.

  “Please be alive,” I whisper through numb lips. “Don’t leave me, okay?”

  And then I kiss him.

  His lips are cold and immobile at first, like I’m kissing a block of ice. But then he slowly begins to warm underneath my touch, his breathing growing stronger and stronger, as if I’m pouring life back into his body. All around us, snowflakes burst into dandelion petals as the wind dies down. The sun reemerges, melting every last shard of ice around us.

  We’re thawing.

  I’m close to breaking off our kiss when I unexpectedly feel a pair of hands clasp mine. Aidan draws me even closer to him, his lips suddenly devouring mine with hunger. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he’s been starved of human contact for years and years. He’s kissing me like I’ve never been kissed, with ferocious passion and wild desire and deeply familiar intensity.

  I kiss him back.

  Without even thinking of Summer.

  A memory flashes through my mind. Aidan is kneeling inside a cave, his face illuminated by a glowing bonfire. He’s naked except for a loincloth, and tears are streaking down his face. Limp bodies are strewn behind him in the darkness.

  He’s achingly human.

  But the memory vanishes as Aidan pulls me over to him impatiently, lifting my body into the air. My legs instinctively latch around his waist, bringing him even closer to me.

  I’m very aware of how naked he is.

  “Okay,” he breathes into my mouth. “I won’t leave you.”

  As we keep kissing, Aidan carries me through the budding flowers and the flooding sunshine, seeming to know exactly where to step without even having to look. He and I just saved each other’s lives, which is so surreal I can’t even begin to process it. I faced death and lived, and so did he. Our shared battle connects us in a way that runs deeper than anything else right now.

  Even though this should be another betrayal of Summer, it doesn’t feel that way at all.

  So when Aidan tears off my blouse, I let him.

  When he disintegrates my bra, I let him.

  When he closes his mouth around my breast, I don’t just let him, I arch my back toward him, desperately wanting more.

  And when he finally enters me with a solid thrust, it’s what I want and need all at the same time. Our bodies fit together perfectly, the steady return of his hardness to my core enough to make me cry out in ecstasy.

  I feel warm again.

  Alive again.

  And nothing else matters.

  Afterward, when we’re lying on the bed between the acacia trunks, Aidan reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. His green eyes are searching mine with uncertainty.

  “Do you trust me?” he whispers.

  “Yes,” I whisper back. Part of me is surprised at how easily the answer comes to me. But by now I trust Aidan so instinctively it feels like I’ve known him forever.

  Before he can say anything else, we’re interrupted by a knock on an ornate door. It swings open to reveal a tall woman made of wood. She timidly peers at us with eyes that shine bright like fireflies. Her hair is made of green leaves, and her body is covered in bark-like skin. In her gnarled hands is a tray laden with food. Out in the hallway, more figures made of wood are rustling with curiosity behind her.

  Aidan sighs from beside me.

  “Oh, good,” he says dryly. “The tree nymphs are here.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Aidan

  I hastily get out of bed and shield Paige with my naked body. She’s already grabbed a blanket, but the tree nymphs are too curious to stop staring at her. Who can blame them? She’s fucking gorgeous, and the creatures have the same level of innocence as a child. They’ll follow her anywhere.

  As will I.

  It’s a hard thing to admit. I was supposed to remain loyal to Gaia. Protect only Gaia. Love only Gaia. But Paige is something else, you know? She saved me right after I saved her, and she’s all I can see now. She’s all I want to see.

  We’ve been like two magnets attracted to each other from worlds apart. When we met again, it was like our bodies snapped together with perfect ease. She gasped and shuddered under my touch, and I gave her everything I had.

  I lost myself in her.

  I can’t stop remembering the trembling whisper of her voice when she asked me not to leave. When she saved me with a kiss filled with so much magic it was fucking unbelievable.

  I’m not going to leave her. Ever.

  Not after what she went through to save me.

  I let my guard down in my own realm, and Paige almost paid the price. She didn’t even understand what was happening at the time. She didn’t know three parts of a hellfrost spell had been released by the melting icicles. She didn’t know the spell was forcing open a portal to the Winter Realm. And she certainly didn’t know Jasper was waiting to drag us through to the other side.

  She just knew I was freezing to death, and she wasn’t going to let it happen.

  It took everything Paige had to remove those icicles from my back. I know it did. But I couldn’t shape words with my useless tongue. Couldn’t tell her to leave me until it was almost too late.

  And yet she returned anyway.

  If I hadn’t managed to hold on to my lightstorm, I would have killed Paige. Leveled the entire castle. Destroyed the forest and every living creature in it.

  But instead I trusted her. Believed in her. Because even if she has some of Gaia’s memories, I know now that she’s mortally human in a way the goddess could never be.

  Gaia never would have risked her life for mine.

  Not like that.

  The goddess would have fought the hellfrost spell with all her power, but she never would have willingly placed herself in physical danger. She just couldn’t. The war against Jasper would have been lost without her, and so nothing else was more imp
ortant. Not our love, not our lust, not even our life together.

  But with Paige, everything is different. It’s a terrible betrayal to care more about a human girl than the fate of the entire world. Almost as terrible as when I failed to save the goddess from burning.

  But when I watched Paige face death for me, I felt something I’d never felt before.

  Love. And not the kind that involves worship, or obligation, or guilt.

  Just pure fucking love.

  “Tree nymphs?” Paige says faintly from behind me. She’s staring at the wooden creatures with her rosy lips slightly parted.

  “Don’t worry,” I say over my shoulder. A sharp pain stabs into my chest, but it disappears almost immediately. “Tree nymphs are harmless. It’s in their nature to shelter and take care of people. See? They’re just bringing us breakfast.”

  And trying to catch a glimpse of the only full human they’ve ever seen. The tree nymphs are crowding into the doorway, leaning over the threshold with innocent curiosity. Too polite to enter, not polite enough to avoid staring.

  I’m this close to sending them back into the wild. Every last one. The tree nymphs can spend the rest of their immortal lives wandering the Summer Realm, searching for some other sap who’s willing to put up with their antics.

  But it’s my fault they’re even here in the first place.

  Millennia ago, when I first became a demigod, I built my castle in the Midsummer Woods at the heart of the Summer Realm. I didn’t want to cut down any trees, so I fortified the existing ones and filled in the gaps with stone.

  I was careful not to harm anything living.

  Maybe a little too careful.

  By the time I woke up the next morning, there were over a hundred tree nymphs in my castle. Some were tidying up the place and constructing furniture from twine and twigs. Others were cooking enough stone soup in the kitchen to feed an entire army.

  Eventually I realized they were the spirits of the trees I’d integrated into the walls. The tree nymphs had bonded with the structure. I offered to unmake the castle, but they’d already made themselves right at home.

  Unfortunately, that means I can’t release them back into the wild without killing them.

  Even if I very, very seriously consider it sometimes.

  “Dryads,” Paige says to me. “I think that’s the correct term.”

  I sigh. “Humans invented the word centuries ago, but these creatures have been under my rule since the very beginning. I understand enough of their language to know the proper term is, unfortunately, tree nymph.”

  She bites her lip. “Is that one wearing an apron?”

  “They’re very domestic,” I say, grinning.

  Several of the tree nymphs have taken our conversation as a cue to enter the bedchamber with silver trays. Their feet are made of thick gnarled roots, but their loping gait is slow and steady. Within moments, the bed is covered in an elaborate breakfast spread accompanied by two sets of clean clothing.

  Paige is gazing fervently at a plate of toasted bread and fresh blackberry jam. There are slices of honeyed peaches and ripened avocadoes and succulent pears that she won’t be able to resist. Food in the Summer Realm isn’t like food on Earth. It’s light yet filling. Sweet and bursting with sunshine. Brimming with the very essence of summer.

  She’ll love it.

  As the tree nymphs retreat into the castle, I shrug on my clothes and reach for a handful of pitted figs. Paige is already devouring a thick slab of rosemary bread slathered in soft cheese and topped with champagne-soaked raspberries. The sharp pain stabs into my chest again, but it vanishes a moment later.

  Where the hell is Titania? I asked her to find a memory spell for me, but the Queen of the Summer Faeries still hasn’t reappeared. Between Jasper’s attacks and Paige’s magic, I’m starting to think there’s something more complicated going on. The human girl has the memories of a goddess. Even if I doubt she is one, that can’t be insignificant.

  Impatiently, I fire a burst of lightstorm into the Summer Realm, making my intent clear.

  I want what I asked for. Now.

  But I don’t even get so much as a twinkle.

  Titania hasn’t been harmed or imprisoned, has she? It’s not out of the realm of possibility for Jasper to capture a summer creature, but I’m pretty sure the other Faeries would have alerted me by now if he had.

  Paige glances up, licking a fallen drop of honey on her finger. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “The library,” I say. “Want to come with me?”

  Her eyes light up. “You have a library?”

  Before I can answer, she’s practically leaping out of bed and pulling on a white summer dress. Her strawberry scent wafts toward me as the linen settles temptingly over her curves. As much as I want to cover her mouth with mine again, I have to remain focused. I have to unfuck her memories and find The Goddess Codex.

  And once I resurrect Gaia, I’ll have to decide where my loyalties lie. Once and for all.

  “Ready,” Paige says breathlessly.

  I gallantly hold open the door. “After you.”

  We walk through the castle together, heading for the library. It’s not that far, but it takes longer than it should because Paige keeps stopping to watch the tapestries in the hallways. The elaborate works depict the history of the Summer Realm and are interwoven with magic, which means the creatures and landscapes move slightly when you look at them. There are Faeries, elves, imps, tree nymphs, even mountain giants.

  I’m in at least half the tapestries. Sometimes as a dragon, sometimes as a man. Sometimes as a full human. But only at the beginning of it all.

  When we finally reach the library, I pull open the heavy oak doors and let Paige step in first.

  The expression of stunned awe on her face is fucking beautiful.

  My library is the second largest in all the realms, rivaled only by Rowan’s woodland archive. The sloped glass ceiling pours bright sunlight over my vast collection of manuscripts and books, which are protected by lightstorm and arranged neatly on shelves. Thick rugs are spread across the stone floor, while pillowed chaises and armchairs are scattered around us. Stairs have been carved into the tree trunks in the walls, leading up to balconies with even more books. A tree nymph is playing a harp in a corner with twig-like fingers, sweeping melodious music over us.

  But a small light is flickering in a distant corner.

  The Queen of the Summer Faeries.

  Titania is flitting back and forth between the shelves in the Magical History section, seemingly unaware of our presence.

  “Feel free to look around,” I say to Paige, who’s been thoroughly enchanted by my library. Her blue and green eyes are practically shining. “I need to check on a few things. Just call out if you need me, okay?”

  She nods, unable to tear her gaze away from my books. “Oh my God, Aidan. Is that a handwritten manuscript of A Midsummer’s Night Dream?”

  I allow myself a small smile as Paige rushes forward to a glass display case. Every time I travel to the Earth Realm, I make sure to pick up a few treasures from thieves’ dens and underground vaults, including any rare books and manuscripts I come across. Better to commit some light burglary than sit idle while priceless artifacts are destroyed by improper handling or storage.

  But my smile quickly disappears as I head for the flickering light at the back of the library. The closer I get to the Queen of the Summer Faeries, the more I can hear her frantic muttering. She’s zipping back and forth between various spellbooks, her dandelion gown in disarray and her lavender hair disheveled. Whenever she touches a book, a spark of lightstorm flies into the air and her wings falter slightly.

  I’ve never seen her like this before. Not in all the millennia we’ve known each other. Titania always maintains an immaculate appearance, without a single hair out of place. Even when I granted asylum to Queen Mab and the Winter Faeries, she didn’t care. Just asserted her power and ordered them to stay in the Midnight For
est. I’ve seen her stare down literal giants without blinking.

  So I don’t know what has her flustered like this, but it can’t be good.

  “What’s going on, Titania?” I ask loudly.

  “Aidan!” She whirls around to face me. “I... I didn’t see you there.”

  “I asked you a question,” I say, glancing at the books around us. At least nothing seems to be damaged or out of place. “Have you found a spell that can reveal what happened to someone’s mind, or did I offer you a gift of strawberries for nothing?”

  She flinches. “I’ve been looking everywhere for the memory spell, Aidan. I’ve searched the entire library five times. I’ve searched the annexes of the Aurora Desert. The Mountains of Cyllene. The Honeydew Waterfalls. Even the Midnight Forest! That’s Mab’s territory—”

  “Bullshit. You’d never go to meet Mab looking like that. You’re not even wearing your crown.”

  She freezes as if I’ve struck her with hellfrost. “Language, Aidan.”

  “Don’t start with me now,” I say impatiently. “I know you were able to find the spell. You’re the most powerful being in the Summer Realm, other than me. So you’d better tell me exactly why you don’t have it.”

  “Maybe the spell doesn’t exist...”

  “Of course it fucking exists!”

  But Titania doesn’t even notice my language this time. Her attention has drifted to the center of my chest. Ignoring my expression, she flies forward and peers closely at my ribcage, as if she can see right through it.

  “What happened to you, Aidan?” Her wings shiver slightly in the air. “It’s like there’s something cold eating away at your heart. Have you been to the Winter Realm recently?”

  The sharp pain in my chest twinges at her mention of it.

  “It’s nothing,” I say dismissively. “Jasper just hit me with some icicles earlier. I already dealt with it.”

  “You should still have someone look at it,” she says, frowning. “I know a healer gnome who’s been studying intermagic medicine for the past century or so—”

  “Just drop it, Titania!” I don’t have time for this. “If you don’t tell me where the spell is right now, I swear I’ll exile you to the Midnight Forest under Mab’s rule.”