Chapter 37 （Caleb）To Betray a Goddess
Chapter 37 (Caleb )
To Betray a Goddess
I had been stalking the pack for days. I had known of Nathan’s return to the Alpha’s house several days ago. I was stunned when I learned the rumors going around. Nathan had awakened his werewolf. This was bad. I’d only heard rumors about the hybrid’s real power. It had been hard to fight him in the castle when he was only a vampire. He was strong and managed to flee, even poisoned. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like today.
I decided to back off and return to the cave to think about what I’d do. I wanted him dead, but I wasn’t sure I could win against him, even being a demigod.
When I arrived, two men were there. Summer wasn’t chained anymore, and the men threatened her with knives.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I roared.
The men turned to me. One of them said in a gruffed voice, “Go away. I know someone who’ll pay a lot for a girl like her.”
“She’s MINE !” I gritted through my teeth. “Drop her immediately.”
The men sneered before turning their attention to me.
“I guess we’ll need to deal with him first,” said the other one in a cocky voice.
“If you think you’re going to kill me, you either underestimate me, or you’re dumber than I thought,” I snickered.
The men came toward me, thinking they were going to scare me with knives. I sensed they were human. They wouldn’t be a challenge.
The first one lunged at me with the knife. Rather than avoid it, I grabbed the man’s arm as the other ran to me. With my superior strength, I twisted the first man’s arm until it bent unnaturally behind his back, causing him to cry out in pain. I pushed the second man back with a punch to the stomach. Wasting no time, I broke the first man’s neck to concentrate on the second.
Seeing that I’d killed his sidekick, the man’s eyes filled with fear as I approached.
“You should have thought twice before touching what’s mine,” I murmured.
The man made a few knife strokes in front of him, but it was only a pitiful attempt to defend himself. Terror held him in its grip, and he no longer had any conviction in his movements .
“Pathetic,” I commented before slicing his throat with my sharp nails. With both men dead, I turned to Summer. She was at the back of the cave, terrorized.
“Are you hurt?” I didn’t know why I was concerned.
She shook her head, still trembling, staring at the men’s corpses. Summer ran toward me, and I believed she would try and escape, but instead, she wrapped her arms around me, hugging me. “Thank you,” she whispered.
The situation suddenly seemed unreal. It was only a matter of time before Aeris asked me how I was getting on with killing the werewolves. This had gone on too long, but still, I couldn’t get myself to do it.
“The goddess expects me to kill you,” I blurted. Summer took a step back, and I lost myself in her gaze. Instead of the feisty answer I expected, tears filled her eyes.
Something unexpected happened then. I felt bad. I regretted having taken her prisoner. I regretted even meeting her. I hadn’t wanted to kill her, and now I deeply felt sorry for the tears that flowed from her eyes. Never in my life had this happened to me, and I wondered why I felt this way.
“Come on, little wolf,” I started as if my words could cheer her up. “Don’t you have something to say?”
But it was pointless and naive of me to think you could cheer up someone who was about to die.
Summer spat, “I hate you. I hate how you kill people all the time. I hate everything about you.”
Her words caught me off guard, and it hurt more than I expected. It was as if she could strike me right behind the armor I had built for myself, directly to the core.
“Summer I . . .” I paused, surprised by what I was about to say. This wasn’t like me. “I don’t want to kill you. Go. Run away.”
The werewolf stared at me, mouth aback. She tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear, freeing her face, and I saw how beautiful she was. I didn’t know why I hadn’t seen it before, but in that intimate moment of confession, I realized she was as beautiful as the flower she smelled like.
Her hand grazed my cheek, and I let her, enjoying her touch for the first time. It had been hundreds of years since I’d been touched like that. This wasn’t lust or a cheap one-night stand. It was gentle, and my heart skipped a beat.
She whispered, lips trembling, “I want to be with you.”
Her words slapped me. I had kidnapped her and chained her to a cave. Who in the world would want to be with an assassin? With her kidnapper?
“I’m not good for you, Summer. I only bring death wherever I go.” As I said the words, I realized the sad truth: I could never bring happiness to anyone. “You deserve better. You deserve to live.”
If the goddess learned I had let the werewolf go, she would crush me, but so be it. I would accept her wrath.
“I’d rather die by your hand than live without you,” she breathed, never breaking eye contact.
“Why?” I blurted out. “Why would you want to be with me? I’m bad, Summer.”
I cursed. I wanted her to hate me, fight, and try to break free—I needed her to! Yet, she accepted her fate with serenity. She stared at me, waiting for her doom .
I clenched my jaw, keeping a cold stare. “I won’t be gentle.”
She nodded, grabbing my arm and preparing to meet the cold hands of death. “I understand.”
I could feel my will crumble with every passing second. Unable to bear talking to her any longer, I sank my fangs into her neck in one fell swoop, tasting her blood for the first time. I felt her hands tighten on my arm, and she gasped but didn’t cry out or flinch, letting me drink her life away drop by drop.
An unknown feeling filled me as I felt her life slip away quietly. The euphoria I usually felt wasn’t there. The goddess’s magic in me became quieter, overwhelmed by a foreign power. I felt different, better.
But every second Summer came closer to death filled me with an indescribable sadness.
As my heart beat in unison with hers, bound by blood, I felt a wave of affection wash over me, taking me by surprise. I’d been running from love for such a long time. I didn’t know what to do with her feelings. How could she love the vampire killing her?
I stopped drinking for a moment, unsettled to hear a voice in my head—her voice. “Mate.”
That single word tore at my soul. My heart burned as I fully realized what she meant. She was my fated mate! She had known it all along while I was blind to it—blinded by Aeris. Summer was consciously letting me kill her without even struggling because I was her soul mate.
And here I was, the worst of the monsters, the goddess’s puppet, executing myself, using my powers as a demigod against the woman destined for me. But what was the point? She wouldn’t have been happy anyway. I was nothing but trouble, bringing only death along the way. To be by my side was to live a life of trouble without happiness.
“I’m happy when I’m with you.” The words resonated weakly in my mind.
“Stop spying on my thoughts! How can you know my innermost feelings?”
Her heart was so slow now, and her body felt heavier. She murmured, her lips barely opening as she breathed, “Bond.”
I stopped drinking her blood, too stunned to continue. Then I realized the seriousness of what she had just said. As I took her life, our fated-mate bond had formed. Her soul and mine had intertwined forever. Nothing could separate us now. Nothing . . . except death. And now I’d just killed her. I laid her body on the ground, seized by a sudden pain such as I had never felt before.
I cried out my distress, my heart tearing as a part of my soul left me. I dug my sharp nails into the floor, tears streaming down my cheeks for the first time in centuries. “What have I done?”
“What have I done?” I shouted louder, but no one could answer me.
I grabbed a boulder and threw it against the wall, the rock shattering. I wanted to destroy the whole world, but nothing would make Summer live again.
I hit the floor, letting the sobs escape even though I’d sworn never to cry again. An idea suddenly filled me: what if I joined her? I could end my life with her rather than live without her.
“Stay . . . with me. ”
I froze suddenly at those words, so weak, so soft. I rushed to Summer, waiting for what seemed like an eternity to see her chest rise weakly.
She was alive.
I held her gently in my arms, afraid she might break, a mix of fear and determination coursing through me. Her breath was so light, but she was alive. Her body was cold. I needed to warm her if she was to survive. Now that we were bonded, I would never let anything separate us. She was all that mattered now.
I’d be betraying the goddess. To think that her magic prevented me from feeling the fated mate bond. I could only imagine the extent of her power, which was frightening.
“We need to leave,” I told her, holding Summer in my arms as I stepped toward the cave’s exit.
Summer studied my face. “Are you afraid?” she asked.
“I’m terrified,” I admitted.
“I’ve seen you kill many on the night we met and then in the cave, but never have you shown fear.”
“If you’re not afraid,” I replied, “it’s because you don’t know the wrath of a goddess. When she realizes our defiance, she’ll hunt us down, no matter where we hide, to exact her vengeance.”