Chapter 27
The world tips, spinning on a new axis that feels simultaneously strange and natural. There’s so little oxygen that I can barely think straight. Power washes over me, slowing the blood racing through my hammering heart and filling my lungs with summoned air.
“How?” I demand.
How is any of this possible? How can we be gods in a world that keeps us powerless?
“The rebellion was real. The motive for it is still unclear to me, if I’m honest. Marks … he told me that Nobus grew too powerful, but I don’t think that’s the entire truth. He and our mothers were exiled here for their part in it.”
“My mother was a goddess?” I breathe in disbelief.
She never told me. Never prepared me. Maybe she hoped that magic wouldn’t find me? Maybe she thought I’d be spared?
“The woman who raised me, Rhea … she told me the story of the aevus. It’s a mostly made up story,” Cal continues, his words carefully chosen like an artist selecting the perfect colors for his masterpiece.
“There was a sudden influx of magic in a magicless realm and the newly exiled gods needed a way to explain it. They created a myth, a false history to spread around campfires and taverns, and used their power to force humans to believe it.”
Tears silently streak down my face as I process Cal’s words. The revelation causes my body to shake again, nausea roiling in my stomach. It’s too hot in this tent, too hot against Cal’s body. His arms grip me tighter, panic taking root as magic races through me uncontrollably.
“Breathe, princess.”
Two words.
One command.
Just like that, my power quiets, receding back into my core and curling tightly around my aching heart.
Cal’s broad hands stroke my hair softly, rocking me back and forth in silence. His touch is intimate, more than a lover’s, more than the heated passion we’ve shared. A comforting touch unlike any I’ve felt.
“I know it’s a lot to take in,” he says calmly. “I’ve had years to come to terms with it and it still feels unreal to be a god.”
There’s an understanding, apologetic quality in his voice. If this information came from anyone else, I wouldn’t believe it. My magic wouldn’t be chanting a resounding yes in my head to confirm every word spoken if they came from anyone else’s lips.
I know it and yet I still want to yell at him, to call him a liar and harass him for attempting to fool me. But I can’t. It knows—I know—with absolute certainty that Cal is telling the truth.
“If we’re really gods, why can we only tap into the elements?” I ask.
I always imagined their power was raw, moldable into whatever they were born to control, not limited to earth, air, fire, and water.
“This realm seems to subdue our true power. For me, it took a catalyst to force my magic to life here. I could wield a little as a child, but it wasn’t until…”
His voice trails off, his pain barreling into me with the reminder of that day on the battlefield. Thousands of dead Synalian soldiers dropping to the ground in an image so vivid that it’s as if I can see his memory.
“How old were you when …” I can’t voice the rest of the question, but I don’t need to.
“Twenty-six,” he replies.
Two years ago. Cal’s power manifested on the battlefield two years ago when he was only…
“Wait.” I sit up, turning at the waist to look him fully in the face.
“It’s not a coincidence.”
Of course he’s already connected the dots. Of course my full magic would also wake from its hidden slumber at twenty-six. Of course we have that in common, too.
“I broke Marks’ direct orders to get to Emerald as soon as I heard about the king’s death.
I was never supposed to be there … but if there was even the slightest chance your full magic might manifest on this journey, I knew I had to be with you.
The Ascension Vote could have been that catalyst, and I would never have forgiven myself if you had been forced to navigate this alone. ”
The Ascension Vote could have been my catalyst, but it wasn’t. Marks’ raid on my home and my father’s death were. They broke the chains I kept around my meager magic and propelled me into power.
And that will be Marks’ fatal error.
His own inability to recognize me as a worthy opponent will ruin him.
If he hadn’t raided the Emerald Region, I might have shown up at the Ascension Vote unable to do more than party tricks and he would have his throne.
But I have the power of a god now, and with Cal’s help, I’ll be able to use it to take him down.
A thousand questions fill my mind, but there’s only one more that I have to ask tonight. One more answer that I have to have before I can begin to process this.
“Why?” A single word holding endless meaning.
“You know why, Ivy.”
The ache in my chest opens into a cavernous hole. I’ve been avoiding this since the first moment he gave me his name. I have lied to myself over and over again, but my magic has always known. It ripples within his hold even now, undulating like waves from the places where our skin touches.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t feel it too.” A single, tan finger moves to rest across my open lips. “And don’t fucking lie to me.”
Denial hovers on the tip of my tongue. The emotion I’m not capable of feeling is written so plainly across his handsome face that it steals my breath.
We are dangling dangerously close to the edge of a cliff—and I can either run away with my tail between my legs, or I can leap off, face-first into the waiting arms of something designed by fate itself.
“No matter what you say, I am yours, Ivy. I will go to the ends of every realm for you.” Cal grabs my hand and places it on his chest, my fingers splayed over the serpent twisting above his heart. “I—”
“Don’t say it,” I interrupt. Every fiber of my being knows exactly what words are about to fall from his perfect lips. “I don’t want to run away from you.”
His gray eyes darken with a possessiveness that causes my breath to catch. “You think I would let you run? There is not a path you could take that I would not follow, in this life or any other.”
The heavy patter of rain sounds on the tent overhead as the hold on my magic dissolves in my grasp.
Power sweeps over me in ethereal waves, the cosmic pull of Cal’s blood to mine too strong to deny.
He may very well be a siren song sent to tempt me, a poison created to control me, or a false prophet meant to pull me from my true path.
Whatever the gods designed him to be, they designed him to be mine.
I should be stronger. I should distrust anything orchestrated by the gods. I should resist him.
But what if I didn’t?
My entire life has been a resistance—against the magic in my veins, against the fated name from my dreams, against the gods forced down our unwilling throats.
What if I want to break all my rules? What if I want to deny the voice that tells me I’m poisonous, the voice that tells me that no one could love who I’ve become? What if I gave myself over entirely to the man from my dreams? If only for a single night.
The kiss we share is claiming, consuming, devouring, as if we’re dying and our only hope for salvation is the other’s soul.
This coupling is different. It isn’t yielding to lust or giving in to insurmountable sexual tension. It’s two destinies converging, two intertwined fates meeting at a crossroads and choosing to collide.
There is power in this choice, as pure and raw as the white-hot magic coursing at breakneck speed through my veins. And that power is hungry.
I push Cal backwards, lowering him onto the floor of the tent as I move to straddle him, my knees resting alongside his hips. I’m already naked and the blanket slips off my slick skin easily. I lean over him, pressing his wrists into the ground above his head.
Breaking the kiss, I run my lips across his jaw as I speak. “I choose to be yours for tonight. Don’t make me regret it.”
Cal moves to break my hold, but I don’t let him.
I call to my magic and a low rumble sounds in his chest as vines of ivy tighten around his wrists, securing him to the floor.
His pupils flare, black overtaking the gray irises.
Heated blood pulses through my flooded core and it only takes a moment for me to realize that he’s using his magic on me in wicked ways.
“You want to play, princess?”
His sensual voice rumbles against my skin as his power sends another throb of need through me.
“Use me. Fuck me with every power you can summon. I am yours.” His tongue slides up the column of my throat in a slow, tantalizing stroke.
“You are mine,” he growls into my ear, “and you will never regret it.”
I slide my palms across the expanse of Cal’s chest, pausing over the sea beast’s head to take his nipple into my mouth.
I suck gently, calling to the wind in an attempt to conjure a quick burst of air to nip at the delicate area.
The guttural sound that escapes his lips quickly wipes away the disappointment I feel at my failure to summon the elusive element.
I drag my nails down the length of his tattoo, red scratches marring the inked skin. Claiming marks designating him as mine from his collarbone to the waistband of his pants. Pulling them down, my tongue finds the dip of the beast’s tail and traces downward slowly to the base.
Cal’s back arches off the tent floor, his eyes closed. His moan is louder this time, but still not loud enough.
“Look at me,” I purr, my words vibrating against his length, “on my knees for a god.”
I lick my lips, my mouth hovering over the tip until his gaze is right where it belongs: on me. One hand moves to grip the base of his shaft while the other curls into a fist beside me, magically tightening the restraints on his wrists.
I open my throat to take him deep, licking and sucking and twisting until the sound of his moans fills the tent.
Cal’s hands are in my hair the next moment, pulling my head up to meet his lips, the vines lying in a heap of ashes on the floor.
We’re a frenzy of tongues and teeth, exploring and teasing, playful and demanding.
I lower myself down onto him, my wet heat gliding sinfully until I’m seated fully.
Cal’s hands move to my breasts, each palm working in tandem to mimic the circles I’m now making with my hips.
His fingers twist and pluck my nipples, causing gooseflesh to rise on my skin.
A shudder of pleasure and magic ripples through me simultaneously.
“That’s it. Show me what you can do, goddess.”
I call out to the power that I know best and watch as a verdant vine wraps around the ivy tattooed on Cal’s muscular thigh, the summoned plant a perfect match to the inky image.
The free end snakes up his body in a serpentine climb as I ride him harder.
His growl echoes through me as the green tendril finds its final destination: his throat.
I squeeze it tightly and watch as his stormy gray eyes shutter.
“Fuck, Ivy.”
“What was that?” I tease. “Say that last word again. Louder.”
Cal’s large hands find my hips, one thumb making circles on my clit as my blood surges again under his touch in a wave of renewed heat.
“Ivy.”
“Louder,” I breathe, my voice barely detectable over the thundering storm now raging outside.
I don’t know if the downpour is my doing or Cal’s, but I can’t stop it. Everywhere our bodies touch is as charged as the air around us. I’m seconds away from bursting into flames and setting us both on fire.
Lightning illuminates the tent, cracking across the night sky as pleasure, blinding and absolute, slams into the magic within me.
I feel Cal tighten inside me and I’m only vaguely aware of the sound of my name on his lips and the sound of his on my own.
One moment I’m looking into Cal’s stormy eyes and the next I’m looking down from above us at the near-celestial body of a woman glowing with power.
I blink and I’m back inside my body, my breath coming in heaving gasps. Cal sits up quickly wrapping his arms around me and pulling me tight against his chest. My scream fills the tent as sharp, hot pain sears through me.
“Breathe, princess.”
His voice is commanding again and my body instinctively obeys. My magic, well and fully spent, finally retreats within me as the pain subsides.
“What was that?”
My throat is raw and strained as I lock eyes with Cal, afraid to look down at my own body. Pride fills his silver eyes as his hand moves to rest between the flare of my ribcage.
“Fate,” he mutters, taking my hand and placing it atop his own. “Let me show you.”
I nod still breathless and scared as he moves to get the compact from my belongings. The familiar scent of leather and sea salt air hits me as Cal places the mirror in my hand. His breath is hot on the column of my neck and his lips gently brush against my skin.
“Look” he whispers.
I lower my eyes, hesitant to see what I know now permanently decorates my skin.
There, in the same place the red indention sat yesterday, is the image of the sea beast in obsidian ink.
The tattoo pulses in time with my heartbeat, as if the serpent is a living, breathing thing slithering against the tender skin of my belly.
My fingers skim the dark brand. The image of the Goddess of Protection’s cursed form is forever a part of me, much like the man who bears the replica across his broad chest.
“Is this what happened to you?” I ask him.
“I wish it had been this fun,” he teases, placing light kisses along the column of my neck.
I shift the compact to take in his tattoo. The waves surrounding the beast glimmer for a moment in the dimming light, confirmation that his feels like mine. A living token of Arcasia’s protection.
“We are inevitable, Ivy,” Cal whispers reverently as he pulls me tight against him.
Happiness laces his every word, complete satisfaction as he holds the one thing he wants. But it's a heavy weight that settles over me as the euphoric haze of pleasure recedes.
I fear that giving into magic, lust, and a desire to be anyone other than who I am has led him to believe that he now has something I cannot ever hope to give. Something I’m not even capable of giving myself.
My love.