Wrath of the Gods (Magic Blessed Academy Book 3)

by Eva Ashwood

  It was the only thought I had as Omari’s gaze snapped up, fixing on me instantly.

  He’d taken down my backup.

  He’d incapacitated my father, at least for the moment.

  And now he was out for blood.

  “The roof!” I screamed, grabbing Trace and Lach by the arms and racing toward the stairs.

  We needed to get out of the entryway, or we’d all die. The foundations of the building couldn’t sustain much more fighting. And if we went outside, we’d only be bringing greater danger to the fighters who still battled the gods on the lawn. This was our best chance at keeping both ourselves and them alive.

  Merrick broke away from the god he was fighting, sprinting to join us, and I threw a spear at Omari to keep him distracted. Then all four of us hurtled up the stairs, throwing everything we could think of behind us to buy ourselves time. The last thing I saw before I rounded the landing onto the second floor was Ryker’s frozen body, still covered in that strange, glowing film.

  He had meant to save me, but if our flight up to the roof kept Omari from delivering a killing blow against the dark-haired god… well, I was glad he wouldn’t die. We were a long way off from doing father-daughter dinners or whatever, but Trace had been right. I wanted to give Ryker a chance to show me who he really was.

  And he could only do that if he was alive.

  Bolts of magic narrowly missed us as we tore around the landing and headed for the third floor. With every set of steps we climbed, I swore the attacks got closer and closer. Finally, Lach wrenched open the door that led to the roof access stairs, and we hurried up the narrow steps and burst out onto the gray-tiled roof.

  As soon as we emerged into the cool night air, the chaos from down below met my ears—shouts and screams, cracks and booms. I couldn’t tell who was winning and who was losing, but the flashes of bright light let me know that the battle was still raging in earnest.

  Behind us, the door that opened onto the roof flew off its hinges, nearly decapitating Lachlan as Omari stormed out after us.

  Any semblance of cool control he had once given off was gone now, burned away in the fire of his rage. His fingertips shook as he raised his hands, and the two gods who’d followed him out onto the roof mirrored his gesture.

  “You foolish, foolish girl,” the god spat. “Why did you have to fight? Why couldn’t you just accept your fate peacefully like all aberrations should? You. Should. Not. Exist.”

  “And yet I do,” I shot back, gathering power from the pit of my belly, funneling it into my arms, my hands, my fingertips. “Maybe you need to get with the times, old man. Some power even greater than you or me gave the gods their strength once upon a time. Now it’s happened again, and just because you don’t like it, that doesn’t mean you can stop it. You’ll never be able to wipe out all wild magic users.”

  Something in his expression twisted, a grimace that contorted his features. As if he knew, deep down, that I was right.

  The gods hated wild magic users because they hadn’t been the ones to gift us with this power.

  But the truth was, even if they killed everyone at this school tonight, it wouldn’t be the end of wild magic.

  Like pollen spreading from flower to flower, wild magic would continue to spread, granting other humans power just like ours.

  Wild magic just was. It existed, and would continue to exist, no matter how many temper tantrums the old gods threw. No matter how many people they killed.

  In that split second, in the angry curve of his lips and the flash of fury in his eyes, I know that Omari understood all of that.

  Then his expression morphed into something cruel and vicious, and he sneered at me. “Maybe not. But I can wipe out the ones you care about.”

  With that, he shifted slightly, turning toward Merrick as he shot a blast of what looked like pure lightning from his fingertips.

  The bolts of energy hit Merrick square in the chest, sending him hurtling backward. Merrick had been prepared to step up and defend me, not to defend himself, and Omari’s sudden change of target had caught us all flat-footed.

  I watched in horror, my heart clogging my throat, as Merrick’s body sailed backward. He hit the roof with a sickening thud and skidded over the tiles, half of his shirt singed away and glowing burn marks decorating his skin.

  No. No, fuck, please, no.

  I hadn’t been ready. No matter how many times I had considered the possibilities, trying to anticipate what could happen in our fight against the gods, I hadn’t ever been able to truly admit the possibility that I could lose one of the men I loved.

  No. I can’t lose him. I won’t live through it.

  Merrick stirred, groaning as he tried to shove himself to his feet. His body was too weak though, and Omari was already readying a second attack.

  Nothing I had done against the god had been enough to bring him down. I hadn’t been strong enough to fight him off. But I could at least keep him from hurting someone I cared about.

  With a feral scream, I threw myself forward, diving between the white-haired god and Merrick just as Omari unleashed another burst of lightning. My body absorbed every single bolt, and pain like I had never known spread through me like fire. My body was hurled backward, my feet leaving the roof as I flew through the air.

  Vaguely, I was aware that I was dying. I could feel the power of the blast Omari had thrown surging through my system. I could feel it killing me, wiping me out cell by cell.

  But then… I realized something else.

  Something strange was happening. Even as my cells were being destroyed by Omari’s blast, it felt like new ones were forming. As if I was literally being torn apart and remade.

  Rebuilt.

  Reincarnated.

  The world went fuzzy around me, blackness closing in at the edges of my vision. I had been thrown clear of the roof, and I held my breath, bracing myself for the moment when my body would hit the ground.

  But it never came.

  Because I wasn’t falling.

  I was flying.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Almost as suddenly as it had come, the blackness receded from my vision, the world around me snapping back into focus.

  I was hovering in the air several feet away from the edge of the roof, and as I looked down at myself, I realized that the usual light aura that surrounded all magic users had intensified around me. My skin gave off a bright white light, as if I had absorbed the lightning Omari had sent at me and it was now radiating from my pores.

  “Holy fuck,” I breathed.

  My brethren fear that you and your kind could become gods yourselves..

  Ryker’s words the night he snuck into the school replayed in my mind as shock reverberated through me.

  Was that what had happened?

  I had been part god to begin with. Had Omari’s blast of power, which my body had somehow soaked up like a sponge, transformed the magic inside me into something else entirely?

  There wasn’t time to think about it now.

  There wasn’t time to doubt or question it.

  There was only time to fight.

  To protect the people I loved.

  My head snapped up, my gaze finding Omari in an instant. The white-haired, imposing god was staring at me with wide eyes, an expression of fear and horror on his face.

  Yeah? I’ll give you something to be scared of, you fucking asshole.

  Leaning forward, I shot through the air toward him, some part of me cackling with glee as the fear in his features morphed into flat-out panic.

  I had seen him fight Ryker. I knew that just because I was on even footing with him magically, that didn’t mean I was guaranteed to win. But it sure as hell meant I was gonna give it everything I had.

  My body hit his like a speeding train, and I wrapped my arms around him as we tumbled across the roof. Magic flowed through my veins like it had replaced my blood, and my body was still glowing like a lightbulb.

  With a furious roar,
Omari backhanded me, sending me flying off him. But my speed and strength were bolstered by magic, and I leapt to my feet almost as soon as I landed, charging at him again. I called on my favorite weapon, building blades of magic that protruded from my fists, as I swung a right hook at him. He pulled back, and just the tip of my magic blade cut a clean line across his cheek, drawing several drops of blood.

  Gods can bleed.

  Which means gods can die.

  Fury like I had never known coursed through me as I swung my fists at him again and again, trying to simultaneously punch him and stab him. He stumbled backward, thrown off balance, but then he caught one of my arms before my strike could land. The same magic that he’d used against Ryker sparked at his fingertips, and I kicked him hard in the stomach, shoving him away and breaking his grip before the magic could capture me.

  Focus, Aria. Be smart. Look for your opening.

  I knew this. I had done this countless times before in the underground ring in Boston. Back then, it had been against beefy men who were too cocky to believe a woman could kick their ass. Now it was against an ancient god who’d been too cocky to believe someone with wild magic could ever truly beat him.

  The men in the ring had been wrong.

  And so was this fucking god.

  I was vaguely aware of Lachlan and Trace fighting off the other two gods, protecting Merrick’s prone form. The sight of him lying so still on the slightly sloped roof made my heart clench in my chest, but I let every bit of pain inside me transform into anger, and I released that anger through my fists.

  Magic and pure brute strength poured out of me as Omari and I traded blows. Sweat poured down my face, and I lost all sense of time. There was only the sound of my harsh breaths, the feel of my pulse in my ears, the swing of my fists, and the small shifts in Omari’s stance that telegraphed his next move.

  And then I saw it.

  My opening.

  Omari ducked left, and before he could shift back, my right hand flew out, my fist connecting with his ribs as the magical blade protruding from between my knuckles sank into his flesh.

  The god jerked, his entire body going rigid. His eyes, the most inhuman thing about him, opened wide as he sucked in a gasping breath.

  “Your reign as leader of gods is done,” I whispered, my voice shaking. Our bodies were so close that I could feel the tremor that wracked him. “It’s time for a new generation.”

  Then I kneed him hard in the stomach, pushing him off my blade. Before he even hit the rooftop, I was following him down, and as we landed, my second blade pierced his chest.

  This time, the sound he made wasn’t a gasp at all.

  It was barely more than a sigh.

  Then nothing.

  The glow around his body faded, and it was almost like his form shrank in on itself, seeming to grow smaller as the power that had raised him to the level of a god slipped away.

  I crouched over his body, breathing heavily as I stared at him in shock for a few heartbeats.

  Maybe the legends were right. Maybe the gods really were nothing but ancient magic users who had spontaneously developed powers just like all the students at Magic Blessed Academy had.

  His face looked waxen and slack in death, and I stood up quickly, stepping away from the body. Then I turned, my hands curling into fists again as I searched for the other two gods who had been fighting Trace and Lachlan. But the redheaded woman and the tall, lanky man were nowhere to be found.

  What the hell?

  “Aria!” Trace called, drawing my attention. He and Lach were still standing near Merrick’s body, and before I knew what I was doing, my feet were moving, racing across the slick tiles until I reached their side.

  I threw myself down next to Merrick’s still form, panic reigniting in my chest. “Where did the other gods go?”

  “They fuckin’ bailed,” Trace bit out. He looked bruised and battered, but at least he and Lachlan were still on their feet. “As soon as they saw you kill their leader. Cowards.”

  Anger flared inside me. They were cowards. I wasn’t sorry the fight had ended, but I hated that those fuckers had only been following a leader—they hadn’t even believed in Omari’s mad vision enough to keep fighting for it after he’d been killed. Instead, they had fled.

  Even as that thought ran through my mind, I realized that the sound of fighting below had died away too. Either those gods had left with their brethren, or they’d been defeated by the students who’d been fighting them.

  I didn’t know which it was. And at the moment, I didn’t care.

  All I cared about was the man lying motionless on the roof beside me, his eyes closed and his face pale. The ugly burns still glowed on his ravaged skin, red and orange and black. He was breathing shallowly, and the small movements of his chest were the only thing that kept my heart beating.

  “I don’t have a healing potion,” Trace said. He crouched next to me as Lachlan kneeled by Merrick’s other side. “Fuck. Let me go try to get one. I’ll hurry. In the med ward, there’s gotta be—”

  “Wait.”

  My voice was soft, choked with fear. But when I hovered my hand above Merrick’s chest, my fingers didn’t shake.

  If there was ever a time that I needed the magic inside me, it was now. I needed it more in this moment than I’d needed it during my fight with Omari. I needed it to bring the man I loved back from the brink of death.

  Fear tried to invade my mind as I narrowed my focus. It tried to set up camp in my heart, promising me that I was too late, that I could never do this. But I shoved it aside and focused instead on hope.

  On love.

  On the certainty that even if he wasn’t conscious, even if he was slipping away from me, Merrick was doing everything he could to fight his way back.

  And he needed help.

  Warm golden light began to gather around my hand, pouring into Merrick’s body like rays of sunshine. It was blinding to look at, but I forced myself to keep staring at the place where his skin had been burned away almost to the bone.

  Come back to me, Merrick. Come back to all of us.

  As my muscles strained and my breathing grew ragged from the effort, I felt Trace’s arm move around my waist, supporting me. Comforting me. Lachlan’s big hand came to rest atop my smaller one, and the contact between us felt like a jolt of pure power.

  Slowly, Merrick’s skin began to heal. His chest rose and fell more evenly as color returned to his cheeks.

  When he blinked his eyes open, I almost collapsed on top of him, throwing myself into his arms.

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, you’re alive. Gods, don’t ever fucking scare me like that again, you asshole.”

  He chuckled roughly at my profanity-laced whispers, and when his arms slowly wrapped around me, the fear I had been holding at bay broke. I had come so close to losing him. To losing all of them.

  But they were right here with me.

  “You did it, daughter.”

  The deep voice from behind me made me jump, my fight-or-flight instincts ramping up to one thousand again. Of course, fight was always my first option, so my hands unconsciously curled into fists before I looked up to see Ryker striding toward me.

  He looked like he must’ve had to fight his way out of the magic Omari had wrapped around him. I could see exhaustion on his face, but underneath that, there was relief. And pride.

  “If you mean I killed Omari, then yeah,” I said flatly, turning to face him but keeping my body protectively between his and Merrick’s. I could feel the blond man sitting up behind me, probably assisted by Lachlan, but I kept my wary gaze on Ryker.

  My father glanced dispassionately at the fallen god nearby before turning his gaze on me again. “Omari’s time had come. The world had changed, and he refused to change with it.” His eyes narrowed slightly as he studied me. “You do realize this changes everything, don’t you? You are a god now. You may take your rightful place among our kind.”

  I scoffed. Exhaustion made me feel l
ike I was ten feet underwater, but I rose to my feet anyway, feeling my men gather close around me. “Oh, take my place among the people who just tried to kill me and all my classmates? No, thanks.”

  Ryker shook his head. “The collective Omari brought with him tonight was not all the gods. It wasn’t even most. There are many who refused to take his side in this, and even those who backed him are not loyal to him.” He glanced around at the abandoned rooftop. “As you can see.”

  I chewed on my lip, staring down the father I’d never known. “Well, some of them still tried to kill us. And they need to answer for that.”

  He nodded. “Agreed.”

  “And this whole campaign against wild magic users has got to stop.”

  “It does.” His dark eyes glittered as he smiled, a fierce pride glinting in his eyes. “And you are in a position now to make it stop. You have killed the leader of gods, daughter. The followers among us will be looking for someone new to guide them. To lead them into this new world.”

  My stomach seemed to fall out of my body.

  Holy fuck. Is he saying what I think he’s saying?

  No fucking way. I didn’t want to step into Omari’s footsteps, to sit atop his throne and give orders. To be stuck in the godly realm forever.

  I was about to open my mouth and say all of that when Lachlan put a hand on my lower back. It was a simple gesture, an act of support—his broad palm warm through the fabric of my shirt.

  But his touch brought with it a flash of memory.

  Ye lead by doin’.

  He had told me that once, and I hadn’t quite understood what it meant at the time. But as I thought about it now, as I considered the possibilities laid out before me and felt the strength of my men surrounding me, a sudden clarity cut through the fog in my mind.

  I don’t have to walk in Omari’s footsteps. But maybe I can still lead.

  A slow smile spread across my face, and I tilted my head up to meet Ryker’s gaze.

  “I hope to hell these old-ass gods are ready for the new world.”

  Epilogue

  Three Months Later