Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Felix
The cave was going to collapse, but at least Felix would die inside of Avery. What a way to go. Knotted inside his mate. The marks confirmed it.
Mate—it was a word that swirled around his mind. It was the only way to describe his connection to Avery that made sense. Nothing had ever felt more right. She was his, and not even the goddess could take that away. At least he hoped anyway. Panic flooded his system. Avery.
Using his body, he covered Avery from the loose rocks falling from the cave’s roof; sharp fragments pelted his back, bouncing off and plopping into the water. Lights pulsed in an erratic rhythm. Then, as fast as it came on, it stopped, plunging them into darkness.
Fuck. It was the goddess. It had to be. Felix held onto Avery tighter, as if holding onto her physically would stop the magic from tearing them apart. His eyes tried to adjust to the dark, but he couldn’t see anything. It was as if someone was intentionally blinding him.
“What’s happening?” Avery’s voice quivered.
“I’m not sure, little witch,” he said, hackles raising.
His knot eased, and he pulled out of her in preparation to fight the invisible force that wanted to separate them.
One day soon, he would knot his mate completely, staying there for as long as he goddamn liked.
Well, as long as Avery wanted him to. Felix’s shadows shot out, covering them like armor.
The blood from where they had bitten each other seeped into the water. It absorbed it like a hungry mouth, making its own river before it branched out across the wall like an intricate spider web with its own beating heart.
Slowly, the unnatural starlight died down to embers, plunging them into the dark. He didn’t let go of Avery. Not a fucking chance. He placed his head against her, realizing her chest wasn’t moving.
“Breathe, little witch.”
She shuddered out a deep exhale. “I’m your mate?”
The lights exploded again, blinding him for a second. Felix rarely flinched, but this time he did, fear and adrenaline racing through him as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. And when they finally did, he saw a familiar face.
“Bingo!” the goddess said, cackling manically to herself. Just like the tree, she had carved herself a face, this time out of rocks.
Felix rolled his eyes. “Fucking hell, you scared the shit out of us.”
“What’s the point of life if you don’t terrify people just a little bit?
” The goddess smiled and the hairs on his arm stood up.
The last time he had seen her, she had sent him into an uncontrollable frenzy.
If that happened again, he would kill her.
Somehow. The goddess peered around him, as if actually looking for his good bits in the water.
Wait. “Were you watching us the whole time?” Felix snarled.
“Perhaps.” The goddess laughed. “It would have been rude to interrupt. And what a show you two put on!”
“Oh my goddess.” Avery pressed a hand over her face.
“Yes.” The stone face looked insufferably pleased with itself. “Exactly.”
For a moment, there was silence. Avery tightened her grip on his arm, and her anxiety rushed through him. He knew exactly what she was about to ask, and he desperately needed the answer.
“Are you going to break the bond?” she asked.
The goddess let out a bellowing laugh, enough to shake the cave again, more loose stones falling from the top. “You really think I would go to all this trouble just to break you up? This is the most fun I’ve had in centuries.”
“So…” Avery said, confused. “You’re not going to break it?”
An unnerving smile pulled at the goddess’s lips, the stone cracking with the force. “Just the opposite. You are mated for life under my very watchful eye, the first witch-shifter mate bond in thousands of years.”
Felix swallowed. “We aren’t the first?”
“No, sorry, you’re not that special,” the goddess said. “But I’ll show you this.”
Confusion threaded through him as the goddess faded away, stone returning to normal. For a moment, they just stood in the darkness, waiting and watching. The longer it went on, the more Felix primed himself to fight. Who knew what the goddess had in store?
“Look,” Avery said, pointing to the corner. A figure with massive horns and jagged tail swishing behind it bloomed out of the darkness, made entirely of red starlight. It walked across the cave wall, footsteps silent, each movement leaving trails of light that faded into the stone.
“A dragon shifter,” Felix whispered, mesmerized by the display.
It stood there, looking left to right as if it were searching for something or someone.
Another figure emerged from the other end.
Swirls of magic danced around them, curling and flying across the wall.
A pointy hat materialized on the other figure’s head.
It was a little on the nose, but it got the point across. Most definitely a witch then.
Slowly, the two walked toward each other, their hands reaching out. They circled each other for a few turns, inching closer. Their magic twisted together before they did, spiraling in loops that reminded Felix of dragons dancing.
And when their hands finally touched, the cave erupted.
Their aura of stars intensified, cascading off the walls and into the air in mighty swirls that he could feel pulsating on his skin.
Involuntarily, his body tensed. A bit of PTSD from the pollen.
The goddess wasn’t going to make him turn again, would she?
Felix looked down at his mate, the recognition clear in her face. The bond flared in his chest, responding in kind to the magic cascading down above them like a shimmery waterfall. She took his hand, their own power answering the call and threading through their veins.
But the vision playing out before them wasn’t done.
Dozens more figures appeared on either side of the pair.
They moved like a swarm, grabbing the pair as they reached out for each other, wrenching them apart, even as they desperately tried to claw their way back.
Pain flared in Felix’s chest. Was the goddess foreshadowing their own demise?
Or was it something else? The mobs disappeared without the witch and shifter for only a second before running back into the middle in a violent clash of bodies and magic.
It was silent, but he could hear their mouths opening and screaming as the fight became a massacre.
The cave went dark again, swallowing the violence in its stone.
“What does it mean?” Avery said.
The goddess’s face returned, the stone contorting in ways it definitely should not. “Did you not watch the movie I played you? I worked hard on that.”
“Explain,” Felix said gruffly, not caring that he was in the presence of a goddess who could probably wipe him out before he even blinked.
The goddess sighed, as if disappointed in their lackluster detective skills.
“Your god is gone. I do not know where. I have spent a very long time looking.” The stone face showed nothing, but something in the air of the cave pressed down.
“A god without their mate does not function as they should. Neither, it turns out, does their creation.”
“Those figures were you and Arawn.” Avery’s voice came out quiet. “Your separation. That’s why.”
“That is why,” the goddess confirmed. She looked away wistfully, as if recalling a painful memory.
“You were never meant to hate each other. You were meant to be more powerful together than you could ever be apart. You were meant to be mates.” A pause.
“Your people chose to go in another direction.”
“You let it happen,” Felix said.
Avery grabbed his arm, but he didn’t take it back.
The goddess looked at him, her stone face unreadable. “I did. I may be a goddess, but my mate is gone, his power with it.” She sighed longingly. And for the first time, Felix understood her. Avery was his mate—what would it be like to lose her?
“I also try to respect your free will, to a point.” Dry amusement returned to her expression. “Although you all seemed to run with it a bit too far, you seem very comfortable hating each other.”
“Thousands of years of war,” Felix said, his jaw clenching so hard he thought his teeth might break. “Witches and shifters dead.”
If she could have done something, then why didn’t she? If this was what shifters and witches were made for, then why had they been kept separate for so long?
“Felix.” Avery’s hand pressed harder on his arm. A warning.
“I am not offended,” Cerituen said. “He is not wrong. I have always been here, but I have been limited to what I can and can’t do by forces much greater than me.” The goddess paused. “Because my mate is gone, I must conserve my power for when it matters.”
Felix tried to believe her, but truly, it was hard to take a talking rock seriously. He wouldn’t be surprised if somehow this had all been a hallucination. Although he hoped to god it wasn’t. The only thing more painful than losing Avery now was never knowing her at all.
“It is up to you now. Everyone will try to separate you again, but mark my words, I will find Arawn, and this world will be whole once more. But I cannot do it alone; the hatred has gone too far.”
As the goddess faded away, Avery came around the front of Felix, wading through the water to get closer to her.
“Wait! Why me? Why us?” she asked.
The goddess looked down on her, not in judgment, but with respect. “Your lineage is powerful, Avery. What runs in your blood has the ability to change the world. Unfortunately, some in your family have used that for nefarious purposes.”
That checked out. It basically just confirmed that Avery’s mother was behind the shifter kidnappings. But if the goddess knew more, he needed to find out. “What do you mean by that?” Felix asked.
“I cannot say more.”
“The statues?”
“Nope.”
“Helpful.” Felix's face fell.
“I try.” She shrugged, the rocks cracking as she did.