7. It Wasn’t Enough
Theos
Manifesting into the Earth’s atmosphere was never something that Theos rushed.
He liked to savour each sight that came into view. Notice new valleys that had formed as the tectonic plates widened and shifted. Sense the aroma of new foods that the mortals had discovered how to make as they continued to explore the known world. Stop to rest by a stream that no mortal had yet stumbled upon. Bask in the alluring silence in the deep heart of a forest, under a shady tree.
It was his guilty pleasure – slipping away from Olympus, to rest in the gentle landscape on Earth. Secretly, it was his favourite planet, though the mortals ravaged it so. Partly, it was their own fault – their selfish desires, the treachery that lay undiscovered in their hearts, waited for the perfect moments to burst free and set fire to everything and everyone they came into contact with. But their wickedness was unleashed because The Fates gave them room and reason to.
It was Kheos’ execution of destruction and rebirth in all three dimensions – past, present, and future – that made him as powerful as he was. He was a triad all by himself – existing in three states at once. It was why the humans called him The Fates. They did not know him the way he did – as Kheos.
Todahy, however, had not afforded Theos the usual luxury of taking his time. He needed a plan. After leaving Olympus and coasting about the other planets in a bid to stop himself from rushing to Earth to find his mate, he’d found himself accosted by the unfamiliar feeling of the mate bond. He had been on Lecreia, admiring the yellow sky and the deep orange hue of the soil when the mate bond had slipped into place .
Kheos had conceded – his choice to do anything but had been taken away from him. But those moments between Theos’ outraged storming out of his throne room and his travel through all the solar systems before the connection was made were tormenting. He hadn’t been certain of how the bond would feel to him. He had worried over it throughout the millennia. Would it overpower his senses? Would it destroy his self-control? Would it fundamentally change the function of his entire being? Make him a different god to the worlds?
He had mostly been concerned about his self-control. It was the foundation of how their realities worked. It was the glue that held atoms together; kept whole planets in orbit. It was the one thing that had stopped him from finding this woman any sooner. When the bond had finally snapped into place, the crease in his brow had relaxed into a smile.
He had felt no different than he normally did. The small connection to her was mostly still, until it tremored and shook whenever something happened on her side, wherever she was. He knew from watching the way Kheos engineered mates, that their bond would not be activated until they met – face to face. Otherwise, it would lie dormant. But like with most things, and with his handling of the mortals, The Fates offered no shortcuts, and certainly no favours .
It was up to Theos to figure out who his mate was, now that he had ensured Kheos had removed the veil blocking him from her all along. He had mulled over the best way to find her. Manifest on Earth and hope to find more clues? Return to Olympus, where he knew Kheos was sulking, to ask him for help? Never .
Instead, he had used the bond to his advantage. He could not see where it led; he did not know who held the connection on the other side. But he could manipulate the world around her. Give the atoms an instruction – to create. And when the manifestation happened, wherever in the worlds that new life had been born at that precise nanosegund, he would trace it. That was how he would find her. After all, for every baby that breathed its first breath, he knew where and who they were. It would be easy to create something next to her, for her, and follow its creation path back to her.
Then he had spent far too long trying to figure out what type of matter to create next to her. A tree? No. What if it grew inside her house and ruined her home? An animal? No. What if she was afraid of whatever creature he conjured? That thought had been a knife to the gut. He hadn’t considered that she might be afraid of…anything. She had been in Kheos’ care for however long she had been alive. That thought had been the segund knife to the gut. Swift. Sudden. Brutal .
It had cut his decision time in half. He needed to get to her, right at that moment. Roses. As soon as the manifestation began, he traced its presence to the centre of the galaxy. To Earth. To the region of Thorca, inside the bounds of its third kingdom – Vanzantia. To the province of Avallon, in Aegon territory, in the coldest of winters they had seen in five syrises. To a small brewery on the far right of the main street in that part of town, across from a cold, dark, foreboding forest – the Loriax. That’s where she was. That was where he would go.
But before he got up from his comfortable seated position on the highest hill in the Zya region on the planet of Illara, something in the bond shifted. Expanded. Opened up. A bolt of burning desperation surged through it, followed by cold, heavy fear. The excruciating spearing of some kind of sharp pain. It flooded into his mind and through his body. It was not his. It was hers. And then, his ears opened up as a prayer surged to the forefront of his mind. She was calling out to him for help. Her voice filled with tears, breaking on the words as she whispered the short prayer in a rush. His first encounter with her voice, and her entire being sounded crushed.
And then, a voice, loud, burdened with lust and undeniably male. “That is endearing, little rabbit. But the gods don’t answer prayers. ”
The thin thread of hope that had carried her whispered prayer to him snapped, and the desperate plea disappeared, but not before he could trace it. When he arrived at the scene, everything in his vision was red. This time, Theos’ manifestation into Earth was rushed.
The Earth received him in his most godly form – a form of manifestation it had never seen him display before. As soon as the phantaron receded and the physical world around him solidified, his mate winced from the impact of his presence. So did the rest of the Earth. Her eyes were on him; fear flooded through the bond. That was the last emotion he wanted her to associate with the memory of their first meeting – with the moment she first laid eyes on him. But it was much too late to be helped.
Theos was surprised he could see straight through the rage flooding his being – surprised the Earth beneath them had not morphed into broiling lava in the face of his anger. He was helplessly, precariously, almost entirely out of control; the universe teetering the line between implosion and exploding.
Focused on the shocked werewolf that was suspended, mid-air, in his grip, he forced himself to look away – to shift his attention to his mate. For a segund, he had neglected to see what condition she was in. The leering lustful voice had captured his attention so powerfully, he’d zeroed in on punishing the mortal and delayed to make sure she was okay.
She was lying flat on the cold snow, completely dazed, on the verge of passing out. Wide, unfocused, glassy eyes stared back at him. Her lips parted as confusion and fear settled deeper into her features. Blood dripped down over her lips from her nose; oozed down her forehead and stained her white lashes from lacerations in her scalp. Wounds, no doubt, inflicted by the creature in his grip. She was crawling away from where he was standing, and it was then that he noticed her ripped clothing, his eyes lowering to trail across her body. Her hips and upper thighs were bare, scratched all over from the filthy claws of her attacker. His stomach soured, heart cracking into pieces inside him. She was beautiful, and she was bleeding, clothing scattered all over the forest floor.
His anger surged afresh, and fear poured into the bond again in response. She was still trying to scuttle backwards, to put distance between them. It was their distance that had made room for this disgusting creature to set his foul passions on her to begin with. He would never let her out of his sight again. He turned back to the werewolf.
“Allow me to correct you.” It was then that the Earth shook, swaying and weakening beneath him when it heard his voice. “The gods do answer prayers. ”
Twisting his open hand, Theos sent the blood in the werewolf’s body rushing away from his heart and brain, drop by drop, slowly restricting his access to the thing he needed to live though it was inside his body. His gasp of pain echoed into the silence around them as he struggled to understand what was happening to him – why he was suddenly growing weaker, breathless, though Theos hadn’t touched him. The sound of his straining heart as it boomed in his chest was loud in Theos’ ears. The blood in the writhing creature’s body pooled in his limbs in swaths. His arms and feet were swelling more by the minux. It wasn’t enough.
“But the gods will offer you no mercy. I will offer you no mercy.”
Jerking his outstretched arm to his side, Theos pulled the spasming creature close. His fur ignited, burning away from his flesh as gaping cavities formed where the heat from the light surrounding Theos’ body seared through him. His tissue dissolved into smoke, blood evaporating as soon as it was exposed at the surface of the skin. His agony was loud, screams ringing through the forest around them. It wasn’t enough.
His flesh singed as it melted away from his body, falling in disgusting puddles of grime at their feet. Theos’ bright white eyes dulled, the light in them replaced by a black nothingness that spread throughout his entire body and turned the white-hot light into pitch-black darkness that engulfed the forest around them. The werewolf’s screams were growing quieter as the dark void that had opened up in Theos’ mind absorbed his life force of its own will.
Teeth shattered, falling out of his mouth and to the ground at Theos’ feet one by one. Bones disbanded from their joints, snapping in half as his limbs went limp. His eyeballs separated from their sockets, drooping down over his cheek by their nerves as dark dehydrated blood seeped from his snout.
The disintegrating body of the mortal wasn’t enough. It didn’t soothe the burn of anger in his chest. It didn’t avenge his mate the way he wanted to. The edges of Theos’ vision darkened as a crack cut through the core of himself as a deity. His control snapped. His head jerked forward, jaws disbanding, canines extending as he bit into the werewolf’s neck and ripped his throat out with a quick jerk backwards.
The screams of agony disappeared, replaced by the quiet gushing and sputtering of blood from the severed blood vessels in his neck. His head fell to the snowy ground with a dull thud, and Theos chewed through the mass of flesh in his neck, swallowing the blood and bone down as a haphazard blood offering.
The Earth groaned and rumbled as it split open beneath him. It swallowed the disembodied head eagerly, waiting, hungry, for the rest of the corpse in its maker’s hand. Leaping into the air, with one forceful arc of his arm, he sent the body speeding down through the void that had opened in the Earth. The loud toll of the deep, melancholic bell as the body arrived at The Gates of The Hells reached his ears. The Earth shuddered as it closed its mouth again. It still was not nearly enough.
Blood covering half his face and dripping down into the ruined snow all around him, he turned back to his mate. She was unconscious. He’d felt the bond dip and retreat. Regret bit at his heart. It was his sudden manifestation that had sent her over the edge. He cocked his head to the side, observing her as she lay in dreamless darkness. Still, it was better that she hadn’t seen what he’d just done. It was better that she had not seen the forbidden crossover that he had just become.
His aura was still abnormal. It flickered between hot, white light and absolute darkness that engulfed the world around them like the blackest of nights. Like someone was turning the sun on and off, over and over again. The corners of his vision were still dark, blurred by rage. When he raised his bloody hands to his face, he saw four where there were meant to be two. He had wondered how his vision had remained clear when he had first arrived on the scene. But now – now it was warping. The anger in his heart was increasing. Kheos . This was his doing. And Theos would make sure it was also his undoing .
Lowering his hands, he returned his attention to his mate. His breaths were coming quicker again, this time, for a different reason entirely. She was beautiful . She was beyond his ability to describe, and no wonder the mortals had harboured such twisted desires towards her. Her skin was dark and rich. Her hair was long, white, and curly. White like the snow, save for the stain of blood that covered most of its strands. Anger flared in his heart once again, and his fists tightened at his sides. The werewolf’s words would forever be embedded into his mind.
“The gods don’t answer prayers.” Theos wondered how many of her prayers he had not heard because of his brother’s tricks and manipulations. His vision dipped into darkness, obscuring his view of her. His flickering aura dipped into pitch-black violent energy.
“So, you want to start a war.” He breathed into the silence. He knew Kheos could hear him.
Stepping forward, he weaved a large warm blanket for her out of the atoms of the air. Kneeling, he wrapped it around her, scooping her gently into his arms. He was cautious of the way her body slumped against him – conscious not to hold her too tightly, or to allow an outflow of his energy into her through the places where they touched.
─── ?? ? ?? ── ─
Regos emotionless.
Theos shook his head, frustration bubbling inside him. “We will not discuss this now. You will not enter my presence until you are summoned.”
Theos turned away from his brother, disappearing into the phantaron once and for all.
The sting of rejection settled into Regos’ chest like the weight of the planets.