I leap into action the second I see Jartre’s darkness take him over as he rises to confront Azadou.“Ezillus, I need you to break the barrier guarding the Orraikam,” I say urgently.Ezillus looks at me incredulously as they return to their human form, “What the hell for?”“Because Sebastian specifically wished for a barrier that only you could penetrate. I need you to break it so I may gain access,” I explain in a rush.“I really don’t think now is the time for that, Z,” they argue.“Now is the only time! Do it!”Looking taken aback by my tone, they raise their hand, snapping their fingers as their eyes glow vividly. “There, happy now?”I grab Oshmin’s arm and quickly teleport to Gabriella’s body, placing a hand on her and transporting the three of us to the undersea throne room in Atlesper. I look around to see the old throne room has been completely cleared of water like an air pocket, as King Sebastian and Queen Lemuel stand mere feet away, using the wall of water separating us fro
I look around in confusion, seeing nothing but white all around me, like being in a vast white hall. As I turn around, I see the white space far ahead of me, part and open to a beautiful meadow bathed in warm light. As I slowly walk towards it, a tall 7’7” figure appears and begins walking towards me. Rich, deep green curls frame her face and flow down her back while piercing liquid silver eyes shine brightly against her deep, ebony skin. As she gets closer, I can better see her features. The roundness of her face, the fullness of her lips, her slim nose, high cheekbones and skin so smooth she looks like a walking filter. Her slim build and hourglass shape are accentuated in a floor – if you can call it that – length white halter dress, skimming the floor like mist dancing on the surface of a lake.She stands in front of me, gracing me with a warm, inviting smile. “Hello, Gabriella. I’ve waited a very long time to meet you,” she greets, her voice warm and soft with an airy quality. I
“Who says I want to be worthy? Maybe I just want to be a normal human woman." I take in a shuddering breath, resisting the urge to cry. Why are you telling me all of this?” I whisper in defeat, feeling the traitorous tears fuelled by overwhelming emotion, welling in my eyes.“Because a long time ago, Fretez chose to put her hope in you. A hope that you would be able to help me restore a balance that was once lost.” There’s nothing but compassion in her eyes, but I don’t feel comforted by her words. “Thirty-thousand years ago Fretez confronted Azadou in battle, trying to find a way to temper the darkness within him. Fretez believed, as I do, that Azadou deserved a chance to learn to harness his power and join us. Fretez was determined to find a peaceful resolution. During their battle, she was badly wounded and confronted with two options. Destroy him or imprison him.”“And she locked him in a cage and threw away the key,” I huff, crossing my arms. “I know this story.”“You may know th
**********The moment Jartre leaves, I will myself with all my strength to sit up, but each time I try my elbows give out. I dig my nails into the bed, force myself to sit up and immediately slump against the headboard, panting, trying to catch my breath. I feel this incomparable level of power coursing through my body, making me feel like I can do anything…but at the same time, I’ve never felt more drained in my entire life. I feel like my body could break from its own weight. I feel like I’m burning up from the inside while my heart is racing faster than a hummingbird. Tears prick my eyes as I think over what I’ve just done. The moment Jartre told me Azadou was free, I knew everything Zarseti said was true, not that I ever doubted her. I knew I had to let him go, but I can’t fight the overwhelming guilt I feel. Am I being selfish or selfless? I don’t know.I weakly pull the sheets over my chest, covering myself as something catches my attention from the corner of my eye. I gingerly
~PRESENT~“Is Jartre alright?” I frantically ask, my final memory of that dagger aiming for Jartre filling my mind.Fretez gives me a compassionate look, “Depends on your definition of ‘alright’. The moment you died, your bond was broken and for any animai…that’s a pain worse than death, but for a God…I shudder to think.”I look around at the expansive white around us, surprised by how warm and welcoming this vast nothing is. “Where are we?”“This is the veil - a realm between the world of the living and the world of the dead. As Goddess of the Veil, this was always my domain; since my death, it is where I now reside. Welcoming and guiding souls as they cross over, waiting until the day you came along,” she says affectionately.I scrub my hands down my face, “Why is all of this happening? What I saw…I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. The hatred in Azadou, the anger and shame in Jartre…and then to see all those innocent people fighting something they can’t truly fight…what was
My surroundings look foreign, but not just foreign…heightened. It looks like my eyes have been upgraded to HD. Everything looks crisp and vivid with colours having a vibrancy they never did before. I take in a deep breath through my nose and smell…everything. I smell the sea…and a million other scents, some familiar, others I couldn’t even put a name to if I tried.“Gabriella?” I look to the side, to see Zarseti kneeling beside me. I stare wide-eyed as I take in this otherworldly fuchsia light that surrounds her, basking me in warmth, love and serenity.“Zarseti?” I say in bewilderment as I take in how ethereal she looks.“Welcome back,” she says brightly, taking my hand and helping me to my feet.As I stand I realise how strong I feel…it’s not just strong…it’s powerful. I can feel this abundance of power and strength coursing through every fibre of my being. I look down at my arms, also realising I’m in a completely different outfit than I was before. The memory of the battlefield fl
I’ve lived enough lives for every person on Earth a hundred times over. I’ve birthed planets, seen life begin and seen it end, but never have I shed a tear. Death is such an expected part of life that I feel no pain when it makes its inevitable appearance. I welcome it like an old friend and wish it well on its journey until we meet again. But watching Gabriella appear out of thin air as that shard of God’s blood pierced her human body, I now understand why humans weep for those they have lost.I feel tears swimming in my eyes as I look upon my oldest and dearest friend, holding the body of the woman he loves and has lost. I don’t need to feel his pain to know it’s inexplicable. I’ve never seen any being look so devastated, so bereft in all my years. I don’t understand what has just happened or how Gabriella even got here, but already I feel the light she brings to those around her vanishing from this Earth.“What a stupid thing to do,” I hear Azadu scoff.I look over at him in disgus
I look at my hand in disbelief. Did I just do that? I wasn’t even trying; it was just a reflex.My thoughts on what just happened are filtered out of my mind when I quickly become aware of how thick the air around me is. I take a deep breath through my nose, and while I can smell every little thing in ways I never have before, there’s one scent enticing more than any other. It’s indescribably mouth-watering and I can taste it on my tongue, making my body shiver. The air around me feels like being wrapped in a warm hug and as I look behind me I gasp, tears pooling in my eyes when I look upon the face of my animai.His hair is flying wild around him from the energy he’s emitting, his body is bathed in this incredibly white light…but it’s broken. Fractured and fragmented like a shattered diamond, yet at the same time these prisms of light surround him, drawing me to me. Telling me that he is my soulmate. I well up when that instinct once again answers my unspoken questions. I now know wh
I walk down the front steps of the beach house, making my way across the sand and over to Jartre who continues to stare out at the horizon. I sense his anguish and guilt and if our bond were complete I’d probably be crushed by their weight. That’s the thing most people don’t realize about Jartre. Jartre feels everything far more intensely than others. His own emotions are a destructive force to himself and those around him. His love for Apaki nearly destroyed the world and then his love for me nearly did the same thing, only on a much larger scale. His guilt, disgust and shame birthed a new God and that has come with its own set of problems. I can’t blame Jartre for wanting to run and hide from his feelings all these years because it seems whenever he lets them out, someone gets hurt.“Are you going to keep standing there watching me?” he utters, not sparing me a glance.“I didn’t want to disturb you. Do you want to talk?” I gently ask.“I’m sure you already know what happened, so wha
I appear in a wide open, sparse living room surrounded by walls of stone and endless glass windows that look out onto an incredible mountainside from atop a hill with trees as far as the eye can see. The sound of the rain echoes around this somewhat hollow domain, each drop beating down on the glass ceiling and cascading down like a waterfall all around me.“What do you want, Jartre?”I look over to see Oshmin sitting at an oversized dining table, his head buried in his hands while flecks of golden glitter in his azure hair manage to twinkle in the light of such an overcast day. A simple whiff is enough to tell me Yildiz is here too, but as I pay closer attention I can feel her energy emanating from somewhere upstairs.“I’m sure you would love more than anything to throw me out, and that would be more than fair, but I’m hoping you’ll give me a chance to speak,” I say with all the confidence I can muster. I feel like a human child confronting their disappointed parent. It feels revolti
Instant relief washes over me when Gabriella finally appears. She crawls onto the bed, collapsing and snuggling up to me, wrapping her arms tight around my body and nuzzling against my chest, setting my body ablaze. I put the TV on mute, wrap my arms around her and plant a tender kiss on the top of her head.“How did it go?”“I knew it would be emotional but…that was even harder than I anticipated,” she exhales.I gently comb my fingers through her green locks as I tenderly run my fingers up and down her arm, her scent swirling around the room putting me at peace. “Did Fretez put up a fight?”She shakes her head, “No, she was very sympathetic and understood why I wanted to do this and said that ultimately it’s my decision and she no longer has a say on the matter. That alone is crazy to me. I mean… having the power to move the spirits of the dead from one plane of existence to another…it’s insane to think that’s something I can do now.”“And how did the young Alpha handle it?”“I thin
The tender moment is interrupted by the suite's buzzer, so I reluctantly free my hand from the mighty grip of my daughter and answer the door. I stand there, mouth agape, looking up at the 7’7” Goddess standing at the threshold of my suite. Dark, yet radiant forest green hair frames her face in long natural waves while her bright, silver eyes look down at me with apprehension.'What would a Goddess have to be apprehensive about?' Zara utters in astonishment, echoing my own thoughts.'Beats me, but a better question would be: why in the hell is a Goddess at my front door?''That is definitely the superior question,' Zara nods in agreement. 'What kind of God rings the doorbell?' Zara appears more lively than she has in weeks. I’m not the only one who lost both her parents. Just like me, the only things keeping her going are Ace and their pup.“I’m so sorry for just showing up like this. It’s Amelia, right?” she says hopefully. “Sorry, I mean, Alpha Amelia,” she quickly corrects herself.
As I look down into the bassinet, listening to the steady thumps of my precious baby girl, I lose count of how many emotions are running through me. My mum tried to brace me for how overwhelming having a baby is. She warned me that from one moment to the next I won’t know whether I want to laugh, scream or cry and she was right, but I still wasn’t prepared. However, the one thing she didn’t prepare me for was how to do this without her.Zara whimpers quietly in my mind as I look over at the framed picture by the television of my mum holding my daughter the day she was born, and I can feel the tears filling my eyes. She tried so hard to make herself look healthy and strong for her granddaughter that day. It’s such a beautiful, bittersweet photo. My mum’s radiant red hair almost cocooning my daughter, her thick black tufts a stark contrast against my mum’s red. Mum was so happy to meet her granddaughter and even though my daughter was fresh out of the womb, it’s like she knew what my mu
I place a glamour over my eyes just as Jartre taught me, allowing people to see my eyes as they once were and not as they are now. I figure this will make it a little easier to take in my new appearance. I wait until Wyatt steps out, then let myself into Derrick’s hospital room. I walk over to the bed and look down at my best friend, his hair damp with sweat and his face pale. He doesn’t deserve this, and I feel like a bad friend for not being there more for him lately because of all this supernatural drama.I quietly pull up a chair and sit down, reaching out and holding his hand between mine. Derrick slowly opens his eyes and looks over at me, first his brows furrow in confusion, but soon his eyes widen in disbelief as he looks me over.“Ella?”“Hey, you,” I say softly.“What…Is that a wig?” he asks in confusion.“Uh no.” I grab a strand of hair between my fingers and look down at it scornfully. “This is my real hair.”“You hate the colour green.”“Oh, I still hate the colour green,
“According to sources, the FBI is working with local law enforcement throughout the states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to get to the bottom of this sudden wave of unexplained disappearances. Conspiracy theorists are going wild on public forums suspecting everything from alien abductions to human trafficking. As for the real cause behind these disappearances, authorities still have no leads on the matter.”I take in a deep breath, guilt strangling me as the news shows more faces of people who have been reported missing since the eyti were released. I allowed this to happen. Those people aren’t missing. They’ve been pulled into an unfathomable dark abyss, infected by the eyti set free from their prison and fuelled by the malice that lives within every human.The TV turns off and I look over to see Jartre getting up from the couch and making his way out to the patio, anger and frustration radiating off him in waves, rippling against the radiating pure white of his essram, now spotted
Whoever said exposure therapy was ideal for curing people of their fears was a sadistic fucking cunt.From the moment I met Gabriella, my greatest fear was that I would lose her. Whether it be at my own hands or due to her humanity. Nothing could have prepared me for what it would be like to feel her life slip away from mine; to feel her soul leave her body and to hold her corpse in my arms. That pain will haunt me for the rest of my life and as an immortal being, that means this ghost will be with me always.I look down at Gabriella as she sleeps peacefully on her bed, her mind needing to recharge from all that has overwhelmed it today. I can feel in my essram that she is still the same Gabriella at her core, but I can’t help still feeling a sense of loss. I carefully reach out, picking up a lock of her dark, forest-green hair and run it between my fingers. It has the same luminous quality Fretez’s always had, and yet it seems more intense to my eyes, perhaps because of what she is t
He holds his hands out in front of him, conjuring a giant ball of black energy and purple electricity. I watch as it draws darkness into itself, but then I notice where the energy is coming from. As I glance around to the barely recognisable field, I see the eyti getting pulled towards it. I don’t think he’s even aware of what he’s doing, but he’s using them to power up his attack, and that’s one thing I can’t let happen.I glance at Zarseti who gives me an encouraging nod. She told me to trust my instincts, and that’s what I’m going to do.I reach out through my mind, feeling for Merlos’ thoughts. Her eyes connect with mine when she senses the connection, quirking an eyebrow at me. 'Merlos, I need you to blind every mortal around us,' I say urgently through my mind.Her brows deepen in confusion for only a second when realisation fills her expression and her mouth quirks up into a smirk of approval. 'Now that, I can do.' With a disinterested wave of her hand, she fills the eyes of ev