Chapter 30
“Hello, Phoenix,” a melodic, feminine voice greeted Nix.
Oh gods. Head aching, Nix rubbed her eyes and leaned up on her elbows.
Her ribs were sore, but the ground beneath her felt as soft as grass. Groggily, Nix looked around for the owner of the voice. The last thing she remembered was…
“Oh shit,” Nix remarked in awe at the Goddess floating above her. The woman wore a long, fiery red dress and glowed orange. What Goddess glowed orange?
The Goddess snorted. “What language.”
“Uh, um, sorry?”
“Do you know where you are, phoenix?”
Nix looked around, but everything was blurry. She appeared to lay on a spot in the forest on the outskirts of Alatus Academy, but the grass, the trees, everything had an orange hue as if Nix wore coral-shaded sunglasses.
“You are in the in-between,” the Goddess informed her.
“The…”
“You are close to passing through the veil.”
“I’m dying?” Nix shot back, reeling from the new information. “No.” She had finally felt powerful. She had finally felt…like an alpha. She had gotten her revenge. And it had all been taken away from her so easily? “Why?”
The Goddess’s amiable expression cracked as she replied snappily, “I am not a Seer who answers menial questions.”
Nix bit her lip and thought back to igniting the entire bunker and having the ceiling collapse onto her.
“Your mates call for you to live. To return to them.”
“Fuck them,” Nix snapped.
The Goddess blinked. An amused smirk claimed her red lips as she muttered, “So much like her.”
“Those alphas are not my mates,” Nix added adamantly.
“You question the choices of the gods of fate?”
“Fuck yeah, I do,” Nix replied haughtily. “They caged me.”
“They did not know what the cage meant to you. You told them little to nothing about your past. You were also bespelled, and with emotions running high, you posed a threat to the safety of a campus of other shifters.”
Nix’s jaw hung open. “You’re taking their side?”
“How derisible. There are no sides in matehood.”
Irritated, Nix’s skin prickled. “Mates are supposed to be worshipped, yet the men chose to ignore my wishes. I told them not to cage me, and they did it anyway. They valued their opinions over mine—”
“They knew you to be bespelled and volatile.”
“They made a choice—against my will—that led to my death.”
“Honestly, do you think all mates are supposed to be perfect the second they meet?” the Goddess asked in an exhausted and annoyed tone.
“Truly, Phoenix, some men need a lesson once in a while,” she told Nix. “And what better lesson than their wrongful actions leading to the death of their mate? They will never make that mistake again.”
Nix chewed on her inner cheek as she took a mental note to look up the word “derisible” later. “So…I’m dying.”
“Actively dying. Could go either way.” The Goddess tilted her head as she analyzed Nix. She wore the same expression Elle Oadess did when trying to decide between buying new shoes in one color or multiple colors. “Do you have a preference?”
“I obviously don’t prefer to die,” Nix remarked sarcastically.
“Your droll attitude becomes less amusing with each second, Phoenix. Remember with whom you speak.”
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Nix said genuinely. “The last several hours have been a lot to absorb.”
“Hours,” the Goddess scoffed, snorting again. Apparently, the concept of hours being a long time was laughable to her.
Nix swallowed and asked, “Could I…um, not die? Please?”
“That is your preference?” she asked. “If you die, you will wake up earlier. You could undo what has been done. I would allow you…one day.”
“Wake up one day earlier?” Nix repeated.
“You would know what is about to happen. It could serve you as an advantage. Would you like that?”
Nix contemplated it, scowling at the ground as she thought. “If I wake up a day earlier, my mates…they wouldn’t remember what they did. They wouldn’t have done it to me yet—”
The Goddess quirked an eyebrow. “And this displeases you?”
“Because they need to fucking grovel for my forgiveness,” Nix growled between bared teeth.
“So much rage…” The Goddess mused.
“I promised to never forgive them,” Nix said unevenly.
“You wonder how to forgive those who hurt you in a future that does not occur.”
Nix hesitantly nodded.
The Goddess floated closer to Nix. Her auburn hair shone in the orange haze light streaming through the trees.
“People forgive those who hurt them in one timeline. You will walk several in your immortal life. Time is…vast.” She added another bit of Goddess-ly wisdom, “Immortality is purgatory if it lacks but one thing.”
“Revenge?” Nix guessed.
The Goddess smirked again. “Love.” The Goddess sighed. “Your mates are a gift. Would you rather we take them away from you?”
Lose them? Ryker, Persius, Bael, and Thierry. They were willing to walk away from me—left me in a cage.
Nix ground her teeth as her heartbeat skittered. “My first go around, I had no mates. No alpha protected me, and I died all alone. Still without mates, I lasted six years longer than when fate gave me four this time.”
“You believe revenge is the only thing you want, then? You would trade the men for vengeance?”
Trade? “Can I not have both?”
The Goddess cracked a smile. “So, you do want them? You want to forgive them.”
“Is that what I said? Maybe I just want vengeance on my mates.”
The Goddess rolled her eyes. “Phoenix shifters.”
Nix thought through her options. “If I choose not to die, my future captor remains dead.”
“If you choose to try the day again, many worse possibilities can occur,” the Goddess warned. “Maybe your mates putting you in the cage was the best thing that could have happened in that timeline.”
Nix’s eyebrows furrowed. “Was it?”
“That is the guilty knowledge of the gods, Phoenix. No matter the pain, it can always be worse. Many phoenix shifters have traveled through time, reforging their actions, trying something new.”
She continued, “Many of them went mad from the turmoil of things getting worse. Their fire grew…cold. Sometimes choosing your set path and facing the unknown is the better choice.”
Nix deadpanned, “So, if I choose to go back in time by one day, things will be even worse?”
The Goddess shrugged as she floated further away. “You are taking too long to decide. Do you wish the choice to be made for you?”
“I want to redo the day,” Nix said in a breathy rush.
The Goddess blinked in surprise. Had Nix shocked an actual Goddess? Ha! She felt like that gave her bragging rights.
“Knowing the risk and what I just told you?” she asked it as if Nix had chosen wrong.
Nix was the one to shrug this time. “What could be worse than being caged, tortured, and crushed to death by a collapsing ceiling?”
The Goddess pursed her lips in disapproval. “You tempt time’s wrath.”
“I’m giving up the rightfully-earned male groveling, remember? Isn’t that payment enough?”
The Goddess made an I’m-disappointed-in-you face. “No. It is not.”
“Still, I choose the redo.”
“I had forgotten how impulsive phoenix shifters are.”
“May I ask another question?”
The Goddess smiled warmly at her. “No.”
And searing pain sliced through Nix’s consciousness.